Various goings-on

The other day I decided to try another of the aphid-busting treatments I've seen mentioned: immersion in water to drown the little bugs. I submerged Drosera burmannii and Drosera ultramafica × spatulata in distilled water for 2 days, and then brought them back out into the quarantine tray.

Looking messy post-soak.

They look a bit bedraggled, but hopefully that will have killed all the aphids themselves. There may still be eggs in the soil, so I really need to unpot these things and pot them up again fresh. I've heard that Neem oil can be effective against the pests in the soil, but that's another task. Let's give it some time to figure stuff out.

There's also something weird in my Drosera scorpioides pot.

These plants look hilarious like this.

Besides looking like hilarious aliens from the gemmae, those mounds of peat are very confusing. My friend Anne suggested it might be ants in the pot, and I really hope she's wrong. For the moment, however, I haven't seen any ants walking around, nor have I seen mealies or aphids that they sometimes start farming. I'll have to handle this pot to get at those last few gemmae, and then we'll see.

In more straight-up positive news, my Drosera helodes are flowering, having fully recovered from their gemmae-making.

D. helodes is bouncing back quickly.

I sowed some of those gemmae on a sand-topped pot but those plants are still quite young. Looking forward to seeing the flowers on these.

Out back the Sarracenia continue to go crazy. Here's Sarracenia ×formosa (which is S. psittacina × minor) with a flower bud and 2 new pitchers developing.

The specific epithet is no mistake, this is a beautiful plant.

I got this plant from Meadowview back at the end of August, and it was breathtaking when I unwrapped it and potted it up. It looked a bit dazed in my conditions for a month and then died back, so I'm really excited to see it now that it's all situated.

Finally, the first new growth is coming up on my old Sarracenia minor as well.

Little baby pitcher.

This is an exceedingly handsome plant when it's in full growth, and the pitchers from last fall are still around looking good. Can't wait to see the new flush!