FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

dubstep13 wat is in miricle gro thats bad for the plants

Miracle gro peat moss is enriched with fertilizers. Since carnivorous plants are specially adapted to absorbing minerals from their leaves rather than their roots, fertilizers will burn the plants roots and result in it's very quick death. :I

has any one ever revived a butterwort mine looks pretty bad but i checked the roots and it looks lik it has a really big chance of coming back it is a butterwort primose

We'd need a lot more information in order to tell you if it stands a chance, really. Perhaps starting your own topic in the butterwort subsection with photographs and indepth details as to what conditions its been kept in, watering schedules etc would make it much easier for us! =]

Just got my first ping and I am wondering where to put it in my house. I had planned on putting it in the kitchen window sill, but it is a south-facing window that gets alot of sun, especially in the summer. Should I find a different location, or just try it in that window?
I ordered two different pings: one is moranensis (I know, my spelling is atrocious!) and the other is primuliflora.

Congratulations on your new Pinguicula! P. moranensis is a Mexican Pinguicula, whereas P. primuliflora is often classified as a warm temperate species, so they'll need differing conditions.

For the moranensis, a south facing windowsill will likely be ideal, especially if it gets a lot of sun as these plants are quite sun loving. The primuliflora may well do absolutely splendidly in bright sun alongside the moranensis, though there has been a little debate as, in their natural environment, some of these plants are sheltered by other plants. A window filters out some of the harmful UV of the sun, so I imagine that the windowsill would be fine as long as the other conditions needed by the plants (they differ quite a bit in some ways, but we're more than happy to help with that if you have further questions ) are met.

In terms of categories, there's actually more than just the Mexican and temperate ones.

Generally, there's ~4 or so categories: Mexican, tropical, warm-temperate, and cold-temperate.

Cold-temperate species like P. vulgaris and P. grandiflora actually form a winter resting bud (hibernaculum) and need colder winters than the warm-temperate species.

Warm-temperate species are basically all the SE USA native species, e.g. P. primuliflora, P. caerulea, P. planifolia and so on. These also go dormant during the winter but generally slow down and maybe die back a bit rather than form a real resting bud.

Mexican species are the ones most people are familiar with: P. moranensis, P. x 'Aphrodite', P. gypsicola and that sort of stuff. These are the ones with a dry "dormancy" and have carnivorous leaves in active growth, and succulent leaves during the resting period.

The tropical species don't really have a resting period as far as I know (I think one or two might have some weird heterophyllous growth pattern). Some of them may be fairly short lived. Barely anyone grows them, but they are available some places and the requirements are really quite different from the others. This group consists of P. chuquisacensis, P. filifolia, P. cubensis and the like.

There are a few weirdo species that don't really fit in with the others either, and "exceptions to the rule". A couple homophyllous Mexican species (P. emarginata is the only one off the top of my head, P. moctezumae might also be in practice) don't like to dry out during the winter and grow year-round. This is probably the important exception, as both of these are fairly commonly grown.

Then there's a couple annual species like P. lusitanica , which are pretty self explanatory.

Finally there's the whole P. crystallina complex which is just... weird. They're definitely temperate and live in places you'd expect cold-temperate species to be, but they don't form hibernacula. Species in this complex are generally found on rocky cliffs that are kept permanently wet by a film of water, which might explain some of their oddities.

EDIT: Lol I didn't see this was from 2009

On the note of P. moranensis and P. primuliflora, both have done pretty well for me as windowsill plants. They're really not too picky. If you're going to expose it to a lot of sun, make sure you keep the P. primuliflora quite wet as it can easily shrivel and die. With strong light it tends to have a more starfish like shape and puts out lots of really pointy leaves. I'd personally plant the P. moranensis in an inorganic mix if they're going to be grown together so that both can just be sat in a tray of water. With the normal peat sand perlite mix P. moranensis doesn't really love to be sitting in water all the time, but with a chunkier mineral mix you can keep the water table higher.

Also you spelled both names perfectly, no worries