Tillandsia butzii bloom and a cool spider moves onto the deck

This Tillandsia finally bloomed, one flower at a time unfortunately. Maybe once it gets larger it'll be more exciting when it blooms?

Kind of boring, sorry. I'm growing Tillandsia more for the foliage than the bloom anyway. So while we're  waiting on some more things in bud to flower, there's this spider living out there on the deck now. It's a Gasteracantha cancriformis, or "Spiny Orb Weaver," native to the Southeast US.

Gasteracantha cancriformis from the back

The underside

Not venomous to humans or animals, she can stay as long as she wants. I'm hoping she'll help keep the creepers off the orchids to her left.

Nepenthes ventricosa seedlings: Update #1

These seeds were sewn on November 5th, 2012, and had begin to sprout around the end of the month. Traveling at the time, I can't say exactly when, but around 3-4 weeks until germination. I took these pictures around January 8th, so they are about a month old. Nepenthes start with the typical 2 embryonic1st leaves that most plants start with, then they grow what's called "proto-pitchers," those are the spiky immature looking pitchers you see below. Some are a little behind, but most at this point have made their 1st proto-ptchers so far

To read more about what I'm in for and how long we'll be waiting for some mature pitchers, Growing Nepenthes. It'll be a few years, so don't hold your breath for anything exciting yet.

I also didn't get great germination. I think I've got about 50 Nepenthes seedlings right now. As far as I know, they passed through a few hands before they got to me so they may have not been as fresh as they could've been. Or maybe shipping them late fall had an effect, maybe it was the move, but either way that's a fairly low  germination rate, (17%?) The seeds sewn in the peat/perlite had a much higher germination rate than the ones sewn in sphagnum moss, but the sphag got shifted at some point while moving so they may have gotten buried.

Not that I really mind that I don't have 300 tiny Nepenthes, as they were free and I still have too many at 50. Sensitivity is high right now and if I lose a few more on the way that's to be expected. One thing I do know is I'll be buying fresh seeds and trying this again at some point in the future. It's been fun watching them grow up so far.

Apologies for the temporary hiatus, will be back soon!

I haven't had an internet connection for a few weeks now. I'm using the 3G my phone gets to write this post as well as the Blogger app, which is only so slightly less than acceptable, that I'm still willing to use it. The good news is I will have internet and TV again by tomorrow, but just in time to work three 12's in a row. I have been reunited with a real camera (and my family, Hooray!) However, it'll be a few days before I have time to get out a real post.

In other news I did have the opportunity to go to an orchid society meeting, The Jacksonville Orchid Socitey I was never able to make one in NY in the past because they met on days I worked, or were too far to travel to. I'm going to have to join this society though, possibly the SAOS in St. Augustine as well. Being on orientation still at work I can't really pick my days, so next month I'll be working the night of Jacksonville's meeting, but will be off the night St. Augustine's society meets. So I'll go check out both before I join either and report back. I really enjoyed the JOS meeting though, some very friendly and helpful people, and I totally felt welcome despite being the youngest (or at least one of the youngest,) members there.

My Nepenthes ventricosa seedlings that I sprouted back in November have grown their 1st proto-pitchers, so I'll be sharing some pictures of their progress shortly. I'm also surprisingly still enjoying my Brassia Rex 'Tahoma' blooms, (which smell fantastic by the way, that orchid is a trooper,) and have my fingers crossed I'll have pictures of all the Phalaenopsis blooms too soon. The temperatures have been all over the place, but progress on their end is being made. I'm actually hoping that my Phalaenopsis stuartiana x self holds out another month before it blooms so I can take it to the next JOS meeting. A few people really made a point to encourage me to bring in my blooming orchids, so I will.

I never really had a chance to show off any orchids before to people that cared, (in real life anyway,) never really cared enough to bother either, but it was really cool to get to see everyone else's blooming orchids there. Even though orchids are judged, and even if I never win 1st, it feels like it would be fun to participate rather than it be a matter of pride or competition.

Anyway, to wrap this up, I'll be back shortly so don't unsubscribe yet! Next time with more pictures, but probably not less text! Here's a picture of Drosera spatulata 'Tamlin' with a neat double leaf it put out. Not terribly exciting, but I felt bad not putting any pictures into this post.

A Few Losses and a Few Gained

Happy Holidays! I hope everyone at least gets to enjoy some time off from work or school, whatever you celebrate or even if you don't celebrate anything. I noticed my view count jump up, so maybe if you are on the internet, hiding from your family, you might appreciate something new to read ;)

So, the move wasn't entirely without it's losses. Unfortunately it was the succulents that decided they weren't so thrilled with the Florida weather. To be fair it was the ones that had gone into their winter-almost-no-growth-at-all life cycle already before the move. I think the sudden influx of humidity and rain they got when I didn't take them inside right away is what did them in. Hey, I've been extraordinarily busy, ok? Things should settle down in the next month or so and I can be on top of everything again.

Lost:

• Frithia pulchra - Real upset about this one, it was one of my favorites.

• Aloinopsis luckhoffii - Meh, I liked it and plan on replacing it at some point, but it wasn't the nicest or most exciting as far as Aloinopsis/Titanopsis go.

Gained:

• Lithops NOID - Cute as hell, love the colors on these. I figured it would be worth a shot seeing as how I can do Lithops apparently. I think I understand when not to water and when to watch they don't overheat or burn. I may have to change the media and pots they're in with such different growing conditions but I have more research to do 1st.

