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D Adelae - Willy Makeit

  • Thread starter MDPotter
  • Start date
I am tying to save a couple of adelae that I think got too much sun and I think Ive got it but I wanted to check with you people. I still have them in the little plastic cubes the came in, and I had them, outside on my covered patio so they got some morning sun but they got cooked so I moved them inside onto a windowsill that gets shaded sun. I was being somewhat frugal with watering, didnt want them swimming, and I think that didnt help either as for a good 2 weeks the adelae still didnt seem to be improving, some growth but stunted, deformed, dewless, etc, so now Ive upped the watering to full on bog, watering every day to the brim. And it seems to have helped. New growth is coming in greener, still some damage but I think lingering from the sunstroke. And the control plants (2 more undamaged adelae that I picked up to grow with the damaged ones to see how the grow conditions I was experimenting with would affect otherwise completely healthy plants) are also still thriving, surprisingly (cause the light on the sill is very indirect) getting enough light to tint reddish. So really what I was wondering is if the sopping bog approach is ideal for these plants as it appears to be or am I looking for long-run trouble of another variety like root rot or fungus? Cause they seem to drink up the water pretty quick, I have to top off pretty much every day. Thanks!
 
Yup, not a happy camper at the moment. Yes, it can be salvaged. This is one plant that can do well just sitting in a window sill. I fill it up with water and let it go until nearly empty, before filling again. The plant pictured below was a Lowes rescue and for the bried amount of time it was outside, it was infested with aphids. Had to drown the plant to rid the aphids. The plant survived and as you can see, it does well enough inside to snd up 8 flowers this spring, as well about as many plantlets. My approach is simple - open tray, window sill, peat & sand, with LFS on top.

Strausplants0211.jpg


Same plant, last September:

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Found it buried and white in a Lowes 3 in 1 cube last summer.
 
Hey Jim,

I'd like to know the secret to your success with growing D. adelae in open air at the windowsill.  I tried to do the same with two Lowes D. adelae:  1 I had uncovered slowly to let it adjust and it seemed to be doing ok; however, one day after feeding an ant to it, it simply stopped dewing.  The entire plant ceased to dew even though it was still producing leaves and at this point in time, the mother plant is still bone-dry.  I had put the dome back on and now plantlets are starting to sprout from the base.

The other one I kept under a humidity dome the whole time and it dewed profusely and turned red in the sun.  However, I couldn't feed it anything since every prey started to mold in the enclosed environment.  It also has been sprouting dewy plantlets recently.  This plant does seem to get more sunlight than the 1st one as they are on different windowsills (one at home, the other at my dorm).  

Could the light be the determining factor?  Heat?  At first glance, it seems like humidity is the only major difference.
smile_h_32.gif
 
I can't know for sure, but when one buys a plant from a garden center, it is already in some state of stress and if it is really suffering, the mere action of opening the dome and putting it in significantly (to the given plant) drier or warmer or colder conditions, can be enough to put it over the edge. I shicked the daylights out of a cobra lily by taking it out of the cube and putting it outside. Stopping dew production is a classic indicator that it is in shock. D. adalae, in particular, can be an enigmatic plant. One teen described it as ''evil". It can do as Cephalotus does and just die for no apparent reason and others report that after several weeks of "plauing 'possum" it comes back / and / or send up new plants from the roots. I experienced one plant die back but didn't wait long enough to see a recovery or new plants from the roots. When reasonably healthy, open tray at a window sill works fine, leting the water evaporate and then refilling. My opinion is that significant changes in conditions, with a stressed out plant, leads to shock.
 
ok thanks. Yea, let's hope the plantlets are tougher than their mothers. It's funny that D. adelae is marketed as a beginner plant when I read so many people having problems with it and believe there are much easier sundews to grow out there. D. capensis for example seems to suffer from no shock or bounces back quickly when introduced into a new environment.
 
D. capensis was neither impressed nor amused when I took it from my bedroom window (70 degrees) to my car (15 degrees) to the lab (70 degrees). Nearly all of its leaves withered by noon. A week later a new leaf emerged and in the summer it bloomed.
 
