Look how they have grown. They were very tiny and very delicate when I pulled them out of the mother's pot. Now they are perky teenagers.
New branch reaching out to meet the bugs
Let's compare one of these as a baby in this post to these, the only pair I have ever raised from babies.
the whole plant just 8 months ago
They were so delicate when we pulled them out of their mother's pot.
And the two of them together. I can't be sure which one was featured in the mentioned post. As I said, these are the only two I've raised from babies, so I know it's one of them.
tiny plants are easier to get all branches in focus
Now look at them. They're getting big - they have outgrown their pots. They are even unrolling their flower chains - you get one bloom per day or so. As soon as one is closing, the other one opens. You will see that later this spring.
That's how you get these little buggers in focus, put a finger behind them. To look at one in person, you would be amazed how quickly your eyes change focus from one branch to the next and you don't even realize you're focusing. This flower cluster is about ready to bloom within the next day or two.
Re-potting can sometimes remedy the broken branch if it's still connected. Now that I look at it, I believe this is the exact same pot and plant that we saw above as a baby eight months ago.
Flowers look different than the leaves do when they are coming out. above we see one stem and four branches unrolling from the second bifurcation. The stem unrolls in two directions (first fork) then the ones that you see above, forking again.
Here's another one opening up on the other plant. They're beautiful.
Let me try to get a picture of one of these leaves as an adult.
spoiler, this picture is post re-pot
This one is browning a little bit at the tips.
Re-potting
Before we re-pot these, I have A smaller job that I have to take care of beforehand.
So let's get busy. There are at least two baby Droseras That needed a new home. Where should we put them?
We're going to take the baby Drosera plants that are at the base of this one and move them into our moss garden for now.
It looks like there were only two baby plants at the base, so now we're ready to move the larger plant, the Benata, to its new pot.
We begin to get the pots ready, starting with whole moss and perlite. It looks like one of the pots has a spider living in it. Perlite and moss up to this level. It will compact a little bit later.
We finish getting the pots ready, starting with minced moss. Then we make a thumb hole toward the bottom. If we end up with long roots hanging, they go to the bottom.
We don't want the plants all the way up to the rim because the branches will flap over the edge, and possibly break as we saw above. They need to be held up in the air where they need to be in order to catch bugs. As the plant grows through the summer, we can add extra loss as it gets taller. I want the top edge of the pot to be support for the branches as they grow taller.
Now that we have the substrate up to its level and we have a hole to put the plant in. We're going to use long nose pliers to pinch the soil around the root and lift it out and put it in the new pot. Let's see how well the roots took to the first potting...
On the left, we see the pliers gently pinching the 'soil' around the roots. You can see how much of the old 'soil' came up with the plant.
On the right, we are seeing the actual roots of the plant. I could have gone with a taller pot. And we'll keep that in mind for the next re-potting depending on the outward volume, we can size the pot better.
The roots look more like bark than roots, but these roots will clog up if minerals or chemicals come in contact with them. If that happens no moisture would get up to the top of the plant. Picky little bug munchers.
Next!
This is the one with the broken branch that we are hoping to mend.
This plant was also not very well centered in its old pot and so hopefully it will do better now that's in the center of the new, slightly larger pot.
It is a good time to pot these in early springtime as we are experiencing here. They are more resilient because they are trying their hardest to get their leaves out and their flowers up in the air to start eating and reproducing.
And finally the finished product we have two plants re-potted and the babies are growing in the Moss Garden.
You can even see the broken branches now properly supported. It might green up again in the future, hopefully anyways.
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