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: , , , , , , , , , ,

Photo of the Kids

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I just finished taking photos of the “kids”–my collection of carnivorous plants. They’re mostly North American pitcher plants, but I do have a very prolific population of Venus flytraps as well. The things reproduce like crazy. Not only are the seeds majorly fertile, but the corms love to divide. Start with one flytrap and in a couple years you’ll have a flytrap village.

Anyway, I have yet to process the rest of the photos to place in my gallery, but I thought I’d give you a little preview. The flytraps have been snarfing down bugs like M&M chocolate covered peanuts, so forgive the fly and hornet exoskeletons. My kids are not very good about brushing their teeth.

September 27, 2009 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Photography 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: , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Beautiful Day in Michigan

IT’SSPRINGIT’SSPRINGIT’SSPRING!!!

It’s SPRIIIIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

Okay, maybe it’s not quite spring officially–still another five days before the vernal equinox–but when I see skunk cabbages blooming in the swamps, then as far as I’m concerned, spring has arrived. Everything else is just a formality.

Skunk cabbage, earliest of the Michigan wildflowers

Skunk cabbage, earliest of the Michigan wildflowers.

With its odd-looking purple cowl shielding a flower spathe within, the skunk cabbage is nothing you’d want to put in a pot on the windowsill, but it’s nevertheless one of my favorite wildflowers. It’s a quirky little plant with plenty of character, plucky enough to lead the procession of the spring wildflowers in Michigan.

I came upon the one above while hiking a wetland trail in Yankee Springs the other day. The afternoon was beautiful, a bit chilly but on the leading edge of a warming trend that will put the temperatures into the fifties by today and as high as sixty degrees by Tuesday.

On a broad, blue day filled with the promise of warmer seasons to come, even last year’s vanishing remnants were transfigured by the sun. A bough of old beech leaves hung like Japanese lanterns in a shaft of sunlight.

Old beech tree leaves catch the sunlight.

Old beech tree leaves catch the sun.

Of course “the kids”–my collection of carnivorous plants–are out on the deck. I removed them from the refrigerator three weeks ago to boot them out of hibernation, and they have responded with a vigorous rush of flowers and leaves. The Venus flytraps are now open for business, and the Sarracenia oreophila isn’t far behind, with an exuberant array of young traps already ten inches tall and nearing the point when they’ll pop open.

White mold wiped out most of my flytrap seedlings during the winter, but a good hundred or so have survived. It’ll be interesting to see how much they increase in size this growing season.

All that to say…YAHOO!!! It’s SPRIIINNNGGG!!! Maybe not by the calendar, not quite yet, but don’t tell that to the robins because they don’t care, and neither do I. Just take a walk in the woods and you’ll know. Spring is here at last.

March 15, 2009 by
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