Refuses to give me more leaves but at least I get pretty flowers 🤷‍♀️

They progressed from stars (lower right) to jelly fish (upper right) over a couple hours

I honestly didn't think it could take down prey that chunky but clearly the plant had other plans. Good riddance too, that fly was buzzing around the bedroom last night.

Too much water / not enough water / something else?

I've had this plant for a while in other countries, and it was always very easy going. But after the last time I moved the sapling I took with me has started struggling.

The picture is not a perfect illustration, but you can see new leaves coming out turning black in the ends, and eventually drying out and dying. This already happened with a lot of leaves that I cut off, but now it's repeating itself with the new ones.

The plant has been in a relatively bright spot and I think it has received enough water that it shouldn't be the problem. The black parts are completely dead. Does anyone have any idea what can be done? :)

I'm sorry the picture is not more illustrative.

I've already made a few posts about my small carnivorous plants collection a while ago and decided to do another one :)

I already did a lot of research about mineralic/ inorganic substrates and hydroponics in regards of CPs, but found basically nothing. Most people grow them in peat and consider it essential.

I wanted to prove it otherwise, because I find peat unethical and also largely prefer to cultivate my (house-)plants without soil in LECA.

Remember, my plants aren't old (<1 year, many even just a few months), so consider this as experimental observations, not as guide! I don't know how they will perform long term!

Nepenthes

They are doing absolutely great!

Somehow, I originally thought they don't need much light, so they looked pretty miserable the first months. One has even completely lost its roots...

But now, I've hung them in my brightest window and WOW.
The red one is starting to bounce back, and the green one is thriving. It is growing lots of pitchers and has formed quite a few new waxy leaves.

I fertilize it by filling the pitchers with full strength nutrient solution almost to the brim, because I noticed they drink up most of it in a matter of days.

The substrate (100% LECA) is watered with RO water only, but I add a bit of regular nutrient solution about once a month to speed up growth.

They can both absorb nutrients through the pitchers AND roots, but if you overdo it with root fertilization, they are fully fed and will stop producing pitchers.

I'm also feeding one pitcher with dead insects, and the other one with said nutrient solution, because I wanna see how they react to each.

Pinguicula

Pings in nature often grow on limestone rocks and wood, so many CP enthusiasts cultivate them on mostly inorganic media like pumice.

And what shall I say, it works! I took quite a few leaf cuttings, and look how cute they are! ☺️

I started cultivating moss recently, and I'm currently in the process of adding a layer of live moss on the surface. It looks cool, holds moisture (pings have shallow roots that are prone to desiccation) and harbours microfauna like springtails, which can act as first food for baby pings ;)
It also helps decomposing dead flies.

This one is my P. agnata

And this my very newly bought P. moranensis

Drosera

This one is by far the hardest for me and the exception.

In nature, they are bog plants, and they need peat to survive.

Here's my Drosera alicae, which I tried to repot into hydro conditions:

It didn't even survive one month in there.

(Ignore the sphagnum moss, I added it way too late.)

And here's the same plant, but kept in its original substrate, but with living sphagnum added later on

It even started flowering!

Sarracenia

Not a houseplant, but still carnivorous. It requires bog conditions, direct sun and chilly winters to survive.

It lives in my newly built bog bucket on my balcony. The bucket is filled with concrete as a weight to hold a pole, and then I added a few centimetres of leftover lava rock/ LECA.

I've had the Sarracenia in way too dark conditions for too long, that's why it looks so miserable.

Now, since it recieves more light, it started forming new pitchers. I also added a bit of living sphagnum a few weeks ago.

Sphagnum/ moss farm

As I said in the beginning, some CPs can be grown on alternative substrates, but some require very acidic, completely mineral free media.

Peat is one of them, but not the only one.
It's made out of dead sphagnum mosses, so why not just use those instead?

I made a post about that a few days ago, but here's a quick recap.

I got a bit of live sphagnum moss from a neighbour and put it into plastic boxes with some moist LECA as substrate.

I want to grow as much of it as I can and then use it as a substrate for the obligate bog plants.

Semi-hydro is so popular now, but everyone says to replace the water every few days because it runs out of oxygen. Coming from the aquarium/pond world I thought, "what if I put an extra bubble thing+pump into the pot?"

Apparently that's DWC. But so many of the ready-to-use DWC setups are...kind of ugly. I think people use them more for vegetables or weed. The caladium are from bulbs (etsy and Home Depot), the tradescantia are cuttings I took from a coworker's plant, and the "Ti" plants are still just logs I'm propagating that are showing their first little nubs now. Using aquarium liquid fertiizers.

I just want to avoid having a bunch of dirt in my apartment. Sweeping it, vacuuming, dirt stains...

