The Sarracenia Blog: Seedlings & Bugs

I've been to the greenhouse twice in the past week, which is probably a record for me. Since moving the plants into the greenhouse, I've been noticing a slowly increasing aphid population. I've kind of not thought to much about it, because I've never really had any bug problems before. Well, my trip to the greenhouse last weekend exposed me to a pretty sizable aphid population on many plants. Some developing pitchers were nearly completely covered. So I ran out and got a topical/systemic insecticide and let 'em have it. I visited again last night (2 days later) to check on things. Definitely less aphids now, but there are still some isolated pockets of resistance. Here's a pic I took last night of one of those isolated pockets of resistance:
Aphid infestation on a Sarracenia hybrid

Aphid infestation on a Sarracenia hybrid

I should mention the light looks weird because of the greenhouse lights that were on (I was there at night), and I could not figure out how to get my camera's flash to fire while in the light.

I also had to add more material to the compost bin, several plants had died at some point over the past couple of weeks. I really don't know what the problem could be. Most plants look pretty good, and some that look good, don't by the next week. One of the casualties was the open-pollinated oreophila x willisii that just flowered (at 3 years old) that I mentioned in a previous post. What a bummer. I did learn that the misting system in the greenhouse uses tap water. All this time I thought it was RO water, but my wife said the powers-that-be decided not to allocate funds to an RO system, during the planning phases of the greenhouse. Perhaps that is the reason for the casualties. Next year, I will put the plants in the "cool room" of the greenhouse, which uses the misters a lot less often.

To end, here a few pics of some of this years seedlings, most about 3 months old now.
Sarracenia minor x 'Love Bug'