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06-12-2013, 12:34 AM

Yeah, I'm going to go with a sand and peat moss mix. Not too keen on that perlite stuff any longer. I did drill some more holes into the sides of that tub so maybe the water level won't rise too high the next time he had a heavy rain.

Sundews are really rather common in areas around here and the odd thing is that I've see them growing in what looks like the darkest, richest, muckiest looking medium imaginable in ditches alongside roadways. It doesn't look in any way particularly nutrient poor at all. The only reason the other plants don't crowd them out is because those ditches are cut and scraped fairly often. Matter of fact, the sundews are growing in between tire treads from the maintenance crews in many areas. In another area I found they are doing logging and land clearing prior to some kind of construction, and I imagine the sundews there aren't going to be around for very much longer. A common practice all across Florida.

Matter of fact, I think some developers would pave driveways with gopher tortoise shells if they thought they could get away with it.

I read somewhere that sundew seeds will remain viable for 50 years, so I guess everytime the ditches are scraped, that just exposes seeds that were laying dormant and a new crop of 'dews pop up. One of my earlier memories of finding sundews was a long while back when Connie and I were on a trip down here to north Florida closer to Jacksonville when we were kicking around an area that looked like it had been clear cut fairly recently. The ground was very moist and literally covered with sundews. I don't believe they could have done very well there while the forest was in place and heavily shaded, but apparently dormant seeds were everywhere in the ground that once exposed to direct sunlight again got them to popping out of the ground.

Some of the fly traps have come back from being burned back by direct sunlight, so when I'm near them and smack a darn yellow fly trying to bite the hell out of me, I feed the dead flies to any trap waiting for a meal. Something pretty satisfying about doing that, to be honest. I wish the yellow flies were directly attracted to those plants. I'd probably buy a zillion of them to get rid of those flying piranhas.

06-12-2013, 12:34 AM	#42
WebSlave	Yeah, I'm going to go with a sand and peat moss mix. Not too keen on that perlite stuff any longer. I did drill some more holes into the sides of that tub so maybe the water level won't rise too high the next time he had a heavy rain. Sundews are really rather common in areas around here and the odd thing is that I've see them growing in what looks like the darkest, richest, muckiest looking medium imaginable in ditches alongside roadways. It doesn't look in any way particularly nutrient poor at all. The only reason the other plants don't crowd them out is because those ditches are cut and scraped fairly often. Matter of fact, the sundews are growing in between tire treads from the maintenance crews in many areas. In another area I found they are doing logging and land clearing prior to some kind of construction, and I imagine the sundews there aren't going to be around for very much longer. A common practice all across Florida. Matter of fact, I think some developers would pave driveways with gopher tortoise shells if they thought they could get away with it. I read somewhere that sundew seeds will remain viable for 50 years, so I guess everytime the ditches are scraped, that just exposes seeds that were laying dormant and a new crop of 'dews pop up. One of my earlier memories of finding sundews was a long while back when Connie and I were on a trip down here to north Florida closer to Jacksonville when we were kicking around an area that looked like it had been clear cut fairly recently. The ground was very moist and literally covered with sundews. I don't believe they could have done very well there while the forest was in place and heavily shaded, but apparently dormant seeds were everywhere in the ground that once exposed to direct sunlight again got them to popping out of the ground. Some of the fly traps have come back from being burned back by direct sunlight, so when I'm near them and smack a darn yellow fly trying to bite the hell out of me, I feed the dead flies to any trap waiting for a meal. Something pretty satisfying about doing that, to be honest. I wish the yellow flies were directly attracted to those plants. I'd probably buy a zillion of them to get rid of those flying piranhas.