Monday, August 15, 2011

CaRNUCOPIA has moved!

This will be my last post on Blogger, folks. I've decided to move my blog over to WordPress. My new web address is: http://carnucopia.wordpress.com/

Hope to see you there!!!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The Fellowship of the Bog

So I may (or may not) have mentioned that I only have a small growing space outside for my Sarracenias and other outdoor CPs here in SF. In the past few months I've felt the space crunch and had to thin out my beloved collection. However, some Sarrs I simply just can't part with so I've decided to ship them to The Shire (aka Upstate NY). The plan is to create a bog garden and put all of my Sarrs in there when I'm visiting my parent's house at the end of August. It'll be a lot of work but once I'm done they'll have a permanent home where they can grow their little hearts out. I'm sure they'll appreciate the full sun and high humidity of those NY summers! Here's a photo of the "future bog site" as it looks right now. It is an island of plants that are far less interesting than Sarracenia.

This is how the island looked before any work began.



Thanks to my Dad, the small chartreuse-colored tree is
now gone. Construction is underway!



Yeeeeeessss. :-]



Go Dad! Nothing left now but some big rocks and roots.


Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Darth Nepenthe

"I was watching the Star Wars marathon on TV last night and got to thinking: "If Darth Vader was a nepenthes, which one would he be?" Kind of a tough question to answer but I figured the best choice out of my own collection right now would be my Nepenthes izumiae x XTrusmadiensis. I've attached a pic of my plant. This is the first pitcher I've gotten so far. Hopefully as it matures it will get darker and more Sith-like."

*The above quote was from a new thread I started on Terra Forums. I'm interested to see the responses from other users. Follow this link to check it out:

http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127180

Here is the photo of my Darth Nepenthe...



Saturday, May 28, 2011

Purple People Eater...Revisited!

I first posted about this particular Sarracenia cultivar back in February when I had just received it in the mail. Back then there wasn't much to show, just some dormant rhizomes. The same can NOT be said now!



This gem is fast becoming one of the favorites of my Sarracenia collection. Hopefully I can keep the aphids and caterpillars off of it (some of my other pitcher plants haven't been so lucky). Can't wait to see what other pitchers it has in store for me this season!

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Hamata is King (of my collection)

I'd say out of all the Nepenthes out there, the one that evokes the most admiration from growers has to be N. hamata. [Ok, maybe that isn't entirely true. N. macrophylla and N. edwardsiana are heavy-hitters too. I don't have an N. edwardsiana (sigh) BUT I do have two N. macrophyllas. I'll have to save that for another post though. :) ]

Aaaanywaaays...

If that N. hamata also happens to be seed-grown then double that admiration. The reason I say this is that I've seen the sheer number of responses and views from online posts related to hamatas. People go crazy for 'em! Also, prices for tissue-cultured plants are usually high. I'm not really shocked though since this has to be the most sinister-looking of all Nepenthes (and perhaps any other carnivorous plant). Those wicked, recurved teeth. That wild hair on the top of the lid. That cool pattern on the pitcher. What's not to like?!?! Alright, alright...I'll quit gushing about this plant (for now) and go ahead and show you my seed-grown N. hamata. Here is the latest (and greatest) pitcher. ENJOY!


Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Wacky Weather

Lucky (unlucky?) for me most of my carnivorous plants are grown indoors. Lately we've been having some weeeird weather: hail, water spouts, torrential rain, tsunami warnings and thunder & lightning! Outdoors my Sarracenias keep on keepin'-on and a lot of them are starting to put up flowers. That's always a sure sign of Spring for me. I just trimmed off the old pitchers from last season yesterday. I'll have to post some photos soon of the first flowers and pitchers of the season coming up!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

My Newest Roommate

So this past weekend I attended my fourth (or maybe it was fifth???) Pacific Orchid Expo here in San Francisco. I'm always in awe at some of the amazing orchids I see there so I can imagine how bad it must be for true orchid aficionados. My favorite exhibit (AND sales booth) always belongs to Andy's Orchids. They have an AMAZING selection of species orchids. In years past I've gone to their sale booth without a plan only to find myself dazed and confused an hour later not knowing what to buy. This year I decided to make things easier on myself and go with an orchid native to a place where most of my favorite Nepenthes come from: Borneo. After finding a friendly salesperson and giving her my criteria, she was able to track down a few orchids from Borneo for me. I'll admit that it still wasn't a piece of cake when it came time to choose but boy did it help! I ended up leaving the show with a Bulbophyllum macranthum. It's not in bloom yet but the photos that I've seen online of the flower are growing on me :] Check it out:

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080228065153/orchids/en/images/thumb/d/d5/
Bulb_macranthum.jpg/220px-Bulb_macranthum.jpg

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Snow in SF?!?!

