Sunday, July 03, 2011

Nepenthes addiction


So I have this thing for nepenthes.

Well, carnivorous plants in general.

I'm willing to admit it - there is a bit of an addiction there. But I thought I had it under control (there's a 12 step program for nepenthes dependency, right? Right??). It was working well until today - I only had one greenhouse for them, there were two plants, they were happy, I was happy.


And then this afternoon, when I was heading out to do some shopping for things I forgot to get on Friday, I thought, "Hey, while I'm heading out, and since it's such a nice day, why not go to that nursery and see if they have any more pitcher plants? They probably won't, but it'll be fun to check it out."

Drove down there, went in not expecting there to be anything much, maybe just some alatas/ventratas. Same old same old.

Oh...


They had a lot of different nepenthes! Nepenthes heaven! <3 They were all hybrids, but I couldn't care less. They were interesting and cute and I... Well... I bought some. And a sarracenia. And a sarracenia purpurea. You know, as you do whenever you go to a nursery and leave with a load of carnivorous plants and nothing else. The venus fly traps also looked tempting - they were different to the ones usually available in nurseries, but I figured I'd show some restraint. There's always next time!


Anyway, when I got home, I spent about an hour repotting them, talking encouragingly to the little plant that doesn't look all that well (I actually bought it because it looked so sad...) and putting them in the greenhouses. Hopefully they'll do well. The two larger plants should be fine, although I am planning to buy some bigger pots for them soon and repot them - I think they're in a mix of coir and soil and peat moss. I think I'll probably keep a bit of that, but mostly use sphagnum moss in repotting. The baby nepenthes are all in larger pots with sphagnum moss now too. Just not sure how the baby nepenthes tobaica x ampullaria will do.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

NEPENTHE ADDICTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is there room for anything else at the house. They look good - am keen to see them.

Della said...

Hmm, if I make another visit to the nursery, I'm not sure if there will be room for anything else ;)

But really, no, they're not taking up much room. They're still small plants.