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Newbie

hey everyone, i'm new with all this, so i have a few questions.

i just ordered some plants and it says it includes wrigleyana, judith hindle and leucophylla. i get from reading on this forum that they need boggy conditions, so i was wondering what the best setup is. how much water should there be? moist, or do they do best sem-floating? thanks for any help.
 
Welcome to the forums! By boggy they mean terrestrial, but constantly wet. The plants should be kept in a water tray almost as deep as the pot, and the water level should be kept approximately half way up the pot. To mimic natural conditions, you can fill the tray all the way to near the top of the pots, and then let it dry out before refilling.
Have you cared for carnivorous plants before? Please keep in mind that Sarracenia and almost all other carnivores are highly sensitive to soil and water conditions. Soil must be nutrient free, composed of media such as sphagnum peat moss, perlite, silica sand and long fiber sphagnum moss. Absolutely no fertilizer until you're familiar with the various species of CPs and their various needs. Fertilizer will kill most carnivorous plants in short order.
Water must be chemical-free, fertilizer-free, and mineral-free. For most people, this means no tap water, and by no tap water I mean no water from the tap, no water from the tap that's been boiled, or allowed to sit and cure, or filtered with a drinking water filter. Treating water in this way will not remove the mineral hardness, which is what does CPs in. You need distilled or reverse osmosis water, which is available at most grocery stores. Many newer supermarkets have reverse osmosis water filters in the store, and you can fill your own jugs for about fifty cents a gallon. You can also collect rainwater for your carnivorous plants, but it's a good idea to know where you can find good water in the event of low rainfall.
Here on the forums we see too many people lose plants because they think that their tap water is OK. Please do not try and find out; water your plants with water that you know for sure is OK - rain water or store bought - and if you really, really want to use tap water, do some research before giving it to your plants. Most tap water will not make your plant immediately crumble to dust and drift away on a breeze, but over a period of weeks or months it will weaken and kill your plant, possibly before you notice anything is wrong. To find out if your tap water is OK, you need to contact your water utility and find out what kind of hardness your water has, among other things. If the water is chlorinated, you'll need to let it sit out so that the chlorine can evaporate from it, and there are other things to be concerned about with tap water. So don't waste your time! Your plants will thank you if you spend the extra two dollars a month to give them clean water.
CPs are lots of fun and once you get to know them, they're very easy to raise. I suggest you start here at Barry Rice's CP FAQ, but take it with a grain of salt! Barry can sometimes make things seem more difficult than they actually are, but his instructions are sound and built on many years of experience. Another good way to learn about the various genera of plants is to look around the forums here - new people are constantly coming by with questions similar to yours, and there are a lot of threads around to answer them.
Good luck!
~Joe
 
thanks joe! that was a lot of good info. the only cp i've ever had was a venus flytrap as a kid...i think i probably killed it off after a while. i got some soil and moss stuff from petflytrap.com site also, i figured i'd just do it that way and as i learn more i can figure ways to find suitable substrate locally. thanks again for your words of wisdom, hopefully i'll keep these plants healthy.

also, can i keep them outdoors in the summer? i'm in alaska, so it doesn't get too hot and i can bring them in for the winter so they don't freeze.
--graham
 
Ah, yes, definitely keep them outdoors in the summer, and bring them in during the winter! Sarracenia need a winter dormancy where they recieve cooler temps and less water each year, so keep them in a spot where they will get temperatures between the upper thirties and lower fifties... a garage, basement or unheated spare room are well suited to wintering over temperate CPs. During the growing season, they need lots and lots of direct sunlight to be at their peak, and so they must be outside - many people recommend at least six hours of direct sunlight every day. Although with your long days, that shouldn't be much trouble. They aren't usually good indoor plants because of their height (many grow well over a foot tall) and light requirements.
I live in a fairly temperate coastal climate, so I don't know much about how people do things like dormancy up north. I know there are a lot of Canadian growers here on the forums though, so you should be able to find someone with advice for you. Mabudon and Trapper7 come to mind... Scottychaos did this report on fridge dormancy that may be of use; many people choose to unpot their plants and keep the rhizomes in the fridge over the winter if they can't provide a dormancy for the plant outdoors. You've got plenty of time to figure all that out though.
Have a good one,
~Joe
 
I think Seedjar Joe has things covered nicely. Just wanted to say welcome to the forums!
 
Wow Seedjar.  Good job!  lol   Nothing left to do but join Jim in saying Welcome to the forums AND to your NEW ADDICTION!  Muuahahahahahaha!  
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OH yeah...and Longhorn...VERY wise of you to ask about the plant care BEFORE you get the plants. That's the best way to do it so you are prepared upon their arrival.
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[b said:
Quote[/b] (PlantAKiss @ June 29 2005,5:51)]Wow Seedjar.  Good job!  lol   Nothing left to do but join Jim in saying Welcome to the forums AND to your NEW ADDICTION!  Muuahahahahahaha!  
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OH yeah...and Longhorn...VERY wise of you to ask about the plant care BEFORE you get the plants.  That's the best way to do it so you are prepared upon their arrival.  
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yeah, like i need another addiction...
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i'm not sure if i would have been so proactive if i had seen them in store though...but buying them online gave me time to make sure i know what to do with them when they arrive so i don't kill them off. i'm hoping they come in tomorrow (crossing my fingers--i'm not very good at waiting
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Hullo Longhorn13, and welcome from your neighbors to the south (It's rare to be able to say that, being from Canada there ain't too many other countries north of us
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While The seedjar is correct in what country we are from, we are both from climates which have little or nothing to do with yours (trapper is from BC near Vancouver and I live by Niagara Falls)
BUT I can offer some suggestions- Personally, I would bring the plants inside in winter, if you have an unheated porch that doesn't get SUPER cold and gets a little bit of light you should be okay- last winter we had temps going down below -20 Celsius, sometimes for more than a week straight, and my S.flava and D.diliformis and D.rotundifolia weathered it just fine under about a foot-thick layer of pine needles
So if you have such a place you can do that and expect success.
My wife would not be too pleased about my using the fridge so I have no experience- stratifying seeds in pots in the crisper got me in some pretty hot water so a few gallons of sludge would be out of the question- Seedjar has it right though, Scottychaos lives in the same zone as I do and he has got fridge dormancy down pretty much perfectly, so if that is an option you should contact him or wait til he shows up here
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If you have any plants or material to spare, you might TRY to keep something like S.purpurea ssp.purpurea outside, but if you do make CERTAIN that you cover them up good with pine needles or something as it is the snowless "death freeze" which is worst for them
Good Growing and welcome aboard!!
 
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