More Flowers on my Little Carnivores

I posted earlier about the little carnivorous plants which my kids picked at the Van Dusen Plant Sale in Spring of 2008. They lived happily in the garden over the summer, catching quite a number of spiders and flies, and then kept me company on my kitchen windowsill over the Winter.

I meant to place them back outside this summer, but somehow I have bonded with these little guys, and don't feel as motivated to put them back outside. It didn't help that first the Venus Flytrap surprised me by sending up its beautiful white flower.

Then the Sundew decided to beat that by sending up a stalk which has been showing off a succession of pink flowers, about 30 in total, over the last couple of months.

I wish I had paid more attention to the timing of it, but it is something like this: A single flower opens every second day. Each flower lasts only one day. The bud closest to the plant opens first, and then the next, until the one at the very tip. But as each flower emerges, the flower stalk bends at that point, so the flower is at the top, and the buds curl down below it. Here it is in June, half way through the blooms:

Now, just as it has about 4 more buds to go, a second flower stalk has started. How delightful.

Both the Sundew and the Venus Flytrap have produced offshoots, which I should be able to pot up if I want to share these little wonders with a friend. They are bog plants which like full sun, so they enjoy the window, but are easy to care for, I just top up the water (pretty much daily in the summer) in the outer cup whenever the water level drops too low.

The tags on the plants read:

Red Cape Sundew
Drosera capensis "Red"

and

Venus Flytrap
Dionaea muscipula "Regular"

Both are from Hawaiian Botanicals and Water Gardens, 604-270-7712, http://www.hawaiianbotanicals.com/

Currently, they only ship within Canada. They direct US visitors to search by Google, or visit http://www.cobraplant.com/.

Little Carnivores For My Little Sprouts

Since I'm not yet snapping many photos of my garden, which is just barely emerging after all the snow we've had this winter, I wanted to say a couple words of appreciation about the little plants which have kept me company on my windowsill all winter.

Last Spring, I was excited to attend my first plant sale at Van Dusen Gardens in Vancouver, BC. In fact, it was the first time I have actually been inside the gardens (not counting being in the restaurant at its edge). I had talked my mom and her friend Violet and my two kids into going. Although the weather was a bit drizzly that day, we carried our umbrellas, and enjoying the experience anyhow.

I picked up a few plants which were meaningful to me at the time. The most exciting was a Cardiocrinum Giganteum (Giant Himalayan Lily). I hear that it can take 5 to 10 years to flower, from seed. So hopefully the one I bought is already a few years into that. It didn't look too good by the end of the summer, so I'll be waiting anxiously for signs of life this year.

My kids are wonderful, the tolerated my shopping, and wanted to do some of their own. The ended up each picking a carnivorous plant : a sundew, and a venus flytrap. At the time, I tried to talk them out of their choices, they seemed too expensive (about $10 each), and I didn't think they would survive very long.

Well, I stand corrected. They have lasted very well, and the venus flytrap even bloomed a couple weeks ago. Here is the cheery white flower (click for a slightly bigger image):

The flower is not impressive in itself, but I'm impressed by how easy the plants have been to care for, and I'm not in ANY way an indoor plant person. (Seems contradictory at first, but for me the garden is my way to get out of the house and away from my household duties. An indoor plant, to me, is yet another thing to take care of, and I already have more than I can handle, thank you very much.) These little carnivores enjoy boggy conditions, so I try to keep the outer plastic cup part filled (which is a lot easier than noticing when the soil dries out, which I am NOT so good at noticing).

In the summer, we set them outside (in their pots) in the garden, and were amused by the many flies and pillbugs they trapped. For the winter, they have sat on my sunny kitchen windowsill, keeping me company. Poor things haven't caught anything in the house. We have screens on all our windows and doors, so rarely have any bugs inside.

I look forward to being able to set them back outside this summer (which seems a long way off, at this point), but also sure I'll also miss seeing them on the windowsill. If the kids want to each pick another plant for "themselves" this Spring, I'll be fine with that.