Matucana madisoniorum double flower

Matucana madisoniorum flowers all summer for me. It doesn't need full-all day sun to flower and grow well like most other species either. Everyone who likes cacti should have one in their collection.

Parodia mammulosa on a rainy day

Coming up next: Matucana madisoniorum, double flower

Sarracenia flava var. rubricorpora blooming

Sarracenia flava var. rubricorpora "Red Tube," another Sarr that should do well year round outdoors in Florida. This coloration is one of the rarer S. flava's in nature, found only in the Florida Panhandle according to Barry Rice's FAQ. I got this one with a small start to the bud already coming out of dormancy, so I won't claim credit, but here's the flower.

Two pitchers are beginning to grow, in about a month these will be looking good.

For size comparison, the whole window box. That's one tall flowerstalk. The venus flytrap is blooming already too (2nd pot in from the left.)

Anoles. Anoles, geckos, and frogs everywhere! I keep taking pictures of them because they keep showing up when I'm trying to take pictures. So prepare yourselves, there will be more.

Hello!

Nepenthes ventricosa from seed: Update #2

Now you can really see that these are indeed Nepenthes. These started germinating around December 1st, 2012 so they are about 4 months old now.

The ones that were growing in the Sphagnum moss had a pretty bad germination rate and I was wasting a lot of space that I needed on that container so I moved the smaller ones into the peat/perlite container and repotted the 4 largest into a 2" pot. The ventricosa growing in sphagnum moss were almost all as large as the largest in the peat container though, (which is interesting though not necessarily telling as to which one ended up best for germination.) I wanted to leave them in sphag as they were doing well. All repotted seedlings are back to growing already so no worries if you run into a situation and need to repot sooner than you'd like with these guys. I always said Nepenthes are not as sensitive and difficult as people are led to believe.

I'll update these again around the 1 year mark unless otherwise requested. So what did I need that room so much for that I risked repotting seedlings too early? More Nepenthes seeds! There was a situation that caused a delay as far as the time between harvesting and the seeds actually getting to me, so they aren't fresh, (about a month or two old.) We'll see what comes of those, but I doubt I'll get good germination. May not get any at all, but I need to try.

Links to the last 2 posts on the Nepenthes ventricosa seeds if you want to see the progression:

Nepenthes ventricosa seedlings: Update #1
The beginning: Growing Nepenthes from Seed: This Year's Winter Project

Nepenthes rafflesiana AG3 Clone

Nepenthes rafflesiana, an AgriStarts 3 tissue cultured clone.

AgriStarts 3 is one of a chain of wholesale tissue culture facilties is right here in Florida. Number 3 in particular produces probably the majority of TC carnivores, (amongst a myriad of other tropical and garden plants,) that are resold in grocery stores and big box stores in the US. Too bad they're wholesale only, it would be a cool place just to visit.

Oddly enough I see very little of their TC carnivores in FL. Saw them in NY all the time as they supply to many of the companies that sell carnivores in cubes, tubes, and other little packages. My Nepenthes 'Judith Finn' and Nepenthes ventricosa are both AG3 clones, supplied to Botanical Wonders and then to me via a "Death Cube" at Lowe's. It appears as if they also produced N. madagascarenis N. truncata, and N. sanguinea at one point, but it doesn't look like they do anymore.

This Nepenthes rafflesiana is also an older clone they don't produce anymore. I was real excited to get a hold of it.

It's just a little plant still, but it should do great out here this summer. I should probably get around to repotting it sooner than later too as rafflesiana's get big.