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Post by etana on Nov 1, 2014 20:56:55 GMT
Hi, three days ago I went looking for insectivorous plants and the only kind I could find was Sarracenia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SarraceniaAlso known as Pitcher plant or Trumpet pitcher. I placed it on top of a snail tank, because I don't want any of my snails climbing into it (or uprooting it either, for that matter) and the flies and gnats fly in and out of the ventilation holes anyway. I was sceptical at first because I didn't see flies/gnats fall into the trumpets with my own eyes, but then I took a flashlight and lit the bottom of a trumpet from its side while peeking down it, and there was a pile of dead fruit files! So, I think it's safe to say that this plant works for pest control, and you don't have to see the dead flies either unless you really want to. It just requires so much water and light, I don't know how I can provide both at all times. We'll see how it goes, at least I got it for a bit of a discount and for now, my flies and gnats are getting eaten.
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mangoandlemon
Achatina tincta
Animals are not a choice for me. They are a lifestyle!
Posts: 671
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Pests
Nov 1, 2014 21:50:20 GMT
Post by mangoandlemon on Nov 1, 2014 21:50:20 GMT
Good luck with the flys and plants!
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Pests
Nov 3, 2014 17:14:12 GMT
Post by muddydragon on Nov 3, 2014 17:14:12 GMT
Sarracinea are fantastic plants i have a bit of a collection... they often die back in winter - which is good for them but not great for fly catching, however if in a warm part of the house they usually just carry on.
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Cashell
Archachatina puylaerti
Posts: 1,124
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Pests
Nov 3, 2014 22:05:14 GMT
Post by Cashell on Nov 3, 2014 22:05:14 GMT
Reading these posts about insectivorous plants makes me want a B52 venus flytrap! Though, I'd never put it in with my snails for obvious reasons.
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Pests
Nov 4, 2014 17:37:09 GMT
Post by muddydragon on Nov 4, 2014 17:37:09 GMT
you should get one anyway (although this time of year is when they should be starting to go dormant for the winter). they're not half as effective as pitcher plants but they are lovely. If you haven't seen/grown it already you really should grow some Mimosa pudica seeds (no use against pests though). it's fantastic: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLTcVNyOhUc also fuffy pink pom-pom flowers.what more could you want?
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Pests
Nov 4, 2014 17:44:54 GMT
Post by etana on Nov 4, 2014 17:44:54 GMT
I love plants that move! Prayer plants, "lucky clovers" (I forget the Latin name but they look like clovers and "go to sleep" at night), even a Monstera deliciosa can get pretty darn amusing with its movements. I've wanted a Mimosa pudica since I was little, but I've never seen it in stores. Maybe I indeed should order seeds. Muddydragon, are you saying that the pitcher plant will grow back in the spring, if it decides that there's not enough light now? How do I take care of it in dormant mode - does it still want to sit in water, does it want a calmer room? It's done a great job eating the fruit flies and gnats, and it's very pretty, too.
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Pests
Nov 4, 2014 21:41:15 GMT
Post by muddydragon on Nov 4, 2014 21:41:15 GMT
I love plants that move! Prayer plants, "lucky clovers" (I forget the Latin name but they look like clovers and "go to sleep" at night), even a Monstera deliciosa can get pretty darn amusing with its movements. Oxalis? they're fanastic so pretty the flowers are gorgeous. Did you know 'all' (all studied so far) plants are touch sensitive? they rapidly release calcium signals in responce to being touched (but gnerally don't do anything as drastic as mimosa) but respond internally even quicker. basically when you walk across grass it screams in calcium . if you keep stroking the side of a growing tree (e.g. everyday for several years) for instance it will grow away from where you stroke it and then back in again. they're so cool! I've wanted a Mimosa pudica since I was little, but I've never seen it in stores. Maybe I indeed should order seeds. I think generally they're annuals which is why you rarely see them for sale as plants. seeds are more fun anyway Muddydragon, are you saying that the pitcher plant will grow back in the spring, if it decides that there's not enough light now? How do I take care of it in dormant mode - does it still want to sit in water, does it want a calmer room? It's done a great job eating the fruit flies and gnats, and it's very pretty, too. well it's more the light period and temperature that affect them. it also depends on the type of pitcher plant if its the sort with leaves with pitchers on the end (Nepenthes) they typically don't like cold and don't do dormancy. if it's the sort which just has pitchers come out of the ground (Sarracenia) then it may or may not become dormant (it's better for it in the long term if it does) this requires cooler temperatures (depends on the species how cold they're happy with) but usual light levels and some water but not as much (still damp at all times) then the pitchers will brown (that's fine) and can be pulled off next spring. if it's soemthing special (e.g. Darlingtonia) then it depends on what it is
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Pests
Nov 4, 2014 22:01:34 GMT
Post by Liguus on Nov 4, 2014 22:01:34 GMT
Nice! I didn't expect there were other carnivorous plant growers on this forum!
