Copper2 wrote:Hey, and Salty A ioli, I came here to have fun and learn something. You people have insulted me! Didn’t think about that did you?
Hey Copper2, I sincerely apologize. No harm intended at all. Looking back at the discussion, I can see now how what I wrote could easily have been insulting. I am sorry. As I mentioned before, we are all exchanging information here to learn from each other. I have definitely learned from your posts many times. I hope you can forgive. Again, no harm intended and sincere apologies!!
sanguinearocks101 wrote:Sorry for adding a little bit of fuel to the fire but I agree with Copper.
Hopefully there is no fire to fuel! As far as I can tell, no one has been intentionally rude or condescending. We've just been having an honest discussion. Sometimes people have different opinions (albeit strong opinions) on subjects, even if they have a very strong common interest in the same topic. That's totally OK! As long as everyone has an open mind, I think we all walk away from these sorts of discussions better off for having them.
help/bbcode
_-SphagnumFromHell-_ wrote:And Barry Rice, a botanist and writer about carnivorous plants, has said some stuff that is quite contradictory to a lot of the knowledge shared here. He's stated that Flytraps don't need big pots and their seeds should be stratified. And this is someone that without a doubt should know what he's talking about.
Great point! I agree that "Flytraps don't
need big pots" but they certainly do grow much, much better in big pots! And their seeds absolutely do not need to be stratified, so I can't agree with that part of the statement.
_-SphagnumFromHell-_ wrote:I also recall some other highly regarded source, either the book "The Savage Garden" or the guys over at Sarracenia Northwest or somewhere similar saying that LFS is simply inferior to peat because of its tendency to get too wet too quickly. And look at half of the people on these forums! They swear by it.
Another great point! It is likely that some of you have read the discussion I had on this forum many years ago now with Joel Garner of Joel's Carnivorous Plants. At that time (and still to this day), the best looking flytraps I had ever seen were grown by Steve Doonan in New Mexico and he used the 5:3:2 (peat:silica sand:perlite) growing mix so I assumed it was the best. I was extremely skeptical of Joel's assertion that Venus flytraps grow better in the LFS. In fact, I would say I was nearly dismissive of Joel. However, I didn't entirely dismiss his experience and decided to experiment with LFS and our peat-base mix in a side-by-side comparison of the two. My experiment had 10 genetically identical plants with 5 of them planted in the peat and 5 planted in the LFS over the course of a single growing season. For me, the results were eye-opening and a big revelation. As a result, over the course of the next year or so, we repotted all of our multiple thousands of Venus flytraps into NZLFS and moved entirely away from peat for flytrap growing.
Are there some drawbacks to growing flytraps in the NZLFS? Absolutely. Is it the "best" growing medium of all time? For us in our climate along with our goal of growing as many tiny flytraps to young or young-adult size in the shortest amount of time, yes, it is the best. However, the peat-based mix certainly wins in many climates and growing situations for many growers.
In any case, please don't take disagreements to heart. They happen. Equally important is trying to keep an open mind and understand that everyone has their own ideas and experiences that shape their opinions. Those shouldn't be discredited by anyone on face value, but it is OK to question them (in a polite way) with your own thoughts from your own experiences. I do understand that someone questioning your thoughts might seem insulting but most of the time a discussion like this one will ultimately make all of us much more educated. For that, we should all be thankful that we are willing to communicate with each other! We are all getting more intelligent simply by reading this forum