Unbagging the Kids

Yesterday I took the kids out of the refrigerator, where I’ve kept them in bags since December, and have been busy burying them in dirt one by one. Before you pick up the phone in horror and dial the authorities, let me explain that the “kids” are my carnivorous plants, and refrigerating them is essential for meeting their dormancy requirement. As I think of it, the fact that, in addition to being fanatical about tornadoes, I also have a sizable collection of carnivorous plants probably seems fairly ghoulish in its own right, but the truth is, while I may be eccentric, I’m fairly harmless.

For that matter, compared to some members of the International Carnivorous Plant Society, I’m just a dabbler at a fascinating hobby that can be taken much farther than I have the money or the room for. My modest, apartment-balcony-sized collection is nevertheless something I take much delight in. At present it consists of all eight Sarracenia species, including a few subspecies and varieties, and a whole brigade of Venus flytraps.

Not only did the roots of most of my plants grow quite a bit last year, but most of them have also subdivided, which has necessitated my purchasing more and larger pots this year. This has been particularly true of the Venus flytraps. You just wouldn’t believe how the things multiply. I started with five plants a few years ago and now have 2.5 million of them. At least, it seemed like that many back in December when I had to remove them from their pots, wash them off individually, separate their corms at their growth points, remove all of the dead leaves and anything that could rot, wash them in sulfur solution to prevent mold, wrap them in sphagnum moss, spray the moss with fungicide, place them in bags, and finally, stick them in the refrigerator. If that sounds like a tedious process, pat yourself on the back for figuring it out. It took me two evenings to process five freezer bagfuls of flytraps.

Now I face the joyous prospect of unbagging my Venus flytraps and repotting them, and I’m not even sure how many I actually have. Probably somewhat fewer than 2.5 million, but still a lot. The good thing is, planting them will probably take considerably less time than I spent preparing them for the fridge.

As for the pitcher plants, I finished potting the last two bags tonight. Yahoo! I can hardly wait to see how big my Sarracenias will get this year in the bigger pots, particularly since they’re getting a month’s head start on last year. April 2009 was cold the entire month; this year, we’ve already hit the mid 60’s these past few days. And the plants had already begun growing in the refrigerator, sending out pale leaves and white flower stalks. Now that they’re getting some warmth and sunlight, I have a hunch that at least some of them, if not all, are going to go absolutely gonzo.

If you want to meet some of the kids, go to my wildflower and outdoors photos and then click on the sundews, North American pitcher plants, and Venus flytrap galleries. The photos are from 2009. Keep an eye out in a month or two for updates. By then, a lot of the plants will be in flower. This year ought to be a spectacular display, so stay tuned.

March 18, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Outdoors Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Pitcher Plants on the Balcony

It’s getting toward that time of year when I’ll be taking the kids indoors. During the warm months, as far as I’m concerned, they can stay outside all night long, and they do. Pretty soon, though, the nights will get frosty and the kids will get cold. Does that mean I’ll let them in? Heck no. Not right away, anyway. They can darn well stay outside, and without a stitch of clothes on, at that. I’m not about to pamper them. The cold air will do them good before I finally take them inside and shut them in the refrigerator for three months.

Before you report me for child abuse, let me explain that “the kids” are my carnivorous plants, which I keep out on the balcony at my apartment. Presently they are flourishing, still sending up new trap leaves in mid-September. But my white-top pitcher plant, Sarracenia leucophylla, is in the process of rapidly producing its  fall flush of traps, a sure sign that autumn’s triggering mechanism is bringing changes to my little collection. Waning daylight and plummeting temperatures will soon signal the kids to go into hibernation, at which point I will take them out of their pots, wrap them in sphagnum moss, dust them with sulfur, and stick them in the frig for their mandatory rest period.

There will be more of them in the refrigerator this year. The family has grown. Besides several potfuls of Venus flytraps, I now own all eight species of United States pitcher plants. Now I’m working on adding variations, beginning with the addition of Sarracenia rubra var. wherryii, S. flava var. cuprea, and the “maroon throat” variation of S. alata. I’d love at some point to add the rare S. rubra var. jonesii to the collection, but that may be tricky. The variety is cultivated and sold by at least one reputable dealer, but interstate transport may be a problem. Collection from the wild is, of course, out of the question; besides being illegal, the poaching of a rare and endangered species is flat-out reprehensible.

