Carnivorous plant "N. ventrata"

I made cutting of the N. ventrata today.
It would have been nice if these were hamata cuttings. I'm years away from that.

It's nice that on a fish forum we have our own carnivorous plant thread.

Argh! The horror!

Those are some neat little boxes though. My ventrata cutting (the shoot with the tiny pitcher) is in a pot with a shopping bag shoved over the top. Pretty sad.

The ventrata is in the process of inflating at least 4 pitchers... I guess I can call the acclimation period officially over.

The truncata looks exactly like it looked the day I got it as far as I can tell. Although now that I look at the picture in this thread, the pitcher bud seems to be bigger now. How cool would that be... out of the greenhouse and hitting the ground running. I have no idea how I'm supposed to make cuttings of that thing... I can't even see the stem, really. I'd like to stick to basal shoots anyway if it ever has any. I want that plant to get as big as it's capable of.

I removed about 6 small traps from the big mouth VFT (I actually meant to cut off a clump of the rhizome, but all that came were traps) and a few I put in soil and a few I did this with. You'll get whatever ends up working. My typical VFT just made a 1 1/4" inch trap, so the big mouth has a lot of catching up to do.

Now we can go talk about this on two other forums too.

I knew you would not like that.
Hey, if a shopping bag works....
My plant will look better when the other basal shoots get larger and I end up with a bushy plant instead of one leggy vine.
I hope your VFT-Big Mouth experiment works. I never saw anything about tring it in water before. I've always had about a 95% success rate with pulling a leaf down and getting some of the whitish base and placing it in the soil. You did get the message about the VFT-Red Dragon cutting I made for you a few days ago? Maybe I'll try another in water.
So I see you now signed up on the CPUK forum.

Out of curiosity how long are you going to wait to feed the hamata? I haven't really gotten a clear picture yet of how long it takes an empty pitcher (water added) to become capable of digestion again.

I placed a cricket into the pitcher that looked the best on my plant last night. That was mainly because it was hopping around inside the house.
I would have waited till a new pitcher formed. Then I know the plant has adjusted to its new surroundings.

Mini-update and a question for gecko...

The spatulata seeds you sent me are now seedlings just large enough to be catching gnats... it's pretty impressive. No sign of the capensis seedlings yet. One started to grow but seemed to stop, it's a tiny speck. I may have another tiny speck coming, unless it's some stray moss instead. Think this is normal? I know a lot of seeds take a long time to take hold... it's been 2 months I believe.

I'm just wondering because I got one of those long rectangular pots that I'm going to put a big assortment into... I'd like more than one sundew in it and if these guys aren't going to grow up I need to go looking for some more seeds. Not sure what else I'm going to put in there... "big mouth" VFTs if my cuttings work out... I'd like them all to be around the same size so VFTs and Sundews may be my only options really. Maybe some small sarrs, but I've never really been into them.

I ordered some cobra lily seeds... they've always been some of my favorites since I had (and promptly killed) one when I lived in CA. I'm tempted to stick them in the box even though they get taller than the others. Going to do the ice cubes on the soil thing.

That little pitcher bud on my truncata is now halfway to being a pitcher, and a new leaf will be popping out in a couple days. Not one single sign of acclimation stress. Amazing.

My ventrata has two new open pitchers... and I've noticed that even though one of them has been open for a week, the things it's caught haven't started digesting yet. Guess that tells me not to feed them for a while.

How's the hamata doing?

Glad to hear that some of your seeds are germinating.
I planted around 15 seeds of D. capensis "red" some time ago. I think it was aftar 6 weeks when I first saw some tiny plants starting to germinate. I might have seen around 8 plants, but a fell victim to damping off. They do seem to grow very slowly. Mine are tiny yet and have been growing for a good 3 months now. (See pic)

As for the rectangular pots with several plants in, the sundews I sent you will not work. If your going to plant some sarrs and VFT's, they need dormancy and the sundews you have do not. You could use some D. filiformis, D. rotundifolia, D. anglica, and D. intermedia. These sundews require a dormancy period. If you want some D. filiformis seeds I can send you some for a SASE. I have several seed pods rippening right now. If you also want to try some more D. capensis "alba" I could also send you some more of those also.

