2008-07-12 Sarracenia Northwest Visit

First time the public was allowed into the Sarracenia NW. nursery. Their website is http://cobraplant.com/index.php. Jeff and Jacob run a tight little nursery specializing in carnivorous plants. Very nice plants.

The whole nursery is run out of these plastic lined pools and the adjacent greenhouses. Thousands of divisions are made every year from their stock plants.



They use RO water for everything pumped out of their 700gal/day GE Merlin, which I am considering purchasing for my soon to be bog and pond (and greenhouse). They pot everything in a mix of peat moss and perlite 1-1. They would like to use sand, but its heavy and hard to get the right sand around here and it's heavy! The wrong sand has too much of any mineral that can leach out. They recommended pumice for my bog garden because it doesn't float as much as perlite.

I also learned that they are no longer recommending collecting rain water off of composite or wood rooves. Composite has copper added to help prevent moss growth, which is poisonous to Carnivores. Wood roofing has arsenic (sometimes...) which apparently can also harm plants.(?) They say if you have a metal roof, run off should be safe to use.

Sarracenia oreophila , a FE species that does fine in cultivation.



Sarracenia rubra jonesii, another FE species with awesome veins.


My favorite species is Sarracenia flava because of it's huge range of color forms. This is rubricorpa, the red tube variety. They wouldn't sell me one because they have so few. Their growth rate is very slow compared to the normal flava. In addition, they have to be propagated by division only since sowing seed (even selfed seed) does not produce red tube plants. It may produce some, but not many, apparently. They explained the only reliable way to do it is to cross a red tube with an ordinary flava and grow that seed. Then take those seedlings and cross them with eachother. These crosses should result in 25% red tubes... in 10 years.



And a wee Cephalotus. Almost got one, but I'll wait until the greenhouse is up and functional. They're a bit finicky, and did I mention weeee?

2008-07-02 UCSC Arboretum take II

Went back to get a personal tour from Ron, the S. Afr garden curator. Talked me through their propