Blooms of the 2011 growing season thread

[RosieC]

Not sure if this thread is meant to be outdoor plants, but wanted to share these cute sundew flowers from my greenhouse.

The flowers are tiny, no more than 10mm. Each only opens for 1 day, starting to open in the morning and closed again by evening. The flowers are sequential on a relatively long spike (compared to the plant size) and it generally has one flower open per day, moving along the spike, which uncurls as each flower opens to bring that flower to the top.

Still experimenting with depth-of-field, which is why it's too shallow on two of these pics. We'll get the hang of this soon

[Jennyfleur]

Cute flowers Rosie... and sundews are technically an outdoor plant I admit, I tend to cut mine off (and the ones for the flytraps). I left them on once and the plant nearly died!

[RosieC]

Thanks Jenny,

Interesting, the first of the sundew which flowered last month is struggling now. This one is still doing well but has only just started, so maybe I need to remove the spike.

I also have a venus which has decided to flower so maybe I need to remove that. Especially as I don't think the venus is catching anything, we mainly have tiny fungas gnats which the sundew and butterwort love but too small for the venus. The butterwort keeps flowering and doesn't seem to suffer from it, it's growing leaves like crazy as well as flowering.

[Jennyfleur]

I would definately suggest clopping off the venus flowers (they use a huge amount of energy when making them) Maybe just keep an eye on the sundew, if it looks like it's stuggling, give it a clip, if not, then don't. Also, before this turns into a thread hi-jack, you'd be amazed what the traps can get other than flies, one of mine just opened to reveal a munched spider

[Tindomul]

Those are awesome flowers!!! Congrats.

[RosieC]

Originally Posted by Jennyfleur

you'd be amazed what the traps can get other than flies, one of mine just opened to reveal a munched spider

Just got back from Holiday/Vacation and three traps have closed while I was away... guess what, with the light shining behind one of them I can see the dark shape of a spider inside Not sure if anything is in the other two, but at least I know it's had something to eat now

[cday2inflorida]

Florida has some beautiful carnivorous plants. There is a bog behind a friends house in North Florida that is full of Sarracenia, butterworts, bladderworts and sundews.
Your sundew is very nice.



Thunbergia erecta - I put in enough of these to hedge the back of the property.

[ronaldhanko]

Here are a couple more wildflowers from the Columbia River Gorge:

Piggyback Plant (Tolmiea menziesii)


Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum)

[ronaldhanko]

And a couple more from the Leavenworth area:

Mountain Rose (Lewisia tweedyi)


Slender Paintbrush (Castelleja miniata):

[ronaldhanko]

This one is from the Columbia River Gorge:


Upland Larkspur by Ron Hanko, on Flickr