I got a kick out of the following website: http://www.isitsnowinginsfyet.com/

Apparently it was created after word spread that snow was expected in San Francisco. It turns out we DID get some afterall but it was a light dusting and only at higher elevations (i.e. Twin Peaks). Sadly I didn't see any of the white stuff and I hope my CPs growing outside fared alright. I'm worried I should have dumped the water out of some of my saucers that my Sarracenia and Drosera were residing in. Hopefully they didn't freeze solid. Guess I'll find out soon enough...

Saturday, February 19, 2011

The Lamentation of Mount Roraima

I recently found out about an expedition to Mount Roraima in Venezuela in the month of April. It would have been one of those "trips of a lifetime" to go explore one of the grandest tepuis in South America. On the mountain there is a fantastical array of fauna, flora and earthly formations. For carnivorous plant nuts such as myself, we would have the opportunity to see Heliamphora, Drosera, Utricularia and even some carnivorous bromeliads. To top it all off, the trip was being lead by Stewart McPherson (author of such books as Pitcher Plants of the Americas and Glistening Carnivores)!!! It also happens to be the 100th anniversary of Arthur Conan Doyle's book The Lost World, which was inspired by Mount Roraima. As some would say, this would have been a trip of EPIC proportions. But alas, I got ahead of myself and later realized that it just wasn't in my budget to go on the trip at this time. SIGH. :( I estimate the total cost to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $6,000. I hope they have another trip there in the near future but that, presently, is still unknown. I urge anyone with the funds to contact Stewart McPherson right away to see if there still might be an opening in one of the two expeditions headed to Mount Roraima in April. For now I'll have to make due with this Heliamphora heterodoxa x minor in my living room...


Thursday, February 17, 2011

SPECTAcular SPECTAbilis Hybrid!

Nepenthes spectabilis 'Giant' x spathulata

This is one of my newer, favorite hybrids that I got towards the end of 2010. It took a while to get settled-in but recently has put out two GORGEOUS pitchers and the growth rate of the plant seems to have increased considerably. I'm real excited to see how big the mature pitchers on this plant will be. I just hope it doesn't out-grow it's home!!

Friday, February 4, 2011

Purple People Eater

What's not to love with a name like that?? I recently acquired a Sarracenia hybrid called 'Purple People Eater' from California Carnivores. Peter D'Amato told me it was a seed-grown hybrid they made back in the 9os whose heritage was lost. Apparently, a customer who purchased one of the originals brought in some divisions of his mother plant recently and I pounced on one of 'em! You gotta love those mystery hybrids. From the looks of it though it definitely has some S. purpurea in it. Right now the plant is dormant so all I've got to admire are some shriveled pitchers from this past growing season. Also, the plant isn't as large as photos of others I've seen online so it still has a lot of growing to do as well. Hopefully with a little TLC it will end up looking like this one:

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh214/txwatcher91/P1080852.jpg

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Hortus Botanicus

I've kinda been procrastinating about uploading my photos from my summer trip up to Mendocino County, CA. Fiiinally I got around to resizing and saving some of them from my visit to Hortus Botanicus in Fort Bragg. Let me just say that if you've never been there and you live in the Bay Area, then you really should make the effort to get over there. It's such a cool little nursery with an emphasis on weird botanical delights. I'm talking succulents, orchids, bromeliads, South African natives, Australian natives and last...but certainly not least...CARNIVOROUS PLANTS! The owner, Robert Goleman, has a very impressive personal collection of carnivorous plants as well as many different genera of CPs available to purchase. I've attached a few photos below of the many Sarracenia species and hybrids residing there. Enjoy!

{FYI: another post about HB is likely to follow with more photos}











Monday, January 31, 2011

Neps as Bat Houses???

Just read an article the other day talking about bats in Borneo roosting and defecating in Nepenthes rafflesiana elongata. I've heard of Nepenthes such as N. lowii and N. jamban having pitchers adapted to catch bird poo but never heard of an animal like a bat actually roosting in aerial pitchers. Pretty interesting stuff. I love how nature is so adaptable. Seems like they're discovering something new everyday over there in Borneo. I REALLY need to get there one of these days. Anywho, here's the article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9372000/9372874.stm

Friday, January 14, 2011

2011: The Year of Opportunity!

Well 2011 is upon us! One of my New Year's resolutions is to post much more frequently to this blog. The way things look for 2011 I'll definitely have more to talk about in the carnivorous plant realm. For starters...I've currently got many different types of Nepenthes seed sowing as well as some Nepenthes cuttings taking root. Also, I just ordered various types of Drosera seed that should be arriving next week as well.

Looking forward to the BACPS Winter Meeting tomorrow at the SF Conservatory of Flowers!
http://www.bacps.org/nextmtg.html