Another Death Cube Carnivore!

I've been to Lowe's and Home Depot's a lot lately picking up things like timers and extension cords for the grow tent. A day before Valentine's Day, in with the pink Phalaenopsis and pink Bromeliads for the holiday was a big new shipment of Death Cube carnivorous plants. I'm not sure how that made sense, to have flytraps and pitcherplants in a Valentine's Day display, (unless we're talking metaphors here, but I doubt it in this context.) I am glad I took a minute to look through the boxes while I was there though.

Score! Happy Valentine's Day to me!

Both the Internet and Instagram seem to agree at this point that I've got a baby Nepenthes sanguinea.

I initially grabbed the box thinking it was something I already had and I'd be able to trade it or re-home it easily, but now I'm keeping it. The box's label on the back has "Nepenthes ventricosa," just like the one I got 2 summers ago, but when I opened it up and looked at it, it's clearly not. Botanical Wonders only sells so many species clones, so I guess there's no point on their end to label each one correctly for the mass market.

Be warned, if you decide to buy one of these, they have a minimal root system out of the box. This is my 3rd Death Cube Nepenthes and every one has looked like this picture below. I cleaned it up a bit before I took this picture, but it looks like they leave the taproot intact and cut off all the feeder roots to fit it in the pot.

Now it's repotted nicely, and ready to grow. Hopefully I'll have some nice orange, spotty pitchers in a few months when this little guy adjusts and gets some more roots out.

Updates on everything, including the growtent to come. My laptop, a red acer netbook died recently and I've been legitimately upset over it. They've stopped making them as the trend has been going to notebooks, iPads, and Chromebooks instead. I just wanted to replace it with another of the same, or fix it, and until I was positive neither was an option I didn't buy a new anything. RIP "Little Red," I feel like I should bury you out of respect for the years of excellent service and companionship, but I can't. I finally bought a new laptop, so once I get all my pictures organized again, I'll be posting more often.

Neostylis Lou Sneary 'Bluebird'

This little mini is a hybrid of Neofinetia falcata crossed with Rhynchostylis coelestis.

With the new genus lumping this one is now Vandachostylis Lou Sneary 'Bluebird'. Good luck getting the Neofinetia fans to start calling them Vanda anytime soon.

Anyway, I've had this plant for a good few years now. Picked it up from Waldor Orchid's booth at The Philiadelphia Flower show the first time we went. It's a clump of 4 growths now. Maybe when more growths are mature I'll have a really good showing of flowers, but in the mean time it smells great and blooms reliably every year with no special effort on my part.

The camera really picked up the iridescent blue, especially under the T5's. It's more of a lavender tone in natural lighting, but I've come to the conclusion that my camera cannot capture pinks, purples, and blues correctly and have given up trying.

GROW TENT!

As I was making plans to set up a small shelving unit and some lights for the more cold sensitive Nepenthes and orchids, my husband got me this for my Christmas gift before I went out and spent money on stuff we didn't need. It's a grow tent!

It's still in the 70's and 80's F here during the day, 50's and 60's at night, but after hauling everything in and back out for the brief cold snap we had I decided to plan for this winter early. Now "winter" here is not cold, not by any stretch of the imagination for someone from New York. It's doesn't snow, but we do get an occasional frost in January and February. It's a light ground covering, never frosted on the deck, but still cold enough to do some damage to more tropical species. I never thought the husband would let me have something this large though. I guess he really was sick of seeing the bathroom and kitchen covered in plants on nights that got too cold! I should've taken pictures of the construction with a real camera, but I was trying to help in between jumping up and down and talking too fast about all the plans I was making for it. Anyway, here are some quick iPhone pics in the mean time. I'll take another round of photos when it's all set up and all the plants are in there. I'm still planning out what I want to go where.

Here's the breakdown of what it is so far:

• GrowLab GL80L Growtent (4'11" x 2'7" x 6'7")
• Quantum BadBoy T5, 8 bulb fixture [mix of 3400 (2), 6500 (4), and 10000 (2) K bulbs]
• 4 Tier polished chrome finish shelving unit (Styleselections brand, not that that really matters)

Now, what I still need is an exhaust fan. The Quantum BadBoy is a good replacement for the sun in light, and unfortunately heat.

The tent has more than enough vents and I may be able to get away with the clip on fan I already have for fresh air intake. So there's still some experimentation to be done, and some shuffing of things around. I may also get some horticultural lattice to hang my mounted orchids and bromeliads on the side(s), and possibly another smaller shelving unit. I don't know, I'll figure it out as I go, but suggestions are welcome. Updates to come, moving the last of everything in this week.

