We will be putting a sarracenia in the same pot with a drosera capensis today. You all know what I did on the last couple of posts, putting plants in to grow up side down, and I am not going to break with my new obsession in this post.
The drosera will have to be the one looking at the floor and luring the underworld bugs with it's sticky leaves. I cannot do that with a sarracenia because its leaves are little pitchers full of fragrant juices and if I turned it upside down, all of that liquid would pour out. How would it catch its prey then?
The sarracenia grows a long hollow stalk and a lid for it, so that rain does not dilute the nectar that they have inside which is used attract bugs or later in life maybe frogs, in order to eat them. This plant is still a baby and baby plants come in little 6cm round plastic pots. When I can, I save the old pots as my plants grow, but this one is new to me, and I would rather cut up a pot and assure the root's bond with the moss stays in tact. I have never had one of these before. This is a new plant for me and I want it to survive.
Weeks ago, I cut the bottom off the pot and sliced the sides upward, only leaving the upper rim connected all around. I did that to allow the roots to get a little longer. (right) Then I put it in a pot full of went moss. See the mark on the outer rim of the smaller pot. (left) I have those marks on both sides, 180 degrees apart, and they tell me where the pot is already split. When I am sure this plant is acclimated to the new pot, I will simply clip the rim on both sides and the little pot comes out in two semi-circles.
Here is another shot of the pitchers. This one is getting to the end of its life and will die soon. The plant is making new pitchers constantly to replace the old ones, just like the venus fly traps do.
All of the plants in this post are carnivorous, meaning they trap bugs of all kinds. I am sure you will see many more posts about all the different ones I have in my collection.
My world has been turned up side down due to these rare beauties and this is the first time I am turning their world up side down. Here is a picture of the pot that will receive the baby pitcher plant. I am showing you the bottom because I have already done my first bottom out replanting of a carnivorous (shown here). This drosera is attempting to get used to its new orientation. I wonder if the leaves will do a 180 like the weed plant has done. I have about 25 of these. They reproduce like rabbits and I can risk one of them for this experiment.
Up top, we will have the sarracenia very soon. Instead of letting it stay in the larger pot, shown above, I am moving it to a window hanging planter just outside my kitchen window. If for some reason the drosera does not survive, this will be yet another plant sitting in a pan of water with the others (except for the large drainage hole at the bottom).
Here is the finished product. I leave more space, not filling the pot all the way to the rim, because many of these kinds of plant will grow up and out of the moss they live in, especially the droseras.
I clipped the rim of the smaller pot but I am waiting to remove the two halves. I am not sure if you could see it on the other pictures, but I have another type of drosera growing at the base of this new plant. They are much too small for their own pot and I want to let them grow a bit more before I transplant them.
I think the babies that came with my sarracenia are drosera spatulata, so named for their shape like a spatula. I will be making a post about several new species that I bought last month, including the drosera spatulata. There is only so much you can fit into one post.
Let me know what kind of plant you want to see in the future. I have several other projects in the works but I will get to you suggestions as quick as I can. We are heading into winter time here in the deep, deep south and my plants stay outside year around. They survive our mild winters (lows in the mid 40's) just fine but they sometimes look a little beaten and tattered with all the rain we get here in the winter time.
