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Re: Welcome to Desparado, my first terrarium

Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2017 7:12 am
by Bob Beer
I don’t think it’s humidity itself that’s the problem. After all, it can get very humid in coastal North Carolina. It’s more the additional conditions they deal with when you put them in closed terrariums - insufficient light (unless you’re growing under lights) often excessive water...winter dormancy when they really don’t want to be too wet. Also there are many different perceptions of “doing well.” People come into our shop all the time with plants they think are “doing well” because they’re “growing so tall”—what they really mean is “etiolated.” Or they insisted their pitcher plant they kept inside “did really well.” And how is it doing now? “Oh, it died. But it was really doing well before.” :-) I.e. the leaves it had grown before they got it didn’t die off immediately.

Yes you can keep a flytrap alive for a while in a closed unventilated container. My question is “okay, but why?” It may survive but why grow it in conditions where it clearly can’t grow at its best?


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Re: Welcome to Desparado, my first terrarium

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2017 4:15 pm
by Shelilla
That's a very good point and I can really relate to that. My flytrap has always been kind of "short and stubby", I've never had it grow tall and green like many of the ones I see. Perhaps it's because it's fairly close to the light? But is that a big issue? I'd just call it phototropism, a plant's reaction to a light source through growth.
And yeah very true. I put mine in my room once hoping it would help dormancy (unnecessary- my room is very dark) and it nearly died.

But one thing I would argue with is this: I have had my baby flytraps for months now growing in unventilated domes (but I do take them off everyday for some air flow) in very wet soil, and this is one of the many seedlings I have doing well in these conditions:
Image

But then again, without having a nice strong light above them I don't think they'd be doing nearly as well.

Re: Welcome to Desparado, my first terrarium

Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 5:22 am
by Volmen
Wow that’s a beautiful red color!


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Re: Welcome to Desparado, my first terrarium

Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:34 pm
by Shelilla
Thank you, it's one of my favourite seedlings, with active "red genes" :)