Are you going to grow the cobra lilys outside then? I had no luck. I was growing one outside in a white pot and a 1/8" of perlite on top the soil and watered with refridgerated water. It was doing good until a few weeks ago it actually started to get hot and within a week the plant died. I have another one growing inside the house on a south facing windowsill. This one is doing great. New pitchers growing.

Good to hear the N. truncata has settled in well for you.

The bugs in the pitchers do not disappear. I can see cricket shells in the pitchers of my plants from months ago.

The hamata is doing good. Growing it's second leaf. No sign of new pitchers yet.

After I wrote the last post I took a long look at my seed trays and I think I picked out 3 or 4 more specks that could be capensis seedlings. They'll probably be ok.

I didn't know about the dormancy for these particular sundews. As for the cobra lilies, the things I've been reading suggest that a mostly LFS medium is best, which I won't be using in the box. This may end up being an all-VFT box at this rate.

As for the undigested bugs... a waxworm is what I put in that particular pitcher. Usually it's pretty obvious by looking at the worm in the process that it's being digested (I think you've used them too).

You could place some VFT with some sarrs since both plants need dormancy. I have a minibog with VFT's and Sarracenia purpurea (typical height 8"). (see pic, taken early this year) There is also a D. rotundifolia in there.
Next year I might make another minibog which will have my Sarracenia "Dixie Lace" (typical height 10"), move the D. rotundifolia into this bog along with my D. filiformis, and Pinguicula grandiflora since all the plants have the same dormancy requirements. I might have to experiment with the P. grandiflora in direct sunlight all day. It might not be able to withstand the intense afternoon sun.
My cobra lily is happy with a soil mix of LFS, perlite, peat moss, and lava rock.
I've fed my leopard geckos waxworms before breeding season. Never used them on my neps, they are very fatty.

All my plants are indoors... I think I may turn this box into an outdoor growing experiment. I had some of my VFTs outdoors for a little while but something kept eating the new leaves. I'm tempted to just order a ton of bare root VFTs from petflytrap.com and making a big mass of mouths. I'd like to have a massive cluster someday, and this would be a good way to get started on it.

I read about someone preferring waxworms on the CP forum somewhere. Do you think mealworms would be better? Seems like the less exoskeleton left behind the better to avoid fungus, but I don't really know.

I'm not sure how waxworms after time might affect a nep.
I know that I read they are very fatty and not good to feed to lizards often, leads to health problems. That's why they only got them before I started to breed them for the season.
If it were me I'd feed the mealworms. I would use the ones right after they shed and kinda look white. I've thought about starting to raise my own again for the neps, but it's just easier to once in a while stop at the pet store and pick up 12 crickets for $1.00

Was taking some fish pictures and a few plants made it into the mix.

Truncata... big difference from the last pic...



Typical VFT... it's working on some big ones... biggest I've had on a plant so far anyway...

That new pitcher is inflating nicely.

The hamata is unrolling a new leaf. Waiting impatiently for it to pitcher for me. I still think I'm going to have to wait another 2 months before it does for me.

How's your VFT - Big Mouth cuttings working out? I think you are trying some in just water, correct?
I checked on the VFT - Red Dragon leaf cutting and I do not see anything happening yet.
From other vft cuttings I have taken the leaf is amost completely black when I saw new plants finially forming. When I first tried them and saw this, I was about to pull the leaf out of the pot and toss it when I realized that new plants were forming.
The VFT - RD is getting a lot bigger. Here's the latest picture, traps are all most 1"

I just took a picture the other day to capture the color difference in new and old pitchers before the new one colors up.

I'm not sure how the big mouth cuttings are coming. The ones in water haven't sprouted anything yet (it took a long time for that one guy who did it... months and months). I haven't pulled up any cuttings in the soil to check. When a new leaf shows up I'll deem it a success... until then I think I'll just leave them alone. Still trying to get a ventrata cutting to root... seems to take a lot longer than a month for me.