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Pests
Nov 4, 2014 22:13:17 GMT
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Post by etana on Nov 4, 2014 22:13:17 GMT
Thanks for all the info Muddydragon (once again)! Doesn't surprise me at all that they've discovered such reactions to touch. HelixPomatia, which ones do you have then? Plants are very interesting, much like snails they're not quite as boring as they first may seem!
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Post by muddydragon on Nov 5, 2014 22:23:17 GMT
Plants are very interesting, much like snails they're not quite as boring as they first may seem! Of course plants are not boring . They're far more amazing and complicated than many people think seriously some of the stuff they can do is frankly amazing, but because it's harder for us humans to percieve it people think they don't do much. Whereas in fact they are as sensitive to touch as a human finger and can assess the type of touch and respond accordingly, communicate with one another almost as quickly as we can, can communicate with insects, survive temperatures colder than the icecaps on mars and are technially the greatest polluters ever (polluting the air with all that oxygen, the poor anerobes had to retreat to the bottoms of stagnent ponds and the like) to name just a few amazing things. They're just amazing. and so "alien" despite of course really us being the more alien ones here. *please excuse me whilst i go off on a little THEY'RE SO AMAZING rant in a corner *
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Post by cliath on Nov 6, 2014 21:18:58 GMT
My Ma had mimosa pudica in her house. She has Venus flytraps too! I love them!
Plant are truly amazing, I love how in the evening daisies close up their petals! It's so cute!
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Pests
Nov 30, 2014 16:32:39 GMT
Post by etana on Nov 30, 2014 16:32:39 GMT
My pitcher plant has browned down to just one functional pitcher, which I suppose is because the day is very short right now. The brown pitchers were pointing in all possible directions so I cut them shorter, careful not to touch any moist green parts with the scissors - I hope that's okay. It's funny to see that even one pitcher works to keep the fruit fly population in control. I've seen with my own eyes how flies walk to the edge of the pitcher, start walking weird due to the numbing substance the plant has, and then fall down.
Anyhow, I had a small infestation of something in my GALS tank. Not mites (thank goodness), but small and white, very thin and a couple mm long, not really larvae-like, more like little thin bugs without wings. I don't think they were springtails, I've had those before, these guys didn't really jump. They also didn't run in and out of my snails' breathing holes at all, or walk much on their skins or even shells, so they probably were mostly harmless to the snails.
I don't mind a few creepy crawlies in my tanks, but I started minding these when they started gathering in the snail bath tub and I realised how big in numbers they were. There was an actual layer of dead white bug floating on top of the water. Ew. I changed a lot of the soil (keeping a lot too of course, to spare beneficial bacteria), hoping that most of the bugs would go away with it.
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Pests
Nov 30, 2014 23:03:26 GMT
Post by muddydragon on Nov 30, 2014 23:03:26 GMT
Etana. yes it's normal for them to go dormant over winter. cutting them back is fine, infact you can pull them off the rhizome when they fully brown, it's scary when you first do it but works fine. Helix: Yup , i think that the sort of people who like more unusual plants are more likely to like the more unusal pets. I grow a serious number of plants in general, the main ones are the cacti and other succulents my house is basically a jungle with windows stuffed full of plants. then there's the outdoors...
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Pests
Dec 1, 2014 15:20:14 GMT
Post by etana on Dec 1, 2014 15:20:14 GMT
Okay, I'll be brave and pull them off when I'm sure they're fully brown. I have lots of different plants too, I don't think I could live in a home without plants. This reminds me, some of my biggest ones are being plant-sitted across the country, which is unfortunate as my favourite, a Ficus elastica tricolor tree is there (not so exotic, but it was a tiny plantling when I bought it, and I'm so proud that it's so big now), along with a Nopalxochia phyllanthoides I started from a single leaf about 16 years ago. I'd managed to not think of it for a while but now I miss them again. (Ah, I know that on a forum like this I don't get called crazy for missing a plant. )
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Pests
Dec 2, 2014 10:31:00 GMT
Post by muddydragon on Dec 2, 2014 10:31:00 GMT
i certainly can't live without them . when i was in london for a year on placement the place we rented only had a front garden with a patio. thankfully the patio was just some slabs laid directly on the soil so i pulled them up had a little vegetble patch then replaced them when i left . (un)fortunately my placement was somewhere where you could very easily end up buying plants both in the dedicated shop where there was a staff discount! and the staff only sales of old "bedding" or display plants or the plant skips... (i didn't take an orchid from a skip noooooo....). My room ended up with two ginkgo trees and a wollemi pine in it along with more "normal" sized indoor plants. i can understand missing your plants, my ginkgos are now too big to fit in the car so are living with my parents until such time as i actually buy a house and stay put in one place for a long time. I now have a massive and now flowering Ctenanthe setosa which i bought when i first moved in here and is growing at an insane rate. it was in the reduced section of B&Q (taking me to the reduced plant section is very dangerous). it's called flaily the molester, because when we were wheeling it about b&q it's leaves flapped everywhere and it molested a man passing by (it gently caressed his bum with a leaf) it also attacks anyone who walks past it which unfortunatly you are forced to do to get to the dining table . At that age your Nopalxochia phyllanthoides must look AMAZING!
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Post by etana on Dec 3, 2014 20:08:01 GMT
Lol, great stories muddydragon Love Flaily the molester! My Nopalxochia has gone through some rough times, so it's not as big as it could be, but it has some super long, fleshy leaves that I'm proud of. I love it very much, I've had it everywhere where I've lived except my current place. I'd be heartbroken if it died, but luckily I know the plant-sitter is a very dedicated one. It still hasn't bloomed, but then again the mommy plant that I took the leaf from didn't bloom until it was in its thirties at least (though nobody knows its actual age, could be much older). Also, the last pitcher of my pitcher plant browned. Noooo. Meh. Have your hibernation, plant, I'll set up that silly vinegar trap again. Back to other pests though, the white bugs I mentioned earlier; is it typical of springtails to be jumping around on the surface of water? I said the bugs in my GALS tank wouldn't jump when scared, and it's true that they still don't if I put my finger next to them (whereas I have seen bugs that jump super fast when as much as pointed at by a finger, I thought those were the real deal), but they do jump around in the snaily bath tub. The partial change of the soil didn't keep their number down for long, and I'm starting to worry they're bothering my snails. There are some on the snails' skins, but there are so many of the bugs all over that I don't know if they have ill intentions or not. They had gathered around where my Taavetti was sleeping attached to the tree root, but... I don't really know why. They weren't really on his foot, they just were around him. Could they be feeding on his slime? I don't suppose that a bug could sit around waiting for a snail to poop? There seem to be many sizes of these, from less than 1 mm to I think 1.5 mm long, but they're all thin and definitely not round. They move quite swiftly and don't stop much. The biggest ones have tentacles that can be seen with the naked eye, and tiny little legs. :/
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Dec 3, 2014 22:51:25 GMT
Post by muddydragon on Dec 3, 2014 22:51:25 GMT
Sounds a fantastic plant!
yes springtails will jump on water i think. they do sound springtail-ish (some do jump less). i'm guessing you don't have access to a microscope you could put them on? the do have antanne and legs so could be them... (but so do a lot of things) sorry i'm not more help.
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Pests
Dec 4, 2014 6:08:00 GMT
via mobile
Post by etana on Dec 4, 2014 6:08:00 GMT
Ah sorry my English, of course bugs have antennae, not tentacles I don't own a microscope, but umm. I'll see what I can come up with.
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Pests
Dec 4, 2014 11:06:31 GMT
Post by muddydragon on Dec 4, 2014 11:06:31 GMT
actually i didn't notice you said tentacles my mind obviously just read antennae (and trust me if you know the difference between antennae and tentacles you're doing a lot better than most native english speakers ) a magnifying glass might help?
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Pests
Dec 4, 2014 14:37:49 GMT
via mobile
Post by etana on Dec 4, 2014 14:37:49 GMT
LOL okay. Um yes, my bf should have a magnifying glass I can use. I wish I had my scanner here, I'd use that. Anyhow, let's see, hopefully there'll be pics tonight! ETA: No pics tonight after all, I don't feel well. Hopefully tomorrow then.
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Pests
Dec 5, 2014 9:43:09 GMT
Post by muddydragon on Dec 5, 2014 9:43:09 GMT
the scanner would have been a great idea!
I'm sorry you feel poorly etana, feel better soon!
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