Monday, March 15, 2010

Spring has Sprung...at least for now.

Been having some mild weather here in W. Wisconsin for the past week, and it's supposed to continue for at least another week, although I see the dreaded word 'snow' in next weekends forecast. Anyway, I moved my plants outside last week, but I'm guessing I may move them back into the garage by the weekend, depending on how cold it actually will get. Hopefully, it's only a short-term stay in there.

I checked my S. purpurea seedlings that I'm doing the fertilizer experiment on. I have no idea where my digital camera is, so I didn't get any pics, but there appears to be no difference between them at this point, which I think is 6 weeks since I started fertilizing.

I planted out some seeds last night that have been stratifying since Feb. 4, which are listed on the post from that day. I also was disposing of some seed trays that I planted around Christmas that had no germination, mostly older seeds, but was surprised to find 1 Pretty N Pink - openpollinated, and 1 Leah Wilkerson x oreophila seedling. I guess it pays to be patient with seed germination.

The plants I got from Lois Ochs via Ebay are sending up their first pitchers, and 3 of them are sending up flowers. May have to do a cross in the greenhouse, although 2 of them are unknowns.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

New Plants

I bid on and won 5 plants that Lois Ochs was selling on Ebay. Well, I got the package on Thursday, and besides the 5 I won, she included a "grab-bag" that had 16! unlabelled rhizomes in it! That was so nice of her. I had prepared 3 6.5-gallon minibogs, I was going to plant the 5 I won, interspersed with some of my better 2-year-old seedlings. Well, I managed to fit all 21 in the 3 bogs, but only 2 of my seedlings. Alot of the 16 were pretty small rhizomes, but these bogs will have to be thinned out for sure in another year or two.
The "known" plants that I got:
- S. leucophylla - Hurricane Creek White
- S. x 'Bug Pipes' - a minor x psittacina hybrid. I had this plant before, purchased from David Crump when I visited his place in Charlotte, NC, several years ago. It perished 2 winters ago, and I was ecstatic when I saw Lois offering it on Ebay.
- S. alabamensis x 'Hummer's Okee Classic'. I'm not sure if there was a typo or not on the Ebay listing. I haven't asked Lois yet, but I wonder if it is really just the 'Hummer's Okee Classic' cultivar. Either way, I'm happy.
- 2 unknowns - one is an all red, kind of x mitchelliana-looking plant, and the other is a flava/oreophila-looking hybrid.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

The Last of the Seeds...for now

Stratified my last batch of seeds, for the time being anyway. I have to try and remember that space is finite. I wrapped these, too, in paper towel, but I decided to soak them in peat tea that I brewed up, rather than just RO water. I figured this would be at least a little more natural. I also went ahead and soaked the ones from the previous post, even though they're pretty much ready to be planted now. I'll give them another week or two. Anyway, here's what I stratified:
-'Doreen's Colossus' x ('Leah Wilkerson' x oreophila)
-'Bud Wilkerson' x catesbaei 'Grande'
-'June Bug' - open pollinated
- x excellens - open pollinated
- mixed complex hybrids (ICPS)
- S. jonesii (ICPS)
- S. alabamenis (ICPS)

I also stratified several sets of 15 seeds, from my "seed bank" of open-pollinated species/hybrids collected over the years. I've kept them all in one envelope, so I have no idea what they are. I've got a few from this collection that are 2 yrs old now and there is really a nice diversity of pretty hybrids out of it. Anyway, I have a plan on doing a little research project with them. Basically, it will be similar to the purpurea fertilization study I mentioned in an earlier post, but a little more in depth. The treatments on these seeds will be as follows: Control (no treatment), treatment with foliar Miracid solution, treatment with soil application of Osmocote, treatment with Plant Helper (Trichoderma spp.), treatment with Miracid + Plant Helper, and treatment with Osmocote + Plant Helper. For those that don't know, Plant Helper is a microorganism that forms a symbiosis with plants, fighting off other soil-borne pathogens and supposedly increasing plant growth rates. I guess we will find out if it works on Sarracenia, and if so, how well. More info can be found at www.ampacbiotech.net