gejala pokok | symptomatic trees

Finally collected The Savage Garden by Peter D’Amato last night from Tarence of Pet Pitcher. So far, I’ve only read the intoduction. Who would have known that I could actually enjoy a book written ONLY about plants. But not just any plants, but carnivorous plants.

There are quotes throughout the book, referring to CPs. So far, the one that caught me is the one on sundews (drosera)

“Evil little things they are, with their carnivorous habit. One wonders what crime the past lives of Drosera can have held, that now their race should be compelled to draw so ominous and unpleasant a (career) of murder and fraud. When will Sundews be free of the burden, through some self-sacrificing individual plant who shall starve to death rather than take life, and so redeem his race into happier paths of peace and virtue?” Reginald Farrar, Alpine and Bog Plants, 1908 

Wahh so drama…But I must say, it is extremely stressful taking care of CPs. We purchase one last night from Tarence. Drosera Spatulata.

This morning I noticed 2 insects on the dew. Woohoo. Really fascinating. I still can’t get my head around it. This new world of carnivorous plants. Sometimes I get so stressed out not knowing what to do what they need, that I want to quit and give up CPs.

But too late now, I’m addicted.

So, our burmanii and ‘red dragon’ venus fly trap were infested by crawling aphids. One of the safest way to deal with it, is to immerse the plant in container overfill with water for at least 24 hours.  So we filled a big pot with distilled water and immersed both the CPs. It was painful…watching them drown. :( 

Almost immediately you see the aphids floated up onto the surface. Loads and loads of them. Quite terrifying, knowing these bugs were in your precious plant. There were small ones, tiny ones and big ones. Sigh…

Here they are again….after 24 hours.

Its true what petiolaris of gardenweb said - they will look like ‘drowned rats’ for a week or so. They look so different now, from when david first gave it to us. He must be so disappointed

Here’s how it looks when we first got it two weeks ago..

Ok enough of that.

Got a pesticide to treat lipstick plant that is infested with mealybugs.

Sprayed it as soon as i got home two nights ago.

And they all bloomed today.

Okay la… not one night but three. And one full day is spent in glorious Chatuchak weekend market where everything under the sky is traded for a handful of bahts. From clothes to household items to kitchenware to furniture to shoes to paper to puppies to PLANTS. Yes! Lots and lots and lots of plants!

Hahahah.

At the risk of sounding like a crazy person, I was sooooo insanely excited. We couldn’t get any live plants back cause we didn’t sort out the necessary paperwork. I wasn’t even sure if they would allow us to carry seeds back, but I was gonna give it a go anyway.

There were rows of orchids, hibiscus, bonsai trees, plants in bottles, cacti, ferns of every kind including tanduk rusa, etc. etc. etc., even fake plastic flowers looking so damn real, pots, implements, gadgets, fertilizers, wires, pesticides, oodles and oodles of seeds in shiny packets and even bulbs!

Okay, I have no idea how much I spent. But i bought back some pots (they were so cheap compared to KL) to start with. Then drooled over the seed packets. Even found some cactus seeds! Which has been impossible for us so far, scouring all forms of nurseries, hardware shops and supermarkets. So I got 3 packets just to be safe And 2 packets of pomegranate seeds, and of course, some basil. Heaven. The only thing missing was CP seeds, but hey, can’t score everything.

Oh, and then I finally found labels for the seedlings! I’ve been looking for them everywhere but no joy. Even in specialty paper shops. But at Chatuchak, they were casually sitting there, in bundles tied together, just waiting to be picked up. I got more than 200 I think, in 3 different formats. So greedy, but I can’t wait! Already used them yesterday for sowing the byblis liniflora seeds (will update on that later). Oh joy…

And to make it an almost perfect experience, they were selling hyacinth and tulip bulbs! With colored tabs stuck on them, just so you can pick which kinds you want. I have no idea if it will be possible to plant them at all, considering they need cold and dry weather, and it’s hot and humid here, but I’m definitely going to try! Have been reading up, and it involves refrigeration and what-not. Will have to print them out and cross check with the other books we have. I really really hope it’ll turn out. Can you imagine? Tulips in KL. Wah…..

