Thursday, February 27, 2014

Phalaenopsis Blooming This Year

Just a few pictures, as all my spring blooming Phalaenopsis are flowering at the same time again this year.

Phalaenopsis stuartiana

Variegated Phalaenopsis NoID 
Medium Phalaenopsis NoID


Pink flowering mini Phal NoID

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

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.