RobinGordon's Plants

[RobinGordon]

I'm only a beginner in the carnivorous plant arena but I'm a long time gardener.

I have an Albany Pitcher Plant and two Venus Flytrap varieties. They are all growing outside and uncovered at the moment.
Temperatures at this time of year are about 15-40 C.

The pitcher plant was half eaten by blackbirds in the winter, and Long Red Fingers has recently suffered blackbird attack; I might post a picture when it's recovered. The ceph is sitting in a small ceramic pot perched on top of a larger ceramic pot that contains a beginner's bog garden (std VFT). It's been in this position for about four months and seems to like it. The pot is on wheels and as such it is in full sun on cooler days and 60% shade on hot days.

Ceph (standard)

 

[BioZest]

Nice Ceph! Sorry about the raven attack though.

 

[jimscott]

Welcome to TF! You may want to consider obtaining mesh . screening to discourage critter attacks. I face the same, here. The birds want to either steal the caught bugs from the VFT's or use the LFS (Long Fibered Sphagnum), for their own purposes.

 

[BioZest]

I see that you live in Southern Australia, have you ever seen cephs in the wild? That would be really cool.

 

[RobinGordon]

I see that you live in Southern Australia, have you ever seen cephs in the wild?

I haven't - I've only been to Western Australia twice, and have never been to Albany.

The Adelaide Hills though have a huge population of Drosera whittakerii, D. planchonii, and D. auriculata. The D. whittakerii are currently flowering - carpets of white flowers that follow the sun. It's lovely.

 

[bluemax]

A belated welcome to the forum. Nice-looking ceph.

I would love to see some photos of the wild tuberous 'dews in bloom.

 

[RobinGordon]

I can't find any of the photos taken at the greater scale, but here's a close up.

 

[Maiden]

Nice plants

You will see, once you have the fever, you are done. You will have plants everywhere in a year or so

 

[limeslide]

Wow!! Nice plants, and very pretty flowers. 8)

 

[RobinGordon]

This is the same ceph. as above - it got attacked by English Blackbirds twice and has been recovering for... about a year now that I thin about it. So it's about two years old now:

This vtf ('long red fingers') is the same age... they both live outside, but the Blackbirds never tried eating it. :|

 

[corky]

interesting,is the English black bird an invasive species or a name for an Australian bird

 

[RobinGordon]

Turdus merula - invasive species and major PITA.

 

[Maiden]

I haven't - I've only been to Western Australia twice, and have never been to Albany.

The Adelaide Hills though have a huge population of Drosera whittakerii, D. planchonii, and D. auriculata. The D. whittakerii are currently flowering - carpets of white flowers that follow the sun. It's lovely.

Wow cool. I would love to see a picture of this flowers carpet!

 

[bluemax]

I can't find any of the photos taken at the greater scale, but here's a close up.

That's a beautiful patch of 'dews. D. whittakeri, I assume? Thanks.

 

[RobinGordon]

I went hiking on the weekend in white sand dune over clay country. The conservation park had had a controlled burn-off become... well.. uncontrolled. about 2/3rds of the park was burnt. It made finding sundews quite easy.

NB: don't worry about the fire - Australian ecosystems (aside from rainforests) are very happy to get set on fire every now and again.

Recently burned area:

Non-burned area:

Most common species, D. whittakeri:

Most difficult to find, D. glanduligera:

D. glanduligera colony:

Also present were D. macrantha subsp. planchonii, D. auriculata, and a teeny tiny little red upright-but-sorta-bushy sundew (about... a 5c piece tall) that we didn't get any good photos of because it was so little.

ps. a 5c piece is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter

 

[RobinGordon]

On further thoughts, they might be D. auriculata seedlings....

 

[kulamauiman]

maybe Drosera glanduligera? look for orange flowers. dead give away though is the long tentacles
https://www.google.com/search?q=dro...b8igL4z4CICQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1120&bih=585

 

[RobinGordon]

You were spot on with the D. glanduligera.

Some plants from the garden, and then later, some plants from last weekend's hiking.

Dionaea muscipula 'Long Red Fingers' putting up flower spikes.

The Ceph is still sulking

My first sarracenia: S. purpurea ssp purpurea X courtii

My other first sarracenia: 'formosa'

Drosera hamiltonii

The red pellets are slug bait.

EDIT: and photobucket is being a **** so the image sizes are all over the place - it should sort itself out in a bit though.

 

[RobinGordon]

I took a nice photograph of the Ceph this morning and decided to put a time line together of its life with me.

 

[corky]

nice Robin,cephs are tougher than people think,i too have had plants come back from near death experiences