Propagation interlude

I'm still planning a follow-up to my BACPS Show/Sale post, but in the mean time I wanted to do a little update from home. Yesterday I finally decided to get one more set of lights to use in a propagation area, but stupidly forgot to buy a 2 dollar set of hooks to hang the lights. I'll have a picture of my setup later, but I did want to share a couple pictures of my current running propagation efforts.

First up, my Drosera 'Marston Dragon' flower stalk cuttings that sprouted in water transferred well to the media. Each chunk had a small root or two, which made it a lot easier. Here they are acclimating to the media in a humidity tent.

I've heard flower stalk cuttings work great, and they did well in water. On the media, not so much.

I'm gonna give them a few weeks in here and then start hardening them off. I also have some D. 'Marston Dragon' leaf cuttings that started on water, and transferred to media back at the end of April. I didn't mention it on the blog I think, but they rapidly declined and looked terrible. However, there are a couple of little strikes that seem to have made it. It was hard to get a picture with the angles and the humidity, but I've begun hardening them off.

The D. 'Marston Dragon' leaf cuttings are much slower going, but a bit more time and maybe they'll become monsters too.

I think I should have let them get a bit bigger in the water before transferring to media. We'll see with my next round of cuttings.

I also started some Drosera ultramafica x spatulata some time ago, and have gotten a few robust strikes. I've also started hardening these guys off.

I love the deep red color on this hybrid.

Finally, I wasn't able to get a decent picture, but in another pot I have at least 2 Drosera anglica CA x HI strikes. Hopefully they'll get easier to photograph in a couple weeks.

My Drosera capensis window box thingy is finally picking up some steam. There are probably 6 or 7 plants that have passed from the seedling stage to the plantlet stage and are starting to get nice and big. Also the moss is going crazy, but whatever!

It's a whole ecosystem in here.

I bet they'll be looking great by Christmas.

As a last note, I fed my whole collection last night, and my prize Drosera burmannii are super excited to be eating again (I avoided feeding them for about a month before the show to get the color right). Eat up guys, you earned it!

The flower stalk on that largest plant is enormous, like 18 inches (45 cm) tall.