Oh sclerotic_rings?

[reynardo]

I take it you've seen this Carniverous "grow it from seed" kit? And how accurate is the information I was given the other day, to take my venus flytrap out of its peat-moss in a couple of weeks and stick it in the freezer until late next spring?

Comments

[djfiggy.livejournal.com]

triffids

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have one of those domes on my desk at work right now: it's everything that's promised (although I'll tell you right now that you'll never see those tidy clumps of plants, seeing as how the seed packet is well-mixed), but I will warn you that you'll have to wait a while to see the first seedlings. Mine has been sitting on my desk since the beginning of January, and I'm only now seeing my first Sarracenia sprouts. Of course, carnivores generally take a while to germinate, so I'm not worried.

As for the flytrap in the freezer, do me a favor and smack the person who told you this upside the head. It's true that flytraps, as with most North American carnivores, need a good dormancy period: if they aren't allowed to go dormant for at least three months, they gradually weaken and die. (I have all of my non-tropical carnivores on the bottom shelf of my cold frame: they won't freeze, but they'll stay cold and dark until they're ready to revive in March.) However, if you live someplace with sufficiently cold winters (say, where the temps brush freezing for at least two months out of the year), you can just leave the flytrap outside and it'll go dormant all on its own. If you don't, you can take the flytrap bulb out of its pot, wrap it in damp peat moss, put it in a plastic bag, and put it in your refrigerator to go dormant until spring, but putting it in the freezer means that you'll just have a particularly bitter and mushy vegetable for dinner come September. Flytraps can handle subfreezing temperatures, but only if they're in the ground and covered with a lot of mulch like peat moss or pine needles: pulling them out of the ground and freezing them will just kill them.

Sorry if I sound so forceful, but I had a couple of friends freeze beautiful Red Dragon flytraps (a cultivar that's all-red) that way, and I didn't stop screaming for a full half-hour. But that's just me.

[vegancat.livejournal.com]

Just a quick "thank you" for the very thoughtful gift you and your hubby sent to Jaden - it was very generous of you both. He loves them - puppets are his "thing" right now and he loves doing little skits and plays. Thanks for thinking of him - it made his valentine's day very special.

Peace
Dawn