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jonnyq

Supporter
So, last fall, as I was getting ready to mulch my dormant outdoor CPs for the winter, I found several VFT seedlings in amongst the LFS in the pot, which was a very pleasant surprise for me, as I thought that I had collected all of the seed...

I thought it might be fun to try my hand at growing CPs from seeds... My initial indoors trials with Sarracenia leucophylla this past winter were fairly disastrous; with no air circulation and high indoor temperatures, I did have a bunch of germination, but nothing that survived past the seed leaf stage... everything got taken by fungus.

I reasoned that nature did just fine with my VFT seeds, so I thought I'd give it a whirl with Sarracenia as well...

seedtray01small.jpg


So, I built the cage out of wood and chicken wire to keep out the flipping squirrels and such... The chicken wire allowed normal air flow, which I hoped would reduce fungus. A sheet of plexiglass would protect the seeds from direct rainfall, and the bungee cords would hold the plexiglass in place.

seedtray02small.jpg


On the right-hand side (peat : perlite) are Sarracenia leucophylla, rosea, minor, flava var. rugelli, psittacina and a purpurea cross (from Mike Wang). To its left (peat : sand) are Drosera indica, capensis, capensis 'red', capensis 'albino' and several pots of Dionaea... All of the above seeds were sown at the beginning of March, and the tray has been kept watered continuously since then.

The top left (chopped LFS) are Sarracenia leucophylla and rosea that I just took out of the fridge three days ago. (In hindsight, I should probably have potted ALL of the Sarracenia and possibly even the Dionaea in LFS; such is the wisdom of the experience of others, with thx to woodnative for the advice.)

seedtrayindica01smallcrop.jpg

Drosera indica has germinated and snagged what looks like the shed exoskeleton of a grasshopper nymph? Not sure...

Surprisingly, no capensis or variants have yet come up for me...

No Dionaea have yet germinated either...

seedtrayleuco01small.jpg

Lots of Sarracenia leucophylla germination (for my first outdoor attempt), but then I again, that was the Sarracenia species of which I had the most seed to start with...

seedtraypurpurea01small.jpg

Sarracenia purpurea seems to be doing well...

Unfortunately, I left the cover off by accident one day in... April(?) in which it, of course, happened to rain, and a lot of seeds got dislodged... Only a handful of S. minor, rosea, flava and psittacina have germinated, as many seeds got washed down/away...

The takeaway lessons I've learned so far:
1) Before germination, do NOT EVER forget to put the rain cover back on, particularly if it's going to rain.
2) Sarracenia seeds may germinate better in LFS than on top of a peat/perlite mix. (Thx to woodnative for that advice)
3) Don't be so sure that what you think is the last frost of the season is actually the last frost of the season...
4) Even if stratification isn't required, per se, don't sow VFT and Drosera seeds too early, as the cold may affect viability(?)

Any other advice out there that would be recommended, based on my setup?

Thx for looking!
 
Your a very smart person. I like the way you think. Yes i would not recomend leaving the rain cover off when it's raining. I have personal experience and it didn't go well. chicken wire also very helpful. I have had something been coming up and plucking my Drosera filiformis and my Drosera binata leaves off apparently it like long stringy leaves to pluck. I also came back from vacation and one of my Ping pots was nocked over (i was only gone for 3 days) and the ping was gone.

So smart thinking and thank you for sharing this i hope to build something like this in the near future.

Thanks,

Ean.
 
Oooh, brilliant! You thought this out way better than I did, :lol:
But very neat, very nice and well done!!

I've found that screening (the on doors, lanais and such) seems to reduce the rain to a fine mist, so caught in anything but super downpour, there's minimal if any harm from rain.
I'll be building a supersized cage tomorrow, actually.

Also, interesting yard art you have ;)
 
I used to put wet lfs in a food processer and chopped it real fine and used that to sow seed. It kept fungus away and didn't over grow the seeds. I would also sow Dionea right away as fresh as possible and you will get better germination. You then can over winter outside or indoors under strong light. And lastly it doesn't supprise me the capensis hasn't germinated, they like it warm. Jack
 
haha.. I like the guy crawling out of the ground. I WANT IT!!
 
Thanks for the feedback, all! Will try to incorporate this advice soon... Replacing the chickenwire at the top with screening should be too difficult, and finding a food processor for milling LFS shouldn't be too bad either... Thanks!

P.S. For those who are interested in the kid-friendly lawn statuary, I recommend googling "Zombie of Montclaire Moors" :D
 
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