Quick photo, getting set up. House cat for scale:

Nepenthes ventricosa from seed: 1 Year Update!

Happy Birthday, Nepthenthes ventricosa! This is the strongest seedling of the bunch, and one of the few I plan to keep.

N. ventricosa, Sewn November 5th 2012, Germinated last week of November 2012

What a little cutie, can't wait to see what they look like next year. Click for link to previous updates (with links back to the beginning):Nepenthes ventricosa from seed

Coming up: Nepenthes albomarginata red seedlings. Or at least that's what I hope they are. I got these from a less reputable source than the ventricosa, but they are coloring up red, just too early to tell if they are indeed albomarginata and not a hybrid.

N. albomarginata red, Sewn April 30th 2013, Germinated 1st week of June 2013

Still quite small, but germination was...oh I don't know, 90+%? I won't count them. I didn't expect such good germination, otherwise I would've gotten less and stratified better.

I love Cattleya walkeriana

I picked up this Cattleya walkeriana semi-alba 'Carmela' as a bag baby at a local Lowe's. Yeah, there are gems to be found in those prepackaged orchids.

I know there's always a lot of discussion on forums about whether it's good or bad to buy orchids from grocery stores and home improvement centers. Every time it gets brought up people tend to fall on the side of them being great, or some turn up their noses because they're from a large scale production company. Sun-Bulb/Better-Gro is actually a very reputable company if you've read anything from or about the growers, or their operation. I watched this exact clone go for $50 on eBay a few weeks ago, there's another one on there now, $65. I got this one for $13 and change, blooming sized, straight off the truck, (no chance for the Lowe's employees to kill it or sit around long enough to acquire a scale infestation.) So go ahead and turn up your noses at this, I'll still go through the bag babies to see if there's anything good when I'm at Lowe's.

I had read that Cattleya walkeriana is considered a more difficult species than most to grow. Until I made a decision about how I wanted to try and grow mine, I just left it in the pot. I took the majority of decaying bark out, left the charcoal and Sponge Rock, then watered it every few days after reading that most people had lost theirs due to rot issues. It has been growing, but it wasn't until buds suddenly appeared from somewhere unexpected that I decided to look into Cattleya walkeriana a bit more.

C. walkerina buds

C. walkeriana is one of only two species of Cattleya that grows it's flower spikes from an independent growth coming from the base of a mature rhizome, not from the top of the pseudobulb. A new pseudobulb or a flower spike will start off looking exactly the same. Until either a leaf or buds grows out the top it's hard to tell which one it's going to be.

In this picture, the short/stubby growth in the middle was a previous bloom.

Here's a 2nd new growth, not sure if it will be another pseudobulb, or a flower spike yet

The whole orchid

It actually opened up it's flowers on my birthday of all days. I took it to a local orchid society meeting earlier this week and it actually placed 3rd in the Cattleya group judging. I was surprised, I almost didn't take it at all because the plant looks so beat up. Really, the group just has a great photographer who takes pictures of all the entries and I wanted a really nice photo of it on the internet. I am terrible at taking pictures. I was offered a copy of the photo, so I'll update with it, or link to the OS page because I have a hard time getting the color right on this bloom.

Once I start to see the fresh roots getting longer I'm going to try this one in a wood slat basket or maybe clay with a lot of holes and some bark, as I've had more than enough issues with rot this summer. Learning to grow in this heat and humidity has been a bit of an adjustment for me and I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. If this species is rot prone in culture and instead of rotting it, I've got flowers. This is all the excuse I need to get some of the other good color variations. C. walkeriana is naturally a solid pink color, then there's the many beautiful semi-alba variations like 'Carmela', coerulea or "blue" colored flowers, perola (rose blushes on the petals or petals and sepals), aquinii (a peloric bloom, some coloration at the tips of the petals similar to the color of the lip), and flammea (petals that have coloration getting stronger/more saturated towards the edges) types as well. For more color variations and types than you can handle, check out this guy's website: C. Walkeriana

Some Carnivorous Plant Pictures

Hope you had a Happy Halloween all!

Nepenthes rafflesiana, Left: AG3 clone, Right:  EP (q) squat x var. alata seed grown.

Nepenthes globosa ("Viking"), finally making larger pitchers, but I read that until they hang over the side they won't make that "Viking" shape.

Some VFT 'B52' lunch

Sarracenia leucophylla 'Tarnok' looking better as fall approaches