Cape sundew (Drosera capensis) flowers

Drosera capensis was the first carnivorous plant that I ever grew successfully.  I got my first plant when I was a school student, I tended it and fussed over it and despite all my well meaning yet poor gardening it survived for years.  They are really quite forgiving and surprisingly simple to grow, yet can also reach a rather impressive size.  From that original plant I learned a lot. 

I stopped growing carnivorous plants for some years, and have started to grow them again.  I am loving growing these again and am slowly building up a nice little collection.  

Among the carnivorous plants I grow I have some D capensis.  I grow most outside where they thrive, and I have a few on my kitchen window sill.

Drosera capensis sending up a flower stalk

I am always amazed at the large number of insects that the sundews catch.  Each leaf is often covered in its prey, often dozens of insects are trapped on each leaf.  I am really surprised at how many mosquitoes they catch, especially inside my house!  I don't know why they catch so many mosquitoes, they really shouldn't be all that attractive to mosquitoes at all, but I am glad that they do catch them.

My capensis are flowering nicely at the moment so I thought I would write a post to show what these look like.

Drosera capensis flowers

Above you can see three flower scapes.  The one on the far left is from the typical form, this is the form I originally grew and it is rather pretty.  In the middle is 'alba' which is anthocyanin free and a strong grower.  On the far right is also alba, but it has leaves and plantlets on the end of the flower stalk.

Drosera capensis 'typical' flower

Above are the purple(?) flowers from capensis 'typical'.  I really like this variety.  They produce many flowers on the stalk and each flower can produce hundreds of tiny, dust like seeds.  The seeds tend to have exceptionally high germination rates.  This particular flower stalk is interesting because it is forked into two branches.  I don't see this very often, but I have a few plants that always do this.  I am not sure if it has genetic or environmental causes.  I should take cuttings from the forking plants and see if their clones display the same forking tendencies.

Drosera capensis 'alba' flower

Above is the flower stalk from capensis alba.  These plants are anthocyanin free.  The flowers are white and the tentacles on the leaves are green/white.  These tend to be very vigorous growing plants that get large pretty fast.  Again they produce huge numbers of tiny seeds with high germination rates.

Drosera capensis with plantlets growing on the flower stalk

I have never seen Drosera capensis grow leaves or plantlets growing on capensis flower stalks before.  I am told it is not overly uncommon, and I believe it may be caused by environmental factors rather than anything genetic.  I kind of like it, and being able to break off the little plantlets and grow them is fun, so it is too bad that this is not a genetic trait.

When I have extra sundews for sale I list them through my for sale page.  I prefer people to pick up these plants but I can post them much the same as I post perennial vegetables.  Sundews sulk a little after postage, and they often lose all of their 'dew', but they tend to survive and grow really well after they have had some time to get established.

VFT seedlings breaking dormancy

I grow a few different varieties of venus flytrap.  I like them.  When grown from seed they tend to display a lot of genetic diversity and each plant is different, but it takes a few years before they reach a decent size.  Unfortunately very few places sell seed of venus flytraps.  

Never buy venus flytrap seed from eBay or Gumtree, most of the time it is fake, they will send you seeds of grass or flowers and by the time you know something is wrong it is too late to do anything.

I have always been told that venus flytraps need dormancy over winter.  I knew people in places without winter who dug them up and put them in the fridge over winter.  I have always grown them in climates with cool winters, so mine have a natural dormancy and I have never had to think about it too much.

I grew a few venus flytraps from seeds, so over winter they went dormant and looked like they were dead.  Then once spring hit, they all started to grow actively.  Some seem to have come out of dormancy easier than others.  Some came out of dormancy well, but now appear to be declining.

I don't have many seedlings, but each is genetically unique.  I look forward to seeing what they grown into and if any are noticably different from any of the named varieties that I grow.

This Venus flytrap seedling was all red over summer

Short petioles, comparatively large traps, lots of traps, good colour - this seedling is a keeper

Growing Sphagnum Moss

Sphagnum moss (one of 380 or so species of Sphagnum) is often used to grow carnivorous plants, or to pack around fragile plants in postage, and a bunch of other uses.  It is expensive to buy dead sphagnum moss, and difficult to find for sale live.  

Years ago I got a strand of it while on a field trip with university.  I grew it in a little glass cup on my window sill along with pygmy Drosera that I also collected on the same trip.  It grew well for a few years, and looked amazing, I eventually lost in moving house.  