What do you mean when you "drown" aphids? I'm looking for safe ways to destroy aphids...
 
That is the safe way of dealing with aphids. What I do is take the infected pot and place in a container that is taller and wider, such that the pot can fit totally inside. Then fill the container with distilled water past the height of the pot, so that the plant is totally submerged. With no place to go, the aphds are also under water. Soon you will see aphids floating, eventually, after a few days, they drown. I had a sundew submerged for 2 weeks, but that's "overkill". The plant will look like a "drowned rat", but it will recover. Mine always have. Flea collars placed near them had no effect and after that it's using pesticides.
 
I agree. Though I've never tried it, it makes sense. These bog plants should be able to take being submerged a lot more than air-breathing insects like aphids.
 
  • #10
Cool, thanks for the replies. I have progressed my experiment one step further now. When I moved the Adelae inside the house to a windowsill I put the 3 smaller plants inside large lowes plastic cubes to act like a terrarium for them, maybe help w the humidity (I put some water in the bottom of the large cube so the little cube the plant is in is sitting in a cm of water) as my A/C runs 24/7, however the two smaller but unburnt plants new leaves are now too large and hitting the inside walls of the cube, so I have removed the terrarium-cubes and they are now just sitting on the sill 'bare naked' so to speak. I'll keep a close eye but Im hoping it works out so I can repot into pots that will fit the windowsill (cause the island-bog setup Im using for all my other plants would be too large). Besides, the large damaged adelae hasnt been enclosed since I moved it inside cause I didnt have anything big enough to put it into.
And, yesterday my D binata collection arrived, Ive planted 3 varieties -- binata, multifada and dichotoma in a single hanging basket island bog. Never even seen these types of drosera before so Im really looking forward to seing how they turn out.
Ill take some pics and if the plant dont die Ill post em:)
 
  • #11
Eventually, I would have the 3 small adelae in something that drains. In general, maintaining humidity is an overrated and unnecessary thing to achieve, at least in an artificial environment. It's too easy to produce mold. When a drained pot is placed in a plastic container of water, that provides enough local humidity.

You'll love binatas! They are practically indestrucible and very easy to propogate through leaf cuttings.
 
  • #12
Im going pot shopping this weekend. Hmm, what a funny sentence
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I discovered one of the adelae cubes leaks so I have to repot now, probably do 2 plants per pot. Maybe.
I understand the binata/multifada tolerate sunlight pretty well so atm I have them on the patio but receiving no direct sun, just ambient light while they get acclimated. But Im wondering how long I should do that and how sun-hardy are they, I already burnt one batch of dews, prefer to avoid it this time if possible.
 
  • #13
Give plants a good couple of weeks in shadier conditions to be safe. There's a difference between taking one's acclimated and healthy plants from the window sill to outside and taking a neglected garden center plant or another's hobbyists plant that just spent a few days in shipment. The happier the plant was before moving to outside, the more it can take.
 
  • #14
My new dews
Binata, dichotoma and multifada all in one pot:

DSC00030.jpg


DSC00028.jpg
 
  • #15
I like the pot! It's part hanging basket and part open tray. You can even put leaf cuttings in the saucer part to propogate more plants. Nice job!

Is it all LFS or just the top?
 
  • #16
Thanks, I got the idea from Savage Garden in the mini-bogs section where he mentions hanging island bogs. Im a bit concerned about the weight though, going to have to make sure the hook and hanger is up to the task.
The media is approx 60/40 peat/sand mix with LFS topping. I dont understand the leaf cuttings thing, how would I put leaf cutting in the saucer part if its half full with water?
 
  • #17
D. binata is such an easy plant that if you were to snip a leaf off and place on top of the water, it will sprout many new plants at various growth points along the leaf. I sprout new plants from leaves in 50 ml centrifuge tubes, filled with water, as well as a tray of swampy, live LFS. In other words, they sprout from being in water.
 
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