My carnivorous bog garden (pictures)

[TXlib]

I planted a carnivorous bog garden last fall. Most of the plants promptly went dormant for the winter, and now they are coming back with a vengeance!

Overview:


Sarracenia flava (S. flava) - Yellow pitcher plant:


S. alata - Pale pitcher plant (the only one native to Texas):


and a closeup of the S. alata:


S. purpurea ssp. venosa - Southern purple pitcher plant:


S. leucophylla 'Tarnok' - White pitcher plant, cultivar 'tarnok':

(this one has just started to come out of dormancy)

Drosera capillaris (D. capillaris) - native to Texas:


D. capensis, normal form - Cape Sundew, native to South Africa:


D. capensis alba - White Cape Sundew:

[SOteric]

1. "Honey! - Have you seen the cat?"

:7

[TXlib]

4. LOL!

These things can't eat anything larger than bees.

The sundews can't handle larger than ants or gnats.

But I would love a "Feed me, Seymour!" kind of plant to feed freepers to!

[slackmaster]

2. Be glad those plants are all small

If they were big the Carolinas would still be unsettled.

[Elidor]

3. I love pitcher plants - when mature they're beautiful

Though not quite as beautiful as their cousin the Venus Fly-Trap. I used to have a huge flytrap. Perhaps I should get another.

[TXlib]

5. I had one too, when I was younger.

They have stricter dormancy requirements, so i didn't want to mess with it.

Maybe later.

[Ready4Change]

6. Very cool, in an Adams Family kinda way.

Love it!

[INTELBYTES]

7. Hey Txlib, I love the garden! I live around Austin...

...how hard is it to maintain this plants around our area? Where do you purchase these plants. I think I'd like to start one of my own.

[undergroundpanther]

9. Venus

Flytraps are very cool.
I had one that got huge,for years,this plant had alot of traps on it,like 15 of them ,Got it as a baby plant with like 2 traps..,and when it was winter I'd take it inside in the house and feed it fly-sized bits of raw hamburger when it could not catch bugs.
It died when my father burnt something during a cold snap,I had it on the table for a big dose of sunlight and my father left the window open next to the table and left the house I was gone too for like 5 hours.I came back and the plant looked OK but gradually some traps fell off and eventually it died. I'd like to get another trap someday,but I don't see Venus flytraps sold anywhere anymore.

[TXlib]

13. I got them from a local guy

http://www.houstonherp.com/

He mostly dabbles in reptiles, but has a huge greenhouse full of CPs, very knowledgeable guy.

A lot of the online greenhouses selling CPs really don't know squat.

I'd also recommend http://www.californiacarnivores.com/

Get the owner's book, The Savage Garden, before you buy any CPs, and read it cover to cover, please. Don't do what so many other people do and run out and buy $100 of plants, and promptly kill them.

Pitcher plants and sundews are very easy to maintain in this area; in Houston, they can be outdoors year round.

[NJCher]

8. what an interesting garden!

What was your motivation or causus belli, as it were, for such a garden?


Cher

[TXlib]

14. I've always been fascinated with CPs

I remember seeing them in a book when I was 5 or so, and getting a big book of them out of the library.

When I was 10, I ordered a venus flytrap from a comic book.

When I was 11, and living in Connecticut, I was amazed to discover that pitcher plants and sundews (Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purpurea and Drosera rotundifolia) were native to Connecticut bogs, and I harvested one of each from a local bog. (Please don't do that; most are in shrinking environments, or endangered. I didn't know better at the time.)

I cared for those plants successfully for years before they eventually died.

Now that we live somewhere where the weather is year-round conducive to CP growing, I wanted a bog garden.

Eventually, I would like to put in a proper garden (like a pond garden, built into the ground.

[blindpig]

10. very nice!

Been thinking about using an old greenhouse foundation (6x10') as a raised garden, do you think that bog carnivores would be feasible in upstate SC? We've got flytraps, pitcher plants & sundews on the coastal plain but I don't see any in the Piedmont.
Are you're specimens captive propagated?

[RebelOne]

11. Those are some fierce looking plants.

Definitely look carnivorous.

[Ratty]

12. I'm so jealous!

As a kid I had an absolute obsession with carnivorous plants. Not just that they ate meat, but because they were all so bizarre and alien looking. I tried growing them many times, but they always died. I couldn't even manage Venus Flytraps.

I envy your green thumb! What a great garden and thanks for the pictures!

[TXlib]

15. Check out reply #13 above

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x941159#941807

Get that book. It tells you EVERYTHING you need to know to raise them successfully.

[Ratty]

16. I just ordered it on Amazon

Thanks for the tip. You have inspired me to re-explore my childhood fascination, something everybody should do in their adult life at least once.

Maybe I'll have some pictures of my own to share in a few months.

[VelmaD]

17. Neato. They've really sprung to life...

since I saw them earlier in the winter when they were still mostly dormant.

Very kewl.