Upgrading Large Drosera to First Class after Winter.
There leaves start to get deformed if too many roots are showing above ground. Bungs are not attracted to misformed leaves - just kidding. It is the way that the plant tells us that it needs maintenance. It was very hard winter here in South America. Nothing like New York winters, but you get my drift.
You can always tell when it's a big plant. I mean an adult plant, when it has a huge flower stalk.
Below are the ones we will be working with today. The one on the left it is already in a pot that is sufficient. I just need to pull the weeds and add moss from the surface of the soil to the newest green branches. These plants always grow up and out because they just make new branches, a bit like a palm tree. Soon these will be ready for this year's growth.
The one on the right is shooting up over the edges of the pot so it's gettning a new, larger, taller, pot - seen in the background. No, not the Kale plant. Please, people. Concentrate.
So, let us get to work on our project for today.
First I will break off the flower stalks from the plant that will be repotted because there are valuable seeds in them.
Next, I will trim back the dead branches of the part of the stem that is sticking out of the soil.
The reason for repotting a plant that looks like this, you see how much of the plant's stalk that should be underground is above ground, which causes it to have malformed leaves and general wilting.
This is one of the few firsts where I'm taking a picture with a plant and it's dirt in one hand and operating a Pixel 6 with the other, not easy.
Now I just have to finish putting fresh moss up to the bottom of the greenest branches. And this one is done. It just needs a lot of water and time to recover from the stress of being repotted.
Do you see the larger plant that is right behind this one? That one is healthy because of the depth of the pot that it has. I need only trim away its dead lower branches and top up the moss.
I will cut off any dead branches that are right above the soil surface.
Then I will backfill it with fresh moss as you have just seen on the first plant.
Here you see that I have a complete tray of medium-sized plants that wilted over winter. I have done the same procedure on all of these, trying to help them back into productive pest control.
I did five trays in the last two days. One left to go.
Here is the one that still needs TLC before summer starts. The large pot on the right side used to be a large Venus fly trap that filled the entire circle of the pot. I will see if I can dig up a picture of it from last year.
Here is what it looked like when I repotted it last spring. Over the summer it filled the pot.
I have been very busy and I still have a lot more to go related to the carnivorous plants. Stores have already been asking for bug eaters. I supply a few local plant stores. Sadly, the little ones are not ready yet. The adults will be ready when they have pretty violet flowers towering high above them. They open daily and customers notice that.
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