Drosera adelae has long been one of my favourite carnivorous plants. As a kid in Queensland, I had no trouble growing it. But here in Canberra, I have really struggled with it. Summer growing was no problem, but every winter, I would loose it to cold.
This year, we did some work on our house that made it a lot warmer and this allowed me to keep D. adelae alive through the winter. “Alive” being the operative word though - my plants looked miserable to say the least by spring time. After seeing the beautiful plants grown by AUSCPS Canberra member Barry (above), I decided to set mine up like he had done – in a large glass bowl.
As the plants were so miserable, I decided not to stress them further by de-potting them. So I sat the pot directly into the bowl and covered it with a sintered glass plate as a lit. That solved the humidity issues, but not light. Some of the root suckers perked up with the humidity, but the parent plant was still etiolated and green, with saggy leaves and no dew.
About a month ago, I noticed Ikea sell a LED grow light called Vaxer. I brought one of the 6W lamps and its cord set to try out on the D. adelae bowl, with the resting lens down on a sintered glass dish lid. The results were impressive – see the before (top), one week under the lamp (left) and one month under the lamp (right) photos above. The plants coloured and dewed up within days, and within a week, new leaves had unfurled, were showing colour and staying erect.
After a month under the lamp, the plant has produced beautifully coloured new growth, flowered, and is covered in dew. Curiously, under bright light, this clone produces red flowers, but under lower light produces white flowers. I am feeding the plant using fish food (flakes) sprinkled on the leaves. Next up is to plant it out into the bowl after its recovered for a few more weeks, maybe around Christmas.
Speaking of the tropical Drosera, I’m very happy to report the D. schizandra are also growing well in their coffee jar terraria, and have produced a few new leaves each – one even produced a small offset (see right photo). If they get any bigger, I’ll see about getting them a larger home. If I can keep these plants growing as well as they are, I’ll see about getting some D. prolifera for another try.
