Drosera Capensis "Broad Leaf" flowering

I'd just acquired this pot of D. Capensis "Broad Leaf". It has a much broader leaf shape comapred to the regular capensis. The first flower stalk immediately came while acclimatising to my growrack. I had to cut it off. Soon it flowered again. I was keen to collect seeds so I fed it once every few days. The first couple of buds were already swelling.  Hope to harvest seeds soon.


Flower bloom.
Stalk and the closing flower

Moving plants...

Its near the end of the year. The 1 spot I had placed my plants outdoor of my apartment is not getting enough sun. Plants dont look happy at all. Everytime I look at them. I can almost hear them cursing at me - More sun or NO pitcher for you!!

Their new place

Amp cuttings rooted.

I've got these Ampullaria cutting from Cindy back in end of August 2017. I always hear about how difficult it is for Amp cuttings to root, I've tried once before, not only it didnt root but also died. I was quite surprise when looking at the stems yesterday,  out of the three cutting, two of them has already rooted. Its was only 2 months.  One is Black Miracle cutting, other 2 are random.  I have transferred the 2 rooted in sphagum but left the unrooted in water .

Bm plant


Amp1


Amp2




Bm


Am1


Am2

Nepenthes Jamban

I was lucky to be able to acquire Nepenthes Jamban for the second time. They came from BE. I tried growing the first one in my bookshelf LED setup in room temperature. Expectedly, after a few months, the plant didn't survive. This time, I left it in an air-conditioned room with LED set up in a tank. I was fortunate to be able to witness my first pitcher grew despite the temperature still not cool enough. I have taken a few photographs of 1 growing pitcher during the growth shared below. I hope it will continue to grow well in this setup.

11sept'17
27Sept'17
03Oct'17
11Oct'17
16Oct'17
19Oct'17
28Oct'17

Cephalotus growing..

It's quite hard to grow Cephalotus in Singapore because the weather is very hot and humid. Sometime the cephs died for no reason. I tried to grow the cephs in different media. I tested one of them in live sphagnum moss and another one in very loose media with about 30% of moss around the roots only. For now this seems to be growing well let's see...

This plant came from a good friend Cindy it has been in live sphagnum Moss for a few months. The big pitchers has fallen off , now there is a lot of small growth

This plant has been with me for a couple years and has been trying to survive,  dying back a few times and re growing in fresh media.  This time, I put it in this very loose media.

More plants recently...

I'm Guilty of acquiring too many plants constantly. This week is too extreme. Just gotten a big handful of plants from a friend that need get rid of them. Bought another batch from a recent quick Mass Order.

I guess that's about 20 plants in total. Or 10 if we don't count the diversion. I did not take photos of the MO plants. I'm running out of rack space.

Friends plants which I took over. My rack's running out of space...

Bees stealing water

Noticed the water level in the Utricularia been dropping quite fast a couple of days before. Until today, I found out bees were stealing from it! I don't mind what they are doing, must be very thirsty. Probably the weather is pretty hot lately...

Enjoy the video.

Carnivorous books easily available in Singapore

Borrowing more plant books from the library. Glad that we have many books on Carnivorous plants here in Singapore. Borrowing is also a breeze. You can reserve online and collect in less than a week at a library nearest to you. At the library, you go to a machine to collect you reserved book.

Collection

Pruning sphagnum...

I'm trying out the new app for mobile phone to post in blogger. As much as i like to share my growing experience here. The pc has been an effort for me, getting photos watermarked, uploading to Flickr, getting the link into the blog.  Mobile phone is much accessable and hope i get to post more now. I'm trying to work out a process where it will be much simpler.

It's been probably a year since I'd tidy the pots. Seems like the sphagnum has over grown a little. Here's what I have trimmed off..

Random Utricularia

I've bought 2 small container of Utricularia from a local private scculent collector. The flowers were bright yellow and beautiful. But seller doesn't know what it is..

Drosera Finlaysoniana Seed for harvest.

These drosera from David F. is amazing. They grow like weed but most perish due to the heat here. Yes I need to solve the heat issue. Anyway the plant throw out flower stalks all at the same time like no tomorrow. I harvest a handful so if you like some do check out the seed sale page above.

If you don'y know what you are looking at. Let me help.

This photo is zoomed in using a macro lens on a DSLR camera. (Check my camera set up link on top). This is a dried flower pod that has cracked open for the seeds to disperse, you can see the seeds in the seed pod. The looked like oval ash black golf balls that is 0.01mm perhaps.

Drosera ultramafica x spatulata Flower

Drosera Ultramafica x Spatulata send up its flower stalk and I took a photo of it. Its not the best flower coz the past few bloom wasn't the right time for me to take picture of it. Anyway, Here's my humble photo.

