Getting my pots all set up

I've mentioned before that I really don't like mixing up media. However, you can't grow plants without pots of media, so this week I decided to get it done. Especially because I just got this new bowl to use for a pygmy garden.

This is another Carey Cherney pot from the Cactus Jungle.

I'd been meaning to mix up media for a while, but I had been much too busy at work. This week I'm getting a helping hand from mother nature.

Rain is nice, but feels very unfamiliar after all this drought.

We'll be getting a lot of rain in the next 3 days, so I was able to skip the most annoying part of media preparation, which is the rinsing and squeezing to get rid of excess minerals, nutrients, and spores. Now I can just let the storm do that work for me.

15 new pots ready for plants!

I took care to make this mix lighter and airier than prior mixes. It's got the regular peat and sand, as well as a decent helping of perlite and a small but not insignificant amount of long-fiber Sphagnum moss. I'm hoping the additional perlite and LFS will keep things from getting too compacted.

I went ahead and topped my future pygmy garden with sand, since that's how it will be when I actually sow the gemmae.

I went back and forth on whether or not to use sand, but I think it will highlight the pygmies better.

I'm excited! A lack of media has prevented me from expanding my collection and doing more propagation, so I'm looking forward to doing more of that. I've got a big order from Drosera Gemmae queued up.

In order that this post not be totally boring, check out these Drosera callistos, they are looking awesome.

I've been admiring these for weeks now.

That color is outrageous! Pygmy sundews are the best.