But I digress. Right now, as I was saying, the kids are out on the balcony and loving this warm, moist, misty September weather. My oreophila put out its phyllodia months ago, so it’s got a head-start on hibernation. The rest are, as I have said, still cranking out leaves that seem to be getting only more robust. And I’m really looking forward to the fall show of the leucophylla, which is easily the gaudiest of the Sarracenias.

Yeah, I know–you want pictures. Okay, I’ll post some. But not now. Give me a few days, then look in my photos section under the wildflowers tab. Right now, I just wanted to offer you a diversion from jazz and weather. After all, there’s more to life, and certainly more to my life, which seems to be marked by quirky interests. I’d say the kids qualify for “quirky,” wouldn’t you?

September 23, 2009 by
Filed Under: Humor, Life, Nature, Outdoors Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Remembering May 3, 1999

View from the balcony.

View from the balcony.

Looking at my recent posts, it dawns on me that it has been a while since I brightened things up with a few photos. The above is a purely gratuitious shot of my small apartment complex in Caledonia, Michigan, taken from my balcony. In the foreground, you can see some of The Kids–that is, my carnivorous plants. They’re long and lank right now from being forced to gather what sun they’ve been able to sitting indoors by the sliding door. April’s temperature fluctuations have permitted only occasional forays outside, but I think that at this point they’re there to stay. Now the bright, direct sun can do its work, strengthening their stems so that in another month or two, new leaves on the pitcher plants should stand up straight and tall.

Actually, the Sarracenia oreophila has already been doing just fine in that regard. Once I took it out of refrigeration, it wasted no time sending up a fine crop of stout, trumpet-shaped leaves. Unfortunately, hornets are drawn to the taller pitcher plants like crazy, and they don’t take kindly to being trapped in them. I’ve had to tape several of the oreo leaves after they collapsed due to hornets chewing holes through the sides in order to escape. I’ve got to believe that hornets aren’t the normal fare for Sarracenias in the wild. My plants occupy a habitat three stories above ground level, not exactly the same kind of ecosystem as an Alabama mountain bog or a southern savannah.

Anyway, as you can see from the photo, today is gorgeous here in Michigan, with temps in the upper sixties–on the cool side of warm. A body can wear shorts or jeans, a T-shirt or a long-sleeve; either works perfectly on a day like today. Me, I’m in shorts. I have no plans to go anywhere, since I’m still a bit wheezy from my cold, but it’s nice to just sit here and look out the window at blue sky, white blossoms, and tress leafing out.

Ironically, this picture-perfect May day is the tenth anniversary of the 1999 Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak. On this date, the infamous Moore/Bridge Creek Tornado tore a path from west of Amber to Midwest City, taking 36 lives and becoming the last tornado to be rated an F5 under the original, now passe Fujita scale. A wind max in this tornado of 301 mph, give or take 20 mph, recorded by the Doppler on Wheels (DOW) remains the fastest tornado wind ever measured to date, placing the Bridge Creek tornado at the upper end of even the most extreme tornadoes. Powerful as it was, another monstrous tornado which plowed through the town of Mulhall that same day may have been even stronger.

It’s hard to fathom winds of that velocity. It’s faster than most BB guns. To help you visualize such a wind speed, if a piece of lumber was blowing at you at 301 mph from a house disintegrating 450 feet away, you’d have approximately one second to duck. Granted, the DOW reading was 105 feet above ground, and the surface winds were likely to have been somewhat slower. But I doubt that information would have been very reassuring to residents of Bridge Creek that day as they watched the storm bearing down on them.

What a cheery thought. I think I’ll return to today’s bright sunshine and enjoy it. Storm season is at hand, my cold is on its way out, and I hope to get out to the Plains in another couple of weeks and chase some supercells. But for now, it’s May 3 and the day is beautiful here in Michigan. Who could ask for more?

May 3, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Life, Nature, Outdoors, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,