Happy New Year 2017!

My usual excuse for not posting was too busy with family. I still keep many of these carnivorous plants but not much added to the collection. The new collections were mainly nepenthe as they were easier to care for where I grow carnivorous plants (in the book shelf).

I have some issues which I had avoided for the longest time and decided that I will try to fix it this year. The heat! The LED setup which I'm using could be the cause of many death and stress environment for my plants. Perhaps in the bookshelf, 30 x 3W LED is not such a good idea. Which more fanciful designs and easier setups provided locally now. I already had some ideas in mind.

Will try to post more so here's a start!

Drosera Marston Dragon is perking up quite a bit. It'd even developed 8 points for the first time in my stressful environment!


Drosera Marston Dragon : 8 Points




Drosera Marston Dragon: Not the best looking one but, ya its doing good!

Drosera Finlaysoniana: This is a first flower bloom .

I've had these Drosera from David Flocken a few times, they came as seeds and the germination rate is very good, but the crazily hot and humid weather in Singapore kill these plants when they were young.  I've managed to get theses batch 2 to stabilise but in the process, I lost more than half of the batch. Anyway I got it to flower for the first time! I was very happy as not only it flowers for the first time for me, it is also the 1st flower bloom from the 1st flower stalk. Triple happiness :)

Drosera Finlaysoniana

Check your water trays!

I was checking my water tray one day and found tiny worms wriggling n the water. Thinking it was fungus gnat larvae, I'd ignored it, but something was off, the way it move was very familiar, it triggered the danger sense in me and with my curiosity, I took some samples for a closer look.

Here's what it is, a mosquito larvae.... many of them


Another stage, ready to emerge as a dangerous mosquito


I immediately pour away all the water from all the trays, let it dry for the day befrore toppping up with water again the next day . We should all do our to keep the environment safe. Mosquito can be quite deadly if they carry diseases.

What we can do :
1. check the water tray often, at least every 3 days for foreign creatures like mosquito larvae.
2. Let the water tray dry out between watering, it not only keep the pest away, it also let the plant root and media breath
3. Put mosquito and pest prevention tablets or solution but also make sure it is safe for carnivorous plants. (eg: "Mosquito dunk" is very popular among Carnivorous plants hobbyists, it is safe for cp)

Either way, enjoy your CP hobby and cheers! Here's a drum of Glenmorangie Duthac to enjoy while admiring my plants.

Couple of Drosera in macro and my new pet!

Had been on my Macro gears lately. Here's some of the shots, enjoy~

D. Madagascariensis : This is still that 1 and only seed that germinate from a batch which I've sow some couples of months ago.


Another shot



D. Finlaysoniana


A closer shot


Drosera Intermedia from Chris Davis


Bark Mantis  (Amorphoscelis sp.) : Bonus shot, I happened to pick this one up at the entrance of my office, it was upside down but it cling onto me as I picked it up, its now my pet!



A video of the mantis eating a winged termite,
Best viewed in 720 or 1080 hd and full screen. (option at setting icon bottom right of video)

Drosera Intermedia Big Audrey ready for next generation

This batch of Drosera Intermedia Big Audrey has been flowering non stop for months! They have been producing lots of seeds too. I have put them up in the seed sale link about the page if anyone is interested.

Nepenthes Campanulata x Maxima

It was almost 6 months ago when I gotten 2 cutting from Cindy, N. Alata x Surigao and N. Campanulata x Maxima. Under my careless care, only the N. Campanulata x Maxima rooted and of course, the other died eventually. The plant was small but I love the big vase shape and wide peristome pitchers, occasionally, you will see the peristome wearing lip gloss :)

Enjoy~

N. Campanulata x Maxima

Byblis Guehoi having a feast on Winged termintes

It was the time where the winged termintes are all over the place. They are attracted to the grow lights and were trapped as they hit the dewy byblis and other plants like sundews. I had another video later which has more termites on the plant - I didn't use that because it was in "portrait" angle. Not good for video sharing.

here's the video...
Best viewed in 720 or 1080 hd and full screen. (option at setting icon bottom right of video)

This is a recent mass order, was late in getting the photos up. They come from BE and a private collector

Some plants from Borneo Exotics and a private seller. Nepenthes seems to do well here in Singapore. Even some intermediate and high lane ones could survive while some could hand on for a long time before showing signs of stress. Unlike the VFT and sundews which is more picky for me

The loot! 

N. Burbidgaea x Campanulata: The L size!

Here's the pitcher, midway to heaven. 

N. Ampullaria x Spectabilis

N. Burbidgaea x Veitchii 

N. Jamban : Really looking forward to see this one thrive here

N. Burkeii

N. Eymae

Sarracenia Dana's Delight

That's all for this batch... More mass Orders to come I believe :)