I Think I Killed My Cobra Lily

Darlingtonia californica, March 8, 2011.

I don't think I'll be trying my hand at these again. I guess it's because I missed some days of pouring new water over the top of the soil, even though it was sitting in water. Or because the LFS they ship them in isn't what it wants to sit in.

It was healthy and grew some while under my care; it looked like this not too long ago:

Darlingtonia californica, February 16, 2011, showing a new, healthy pitcher.

Darlingtonia californica, February 16, 2011, showing a baby pitcher starting to grow.

New VFT I Bought for Parts

I bought a VFT in January just to try propagating new plants from via leaf pullings. I was too scared to try it with VFTs I already have and am attached to. So I bought it and put it under my lights. They say VFTs don't do well indoors.

Well I knew it would happen. And it happened. I'm attached to it. I should repot it and/or do some leaf pullings, though.

VFT I bought for parts in January, 2011.  March 8, 2011.

I'm going to snip the flower stalk to help the health of the plant. I'll stick it in some peat and see if it will propagate a new plant.

But look how nice and red the insides of those traps are!

First Sign of Growth in Sphagnum?

In that same container covered in Saran where a D. capensis seedling is growing I spotted what looks like the first sign of sphagnum growing.

Sphagnum starting to grow.  I think.

Closer look of a small piece of growing sphagnum.

Box Elders

I find several of these in my basement every day. I used to feed them to my N. ventricosa, but then I moved that, and it doesn't have any open traps right now. They're as abundant as stink bugs here. I took a picture of this one before introducing him to Mr. Sweeper.

Box elder in my basement.

Follow-Up of D. capensis Feeding

It looks like I used a piece of food too big. The leaf is stressed a bit. Kind of burnt.

D. capensis after being fed too big of a piece of a betta pellet.

My best D. capensis typical form is one that I didn't even sow myself. It's in the pot with the mama plant.

Nice seedling in my D. capensis pot.

You can see a bunch of other out-of-focus red seedlings there, too. They get everywhere.

Fungus Snow

I've had lots of mold in my pots before, but it never looked like snow like this.

Fungus in D. capensis seedling pot.

I don't know if my sulfur-based fungicide is only preventative, but I guess I'll give these moldy pots the ol' scraperoo with a toothpick and then spray them a little. It's almost like these plants are made to be kept indoors. I need to look into getting smaller fans that I can put on the lower shelf instead of one kind of aiming down between the lights.

Darlingtonia californica

I bought this little guy on January 13. He finally put up a pitcher that looks like a pitcher.

Darlingtonia californica not long after getting him.

D. californica on February 11, looking like a D. californica.

A worse view of D. californica on February 17.

A new pitcher coming up.

The big pitchers are dying off because they were used to no light and higher humidity in their death cubes at Lowe's. I don't know how I'll care for this thing in the summer when they like their 60-degree nights. It'll probably die. :-(