This Hoya is growing like crazy, but I noticed these black marks on the vine. It also had some mold growth on the pon. I repotted with fresh pon into a pot that, I’m hoping, will allow better airflow. The roots looked really good. Do I need to do any additional treatment?

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/23641560

I have most of my plants in hydro, but especially my carnivorous plants need (Sphagnum) moss to grow.

It, and peat, just has the right, unique properties to ensure the CPs thrive that cannot be replaced by other substrates.

Sphagnum in particular can for example replace minerals and turn them into acid, creating a mineral-free, highly acidic environment many bog plants have evolved to live in.

But I also find them just beautiful and they make a great top dressing, for example for my Pinguicula.

Here's a Drosera, a peat bog plant, that I tried to grow in LECA alone. It didn't even take a month and it was dead. The ones in peat thrive tho.

(I added the live sphagnum a week ago in hopes it will revive it)

Here's my process:

I take a transparent box and add a few centimeters of LECA, which has been soaked thoroughly, because mosses are pretty sensitive to leftover minerals.

Then, I add distilled water just right below the surface. It is always kept wet by capillary action, while the moss sits above and gets hydrated.

The moss is plucked apart or cut with a pair of scissors. Every tiny leaf will grow to the original form it came from.

Then, the box is placed in a bright spot. Just make sure it isn't too hot, like it happened in my parents' greenhouse :(

Before:

After a too hot day (it was steamingly hot):

If you grow it indoors, a sunny spot behind a curtain is great.

I will soon lightly spray fertilize it when I see good new growth, but be careful, it's very sensitive to too much salts.

I just started this project about one week ago, and I can give you an update in a few months if you're interested :)

This is the second time in 3 months it has bloomed from the same peduncle. One of my favourite blooms so far, and no scent! :)

I don't have much experience in growing carnivorous plants. This is my NOID hybrid Nepenthes, who is my test subject. I try to raise my CPs as vegetarians mostly ;)

I already researched quite a bit, but couldn't find much.
From what I understand and read, it's usually advised against filling them manually, with the exception of newly arrived ones where the digestion juice has been spilled, because they make their own fluids.

That's why there are lids on the pitchers, to prevent rain water from falling in.

Those pitchers you can see on the pictures are relatively newly formed, but all of them didn't fill that much.

Currently, there are 3 fully developed ones.
Two of them have been filled with hydroponic nutrient solution (1 mS strength), and one has been left naturally, with only two small flies dropped in by me.
The plant drank up more than half of the nutrient solution already, and there the lids aren't as opened as the "natural" one.

The plant itself is sitting in LECA for half a year now, with a super diluted nutrient solution. Basically, I only fill it with RO water, and then add some regular nutrient solution on top from time to time. Not too much, or else, the plant isn't hungry and won't develop pitchers from what I've read.

It is growing vigorously!

As you can see on the title image, this Phal has no velamen left.

(For those who aren't orchid nerds, this is a special fleshy water buffering sheath surrounding the thin inner roots. Most other orchids have these too, including my Oncidium type orchids, but usually not as pronounced as Phalaenopsis ones.)

I just pulled them off, since they've been super mushy, and I believe that was the right thing to do, because from what I know they can still transport water.

They were already not looking great when buying them a week ago, that's why I got that plant for 50% off ;)

I transition them to semi-hydro with LECA as medium, and I think the always-wet-conditions just aren't suited for roots that haven't been adapted to it.

I have another Phal (and other orchids) that I've had for half a year now and they're doing great. One has just started blooming after growing vigorously!

My question now is: Would it be better if I remove them all together when buying?

Basically, I get it, soak and remove all already dead roots and leftover bark, and then pot it in LECA with some probiotics added. The roots never touch the nutrient solution directly.

Still, they rot, and I have to redo it again in a few weeks for the second time. They look like shit for the first month, having wrinkled leaves and loosing some, but after that, they do just fine and regrow their root system.

This transition from soil to hydro is also very annoying for other non-orchid plants, but not remotely as stressful.

What's your advice?

Two of my succulents decided to bloom this year!!! (⁠ʃ⁠ƪ⁠＾⁠3⁠＾⁠）

I got my firefly petunias from light.bio around a month or so ago and they're now just starting to take off. This picture was taken in a dark room with no windows, though I'm sure the phone brightened it up a bit. They aren't as bright as I was imagining, but I still find them neat.

@houseplants

#plants #flowers

Hoya heuschkeliana (inner variegation)

I think that it is this plant, but I'm not sure.

https://leafy-life.com/how-to-care-for-ficus-elastica/

We are located in Vancouver, British Columbia.

I have attached more photos below.

The following photos were taken a few weeks ago.