• Aloinopsis schooneesii -Love, love, love it, so excited I found one. Have you seen the way some people have turned these into mini bonsai?!?! Just Google Images the plant name, you won't regret spending the 30 seconds. Now I just have to figure out how to make mine do that.

An excuse to buy a few more cheap little succulents is almost never bad, with the one exception of death. Seriously those two succulents melted in a matter of days. I haven't killed anything in a looooong time, so I guess I was due. I will try to replace that Frithia asap. It had the sweetest little purple flower that I will miss too much not to have around. I would like to have a better collection of weird succulents, but I'm just not so sure I want to deal with Conophytum or any other more difficult mesembs just yet. It's pretty darn humid here year round, not ideal for stuff that needs a dry winter or summer rest. Fingers crossed I can keep the rest of what I have by adjusting my conditions where I can. I'll have to scale back on my watering, and repot into a grittier mix.

Brassia Rex 'Tahoma' Blooming

I'm attempting to add pictures via the Blogger app, and it's terrible. It actually worked better before the last update to make it "better." I will have my camera and the rest of my stuff in about a week, so thanks for your patience with my iPhone pictures temporarily.

My Brassia Rex 'Tahoma' had spiked just before I drove it down here to Florida. I am kind of surprised the buds didn't blast, but it should actually be happier here than in NY, so maybe that helped.

Brassia Rex is a hybrid of Brassia verrucosa and Brassia gireoudiana, both very lovely on their own, but this hybrid came out pretty well. A rare combination of the best features of both parents, at least in my opinion. It's also rare that I think a hybrid is nicer than either parent species, but this is one of those few cases where I think it really works.

This is my biggest orchid, overall. It's a heavy one too, I repotted it not to long ago and it wasn't fun. Here's the whole plant.

The flowers of course:

One last bud to still open in the next day or so:

 

I can't really enlarge the iPhone pictures without them looking terrible, so here's a larger one that I brought over from Instagram too. If the flowers last long enough, I'll replace these photos with better quality ones in the future. Or, there's always next year!

A Coffee Break for Nepenthes

Fertilizing Nepenthes is a pretty hot topic. When I first started growing them everything I read said to never fertilize. This made sense at the time because the whole reason they are carnivorous plants is because they evolved to take in nutrients through their leaves instead of their roots. Nepenthes naturally grow in very nutrient poor soils, just like all other carnivorous plants. Watering them has probably cost me a lot over time as I use distilled water on mine. Our tap water back in NY was pretty hard, so it would kill them eventually trying to water with that. I used to collect rain water, but I now only use it on the Neps that go outside seasonally. I found it brought too much fungus and mold if I used it in a closed environment. There's also the option of using Reverse Osmosis water, but I won't have extra money for even a small one anytime soon.

Now nutrient poor doesn't mean nutrient devoid, so some brave people were spraying low doses of fertilizer onto the leaves or into the soil. It turned out well for those that found the right way to do it. Too much and the roots could burn and it could kill the plant or the plant would just stop pitchering and not do well. Too little and it was a waste of time. I passed on trying too find the right way to do it back then as the last thing I wanted to do was kill a healthy growing plant, just to try and make it grow better. However, within the last few years coffee has come up as another way to fertilize them.

Coffee works. I decided to try it after I let those brave, experimental people before me risk their plants first. I didn't have any to experiment on at the time, so waited to see how it worked for others for a while before making any decisions.

Coffee works for Nepenthes for a few reasons:

1. Coffee is acidic, most Nepenthes like their soil on the acidic side. If you use media that doesn't break down quickly, re-acidifying the soil at some point between re-pots isn't a bad idea.
2. There isn't a lot of minerals in coffee, but there is nitrogen and other trace nutrients which Nepenthes can use. Not so much that it can damage the roots, as long as you don't brew the coffee with mineral laden water, that is.

So I've been brewing a pot of coffee at regular strength with distilled water, letting it cool down and then watering some of my Nepenthes with it about once every six months or longer. This isn't exactly the most scientific experiment, as they are different species and my only control are ones I haven't tried fertilizing yet for one reason or another.

Below is newest leaf produced after a coffee treatment on my N. robcantleyi. All the old pitchers had dried up when I moved it to a lower humidity environment indoors for the winter. Now maybe this burst in growth is a coincidence, but the humidity levels in my apartment had gotten worse, not better. This looks like more than it's adjusting to new conditions to me. I've never seen a Nepenthes put out a bigger leaf right away, usually it throws out a smaller one or one that's slightly deformed before going back to growing normally when it has to adjust to a new environment.

Newest leaf after coffee treatment growing towards the bottom of the picture

Below are the newest leaves on N. ventricosa. I gave this one a coffee treatment back on the same day as the robcantleyi. The leaf growing straight to the bottom of the picture and the new one that hasn't unfurled yet are post-coffee leaves. N. ventricosa is a faster grower here than robcantleyi anyway, but this one had to endure a move to lower humidity than it likes too. Not quite as big a jump up in leaf size as robcantleyi, but still significant.

Post coffee leaf #1 growing straight down the picture, #2 not unfurled yet top right

I'll wait a few months before feeding them or fertilizing again, because too much could still cause the plant to stop making pitchers. A Nepenthes that wants to catch insects makes pitchers, an over-fertilized one won't. Same thing applies if you stuff the pitchers full of insects, it''ll temporarily stop making more. It seems pretty simple a concept when you think about why a plant would grow the way it does. Everything in nature happens for a reason.

Small Disclaimer: Coffee isn't a substitute for normal fertilization. I wouldn't recommend it for any other plants as it does not have all the nutrients the vast majority of other plants need.