Strangely enough I haven't seen live sphagnum moss since then.

A while ago a very generous person posted me some plants, and wrapped the carnivorous plants in live sphagnum moss.  I figured it would be a waste to let the sphagnum moss die, so I wanted to grow it.  

I don't know the best way to grow this, so figured I would try a few different methods. 

Sphagnum moss - growing well and ready to divide

I had some dry sphagnum moss in a packet, so I soaked that in rain water.  I put that in the bottom of a few empty punnets as the substrate, and placed the live sphagnum moss on top.  

I also put a damp little peat moss in an empty punnet, and 'planted' some live sphagnum moss on top.  All of these punnets I put in a tray with a little rain water, much like how I water carnivorous plants.

So far both methods appear to be working and the sphagnum moss is growing. 

I have given them part sun.  From memory full sun makes it grow slowly, but I may be wrong.  Some species are ok with frost and can be frozen solid, I think others may die off if hit by frost.  I am not sure what species this is, so I will protect most in winter and probably leave a little unprotected to see how it copes.

I also put a little live sphagnum moss on top of pots of peat moss that I am growing various carnivorous plant in, hopefully it grows well in there as it looks nice.

I don't know how well this will go longer term, but for now it is growing well for me.  I hope to find where is best in my yard to grow sphagnum moss, and how to grow sphagnum moss, and then once I have enough I plan to use it for carnivorous plants. 

Sphagnum moss - one live strand

Sphagnum moss - one live strand did some growing!

If you know how to grow sphagnum moss, and if you have ever grown sphagnum moss successfully over a longer time period, I would love to hear how you do it.  Trial and error is all well and good, but if I can learn from someone else that is even better.

Black raspberry seedlings and wild strawberries

In September 2019 someone kindly posted me some seeds.  They were seeds of some strawberries (most likely Fragaria virginiana) that had been collected from the wild, some black raspberries (Rubus occidentalis), and saskatoon.

I have eaten wild strawberries in the Arctic many years ago.  These are a different species to the woodland strawberry.  The berries were about the size of my little finger nail, some were pointy, some were round, and they tasted better than anything I have ever eaten.  I grow a few different strawberries that taste incredible, but none of them can compare the the ones I ate in the arctic.  So I hoped that these wild collected strawberries would come close in terms of taste. 

Raspberry are notoriously difficult to germinate.  They do far better after scarification and cold wet stratification.  Both strawberry and saskatoon germinate better after stratification.  I put the raspberry seeds through several different types of acid scarification, put all the seeds on damp paper towel in zip lock bags, labelled everything, and put them in the fridge for a few weeks of cold wet stratification.

Then, life knocked me down pretty badly, and I forgot about my seeds.  In September 2020 I remembered about my seeds in the fridge.  The saskatoon seeds had all germinated and died, as had a small number of strawberry seeds.  The rest of the seeds did nothing, presumably after spending a year in the fridge on damp paper they were all dead.  None of the raspberry seed had germinated.  I figured they were all dead, I figured it was a lost cause.

There was a small chance one or two may have survived, so I planted them.  I had low hopes of anything happening after so long, so I planted them all together, strawberry and raspberry in the same pot.  Nothing labelled.  There was no real point, the chances of even a single strawberry seed germinating was very low.

Strawberry seedlings and Black raspberry seedlings

Then the most incredible thing happened, some seeds germinated.  Then a lot more germinated.  Nothing was labelled or separate, but a good number germinated.  Most were probably strawberry seedlings, which I was very excited about.

As they grew their first leaves some plants looked different, I wondered if they were the black raspberry.

As the seedlings got larger more seeds germinated, then more, then a few weeks later even more germinated.  Other than the saskatoon (which all germinated and died in the fridge) it looks like almost all of the seeds have germinated.  This was completely unexpected, I am really glad I had not thrown the seeds away!  

I now have a small number of black raspberry seedlings, and a good number of wild collected strawberries.  Some of the strawberries are growing runners at less than two months old!

My plants are larger than the photo above.  It is still just a pot of mixed seedlings.  I am waiting for the last of the seedlings that are still tiny to grow a bit larger before I try to separate anything.  I would hate to lose them at this stage.

If all goes well from here I should get to taste the wild strawberries this summer, and it will likely be another year or so before the black raspberries are old enough to fruit.  This is very exciting!