Germinate or not to germinate?

[Copper]

Germinating some hard species to grow and getting even harder growers in. I will list them here and if anyone has suggestions for them please let me know.

D. Burmannii Hong Kong
D. Spatulata Giant form
D. Sessilifolia
D. Auriculata
D. Peltata
D. Sp. Lantau Island
D. Villosa
D. rubrifolia
D. glabripes
D. gigantea
D. stolonifera
D. collinsiae -faryland
D. trinervia large rossette
D. trinervia - Baines Kloof, RSA
D. trinervia - Tweede Tol, RSA
D. brevifolia
Roridula dentata
D. cistiflora (tried this before with no germination)
D. cistiflora white
D. hilaris


A few of you were also looking for Dewey Pines -Drosophyllum, I found some. They are at a greenhouse (A well known one), but have not been put on the web site yet. That will happen soon. They will sell to me now. I need a head count of how many I should order. If you PM and tell me to order one for you, you must go through with the buy. I need approximately $33 for each plant. I can purchase them at $25 but then I need to separate out and mail off to whoever wanted them. I think the extra $8 will take care of helping for shipping to me, shipping cost out with insurance and tracking. Order soon, they will not hold them long.

 

[Exo]

The burmanii and spatulata should be easy to germinate, just keep warm and humid in bright light......not sure about the other species.

As far as growing them...burmanii likes it hot and humid, spatulata is fine with average temps and humidity..again, I know nothing about the other species.

 

[JRFxtreme]

You have quite a few winter growing species there so naturally you'd want to sow those in the fall.

 

[Copper]

sowing now, but will simulate a dry season, then try to start them off
How about soil mix, does it need to be different?

 

[JRFxtreme]

It has been a long time since I've grown tuberous Drosera but recall growing D. auriculata pretty well in a peat/LFS/perlite mix.

The ICPS website has some good germination guides: http://carnivorousplants.org/seedbank/seedgermguide.htm

 

[amphirion]

D. cistiflora and D. hilaris can be sown now, but on dry peat/sand. keep under bright light. start watering when fall sets in or the weather starts to cool....you should see germination shortly after. i am currently trying out this method for the first time, but it was given to me by a CP dealer in the UK who specialized in growing Drosera...

 

[Not a Number]

Winter growers should be sown now and will probably benefit from warm, dry stratification over the summer. You may need smoke treatment to get some of them to germinate. You can probably wait until later in the summer for the tuberous Drosera.

Pyro (Travis Wyman) recommends not using perlite with tuberous Drosera as it can act like a desiccant and dry the tubers out during the summer.

The recipe I got from Pyro for winter growers is something like 2/1/1/1 sand/perlite or pumice/organic (finely chopped long fiber sphagnum or pine bark mulch)/peat moss. Substitute more sand for perlite-pumice free mix.

See Pyro's sticky on How I Grow Tuberous Drosera

Many of the winter growers can take 3 or 4 years to germinate so don't throw out your pots. I've been trying to get D. hilaris to germinate for 4 years and finally got some going with gibberellic acid however the unseasonable heat waves we had in winter killed the seedlings.

Drosera trinervia I'm still working on. Speaking to some people who have gotten to germinate them say to soak the seeds in distilled water 24 hours and keep them very wet with lots of light. I've gotten one pot to germinate a few weeks ago keeping it wet almost to the surface.

Seeds I germinated last year were sown into the same pot as the parent plants kept very wet until the plants went dormant, allowed to dry out completely for at least 6 weeks and then very wet again when the plants resumed full growth in the late fall. Germination did not occur until early winter. None of the pots were bagged but I'm going to see if that makes a difference as well as warmer conditions.

Good luck with D. glabripes. They are supposedly easy to germinate and get them to grow to mature size. Getting them to live past 3 years is the challenge. I've been growing them for 5 years and can't keep them alive past 3.

 

[Copper]

thank you all for your answer. I will dry sow the winter grows and am very glad that I did not throw the first pot of cistiflora out. I will let you know as they do or do not germinate.