Australasian Carnivorous Plant Society Meeting on 9 November 2012

I managed to get up to Sydney yesterday to attend the Australasian Carnivorous Plant Society meeting, which was a talk by Robert Gibson on his trip to Los Angeles and the ICPS 2012 conference plus field trips. Here are a few photos of the display plants:

The pros and cons of fertilising Sarracenia–and what happens if you overfertilise them

You don’t have to fertilise to get lovely Sarracenia! This is a Sarracenia flava var. cuprea ex Gotcha! Plants. Fortunately, it survived the fertiliser carnage described later on this page.

Prologue - If you are an experienced CP grower and read only one article on my blog, it should be this one. I wrote it in response to questions people had asked me about fertiliser use in late 2012. By mid summer, I had lost significant numbers of plants to what I thought was a weird fungal rot. I later learned it was fertiliser burn.

Fertilising Sarracenia is a relatively new thing. It was not usually mentioned in the original texts on CPs (although I think Schwartz in his 1970s book did suggest it from memory), and even today opinions vary widely on how to fertilise and what the benefits are.

A snowy start to Spring!

This is the view we woke up to this morning – snow in the Brindabella Ranges.

Nipping Sarracenia in the bud

A few years back, I tried de-budding Sarracenia after repotting to see whether it made a difference. Although the trial consisted of one plant, it was a lot larger than a duplicate that was allowed to flower by the end of the season. This year, seeing I was not interested in making seed, I set about de-budding every repotted Sarracenia.

(Bad iphone photos of) Nepenthes at the Sydney Botanic Gardens Tropical Centre

The Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney were the location of the International Carnivorous Plant Society Conference way back in 2008. Located in the heart of Sydney, right on the harbour, it provides a welcome escape from the hustle and bustle of the city.