Was very nervous when going through the immigration. I packed them in the backpack and checked them in, hoping they wont get completely destroyed in the process. Figured I probably have a better chance of taking them home than if I hand carry them (although some dude in front of us carried back a huge plastic bag of jambu batu). The customs was unusually diligent that day, and checked through everyone’s bags. Maybe ’cause we were coming back from Bangkok. They scanned our bags, and I thought I saw the custom officer hesitate for awhile… but she didn’t stop us. Just let us through. Hooray!

Now all I have to do is keep them safe until I figure out how to plant them properly

Meanwhile, going to get the Savage Garden book tomorrow, finally! From Tarence of petpitcher, and checking out his haven of carnivorous plants. Mukaketupat wants to buy some sundews. I hope I can get a mini nepenthes…

Who would have thought obsession for plants would turn mukaketupat and myself into friendly, bordering on shameless people. After getting our venus fly trap from strange old Eneos that seems to sell every thing under the sky (including a car service centre in a mall), we got a little hooked on carnivorous plants.

Did some web search to find out more about how to care for our new baby, and found this awesome local site, PetPitcher.com.

Did some web search to find out more about how to care for our new baby, and found this awesome local site, PetPitcher.com.

I know we haven’t stopped raving about it, but it’s such a freaking cool place. Everyone’s not only really generous with info — which is a pretty fantastic nature of ‘forum-ers’ — but also with seeds, seedlings and more!

We contacted the site owner, David, to ask where we could get hold of some sundews, and in a true gesture of solidarity obsession, offered us one of his pots of D. spathulata to us. Yay!

So we called him, got directions, drove to his apartment, I saw a part of Klang Valley that I don’t usually go to, took the lift up……

Wasn’t hard to figure out which place was his. There were creepy-crawly plants greeting us immediately at the grill Pushing aside tendrils, we walked in and gasped at the beautiful, gorgeous terrariums in one corner.

picture from petpitcher website

After greedily gobbling up the sight, he showed us his storeroom that also housed another larger (maybe 6 feet?) terrarium. Whoo0 whee! So many many many many different kinds of carnivorous plants basking snugly under the glow of florescent lights. Mukaketupat brought her camera, so she snapped away. Here’s some of his little beauties.

A partial view of the terrarium

Baby venus’ fly traps in a row. The ‘mother’ is the one right at the back, second from right. Halfway through the tour, I realised that CP (carnivorous plants) enthusiasts do not speak in generics. It’s all genus and species, right down to the hybrids. So if I want to understand this world at all, I have to brush up on my Latin or Greek I think. So yes, Dionaea muscipula all in a row

When he saw us practically drooling all over his D. muscipula, he offered us one! Yippee! Now we have TWO pots of D. muscipula - one green and one red (I promise I’ll figure out the actual sub-species names soon).

Ours sitting happily on our balcony now. Though the new one seem to have some kind of bugs on it, not sure from where. Probably our dusty studio. Doesn’t seem to harm the plant though, but to be safe, getting some pesticides today. Did a whole search on aphids and spider mites from a list of stuff that might harm CPs. Not sure if it is either, but live and learn I guess

One of his Drosera brumannii (species of sundew). We said “yes, please!” when he offered a pot of baby D. brumannii to us. I feel like a greedy, out-of-control, mad woman! *blush* Can’t wait for it to grow layers and be as pretty as his. It’s already growing a fair bit since we got it a couple of nights ago. Mmmmm……… so very very cool!

This one I am SUPER excited about. It’s a byblis, also a kind of CP. Look at the sticky secretions coming out from its hairs! And all the bugs caught on their leaves. And best of all, I have seeds! Thanks to David of Petpitcher again I can’t wait to plant them and wait for germination. Have to learn more about how to cultivate these, but found an article that might help. Not sure if it needs cold stratification etc, but will print out and read. Dammit, wish we had the Savage Garden book! Must go Kinokuniya soon…

I don’t remember the name for this CP, though it might be a bladderwort (Utricularia). It lives in water, and you can’t really see it, but there are tiny traps at the end of the leaves that acts like a vacuum to suck small aquatic animals that unwittingly goes by. Sometimes it sends out shoots of pretty flowers over the surface of the water. And it’s also native to Malaysia

Okay, many species and close peering later (including with a magnifying glass), David showed us his Nepenthes collection. And geez, he’s got a LOT. Mostly hanging near the window, but he’s even got some teeny tiny super cute ones in his terrarium. I almost died.

The pictures didn’t turn out, so we can’t show you. But there are just so many different species (I hope I’m using this word correctly). One with pitchers that look like they are wearing viking helmets, some with fangs on the pitchers, and a cuddly pot of Sarracenia outside one window. Nice

We went and got some more sphagnum moss and looked for perlite - the medium that CPs apparently thrive on. Except the packet we got from Eneos (Uncle Sam from Cameron Highlands) says ‘pelite’. It looks ad feels like what perlite is supposed to be. Hope we don’t mess up by accidentally adding rat poison or something!

Anyway, YAY!

Some handy sites found:

• Carnivorous Plant Care Guide — Bugbitingplants.com
• Some info on Venus Fly Traps and other CPs — pitcherplant.com
• Coastal Carnivores
• How to sow carnivorous plants seeds
• A tutorial on Venus Fly Traps with a whole bunch of FAQs
• International Carnivorous Plants Society (!!!)

no pictures for this post ’cause i left my camera somewhere else. but thought i should jot down what’s been happening anyway, garden log style

1. sunflower seedlings
tried to revive them by taking them away from the scorching sun on the balcony into the studio under florescent lights. then made chamomile tea as an natural fungicide and poured them on all 4 pots.

also had a brain fart idea that they might be under-nourished so tried putting a diluted transplanting fertilizer solution on one of the pots (schultz starter plus — which i am sure is actually not meant for seedlings and i am an idiot). all i did was accelerated the dying process (DO NOT DO IT!).

took a couple back out to a shady spot on the balcony. nothing worked. they all just died. at different rates. the cotyledons yellowed, shrank and dried up, followed by the first pair of true leaves.

the only one that’s still kinda surviving is the one i placed under a florescent lamp, 24 hours a day. and i think all i’m doing is just slowing down its impending death. so i am letting it out to the balcony today, to enjoy some real sun, and finally letting go. *sob* *sob*

on a brighter note, i now know a little more about natural fungicides and pesticides. going to try a new batch soon. and going to take some of heathrjoy’s and ecrane3’s good advice, and hope, hope, hope for the best!

2. transplanting the petunia
decided to transplant the petunias on sunday cause they were flopping over one by one. not having good garden vibes last week. not sure what the problem was, but think it is probably a mixture of over-crowding and lack of proper soil (used a horti ’soil-less’ seed starting mix). don’t think it’s damping off, because the stems look alright, but i might be wrong.

they’re the tiniest little things and a real bugger to transplant. not possible to dig underneath with a fork, ’cause the fork is just waaaaay to big. so i resorted to using my fingers and pinching them as lightly as possible near the leaves to tease them out of the soil.

wish i had a picture to show you, but maybe another day. it’s a real nightmare, and i think i killed as many as i managed to transplant. they’re now in small metal pots, with more space between them. just had a check on them, and a majority of them seem to be fine. going to keep fingers, toes and knees crossed!

3. sundew is on the way!
turned out i was having a dyslexic moment, and took down the wrong number despite checking 3 times. david from petpitcher rang back, and we’re going to collect the little plant and byblis seeds today. yay! can’t wait

meanwhile, i have a tray of wheat grass on the go for my mom. a little late for mother’s day, but hope it turns out fine. don’t think i did the pre-sprouting preparation for enough times, but the tray has been a seedling charm. wish me luck!

there’s something about the bodyshop that creeps me out a little with their “buy a candle and stop domestic violence” etc. thingies.

dropped by it today (okay, not that creeped out that i stopped going altogether, my bad!), and saw a sign that says “adopt a seed”, which of course perked me up. it’s some action around global warming, and calling for potential customers to pick up small brown packets of seeds to plant them at home. no instructions or details about what seeds they are, but here’s a visual clue:

i asked the shop assistant what it was, and she said it was a yellow flame tree. sounds cool! she said i had to boil the seeds for 2 hours before planting, which makes sense because tree seeds has quite long dormant periods. but uhm… does anything about this exercise strike anyone as a little weird?

anyway! i can’t wait for an over-population of yellow flame trees all along the streets of PJ and KL :D. i wonder if i can manage one on my balcony ;p