Winter Doesn't Want To Leave

This has been one of the most depressing early springs so far, at least since we moved back to WI. We had a nice little stretch of milder temps about 2 weeks ago that melted most of the snow that had accumulated over winter. Then, last week, we got a nice 9" snowfall to nullify all the snowmelt. Now, we've slowly been getting a couple of degrees warmer each day for the past week or so. I think 45F is the forecast for today. A good chunk of that 9" is about gone, but they're saying maybe an inch or two tonight of slushy snow, which should melt during the day tomorrow, but the major depressing point is a big low-pressure system forecasted to come through early next week. The different forecast models are not in agreement of the path this cyclone will take, but the further south it is, the more of a chance of us seeing snow. If it takes the most southerly route, they're saying we could see a signifcant snowfall. This is really depressing. Another big snow means it'll be that much longer until I can move my plants outside - as snow melts, and in turn evaporates, it sucks up a lot of heat energy from the air, which means temps will stay low, this also keeps the ground a lot colder, and so on. It doesn't start warming up too much here until the snow melts and the ground dries up. Due to the angle of the sun, my garage is getting fairly mild now, despite low temps at night still in the upper teens/low 20's, my minibogs have remained thawed, and it warms up probably into the 50's during the day. So I've actually been seeing a few flower buds getting ready to emerge. I'm also seeing some saprophytic fungi develop, which is always an issue this time of year. Conditions are perfect for it in the garage now - low light and milder temps. This is usually when I move them outside, which pretty much eliminates the fungi, but it is still too cold at night. So, I just hope this turns out to be a rain, or mostly rain event next week. If so, it should melt any remaining snow, and allow temps to finally start moderating.

I visited the greenhouse, briefly, earlier this week, to check on the aphid situation, and was happy to see that there are very few remaining. That insecticide I used was awesome! I will try and get in this weekend and take some pics, some of the plants are looking pretty good. I noticed a couple of huge 'Doreen's Colossus' pitchers, that, unfortunately, are a bit malformed from the aphids, I presume. I can see why the plant got that name though. Wow! I also need to start repotting this years new seedlings, some are getting pretty crowded.

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:

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.

This one is actually 1 year old, S. minor x 'Love Bug'



S. ('Ladies in Waiting' x 'Judith Hindle') x 'Leah Wilkerson'


S. leucophylla x 'Adrian Slack'



S. oreophila x 'Toadmaster'. I posted a pic of these in a previous post, right when they first germinated.

Early March Update, or lack thereof

It has been too long since I've been to the greenhouse. Starting to worry a bit about the seedlings, as there is no one watching over them. There are all mostly covered, but I've had to water some of them a little, from time to time. Mainly, I've been sick as a dog for the past week. I was starting to feel the onset of a cold late last week, and then last Saturday, we (the fam) headed to Madison, WI, to participate in the workers protests going on there. So I was outside all day, in a steady snow and about 28 degrees. Needless to say, by Sunday morning I was in misery, and continued to be all week, and still am, a little, although I definitely feel much better. To top it off, my wife has temporarily misplaced her swipe-card to get into the greenhouse, so I don't know when I'll get there.
As it is March, temps should finally start trending ever-so-slowly upwards. We're forecasted to get a major snowstorm next week, so winter is definitely gonna be here for awhile yet, but the long-term models show a warming trend is coming. Which means I need to start dividing the stuff that's in my garage. So far, everything still looks alive in there, but I've learned that doesn't mean anything. Every garage-wintered plant I've lost looked fine until I moved it outside, at which point it turned to mush in a matter of days. So I'm hoping that I can move everything outside by early April and have stuff divided a week or two before that. My only fear is losing flowers to frosts, which can occur up through mid/late May, although it's pretty rare to get one after the middle of May.

Pollination

In the midst of doing some pollinations in the greenhouse. I've been using 'Doreen's Colossus' as the father on 3 other plants so far: (oreophila x willisii) x open-pollinated, 'Tapestry', and leucophylla x flava rubricorpora. The last two should yield some nice looking plants, I think. The cross with the (oreophila x willisii) x OP, I'm not so sure what I'll get out of that. Probably just some large, mostly green oreophila-looking pitchers. Both plants don't have much color to them, but there was nothing else to pollinate it with at the time. I guess there could always be some surprises. Being open-pollinated, I have no idea what the father was. I'm guessing it was self-pollinated, but you never know. Also, with 'willisii' in the genetics, there's always a possibility of getting a more decumbent pitcher. Time will tell.

First Flowers of the Year

Paid another visit to the greenhouse on this Super Bowl Sunday. Being a huge Packers fan, I needed something to calm the nerves, so a visit to the greenhouse was the perfect remedy. I was happy to see germination in just about every pot of seeds I had sown this fall/winter. Also, the first flowers have opened up. First is the open-pollinated oreophila x willisii shown in the previous post. It has some interesting lobes on a few of the petals. Not sure if this is a genetic thing, or just due to environmental factors:


The other flowers to have opened up are 'Doreen's Colossus', a flava x oreophila hybrid:

I crossed the 2 plants, using 'Doreen's Colossus' as the pollen donor on the open-pollinated oreophila x willisii.
My last order of business for the day was discarding 1-year-old seedlings that were deceased, which turned out to be more than I had thought. I'd say roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of the pots had dead plants in them. Here is a pic of the empty pots following the mass burial:

There are still a lot of seedlings left, so I am not too upset, although I did lose 100% of several crosses that had potential. On the bright side, this frees up some space, and pots, which are in short supply.
There should be several more flowers open by next weekend. I will have to invest in some paintbrushes.

Picture Update

Paid a visit to the greenhouse this past weekend and was amazed at what I saw. First, I noticed the first seeds are beginning to sprout. S. oreophila x "Toadmaster" is the first out of the gate:


Second, many of the one year old plants have sent up new growth, even ones that appeared to be dead:


There are definitely many that I'm about to give up on. It seems the ones that suffered most were the second "batch" that sprouted last year. I had basically 2 batches of seeds that were sown. The first batch sprouted around Christmas of 2009, and the second batch sprouted in early spring of 2010. I will definitely be more careful with this year's batch of seedlings.

Third, I noticed a flower on a seed-grown plant, 3 years and 1 month after it germinated. It is an open-pollinated S. oreophila x willisii:


Lastly, I noticed a bunch of flowers emerging on some older plants, including many that I purchased at Oudean's Willow Creek Nursery last May, including 'Doreen's Colossus' and 'Tapestry' (what a nice cross that would make):



One last shot, of an unknown S. purpurea hybrid that kind of sums up how things are looking in the greenhouse. It shows a new pitcher emerging, as well as some Drosera filiformis waking up, as well as some weedy white violets, that I've given up on trying to eliminate:

Mid-January Update

Paid a visit to the greenhouse this morning, where all of my younger plants were moved recently. I also dropped off the rest of my seeds that were in cold stratification. I obseverd a lot of new growth on seedlings from last year, although there are still a good number that pretty much look dead. I'll keep them in there and hope for the best, but I don't feel too confident they are still alive. There are enough showing new growth that I don't feel too upset about it, but I definitely learned a lesson on seedlings this year. Some of the older (2-3 year old) seedlings are also waking up, and I even observed a flower bud, about 2" tall now, on a 3-year-old open-pollinated oreophila x willisii. Unfortunately, there will be nothing to cross it with, other than itself. So maybe someday I'll have some self-pollinated open-pollinated oreophila x willisii. Something to look forward to years from now.
I also checked on the seeds I had moved in there a little while ago. I don't remember the date off hand, but I did observe some germination! The first to sprout this year are a cross of S. oreophila x 'Toadmaster', which I got off Ebay. They just very recently sprouted, as there are no cotyledons visible yet, just the root shoots curved into the soil. I also observed one seed of S. flava x 'Medusa' just beginning to sprout. Hopefully, the rest of its siblings soon follow suit. The other two sets of seeds that were brought into the greenhouse with them show no signs of anything yet, but I will definitely be increasing the frequency of my visits now.
I still am meaning to get in there and divide some of the older seedlings that have multiple growth points, but life has just been too busy with the holidays, plus a death in the family, so I haven't really had much time to do anything. Hopefully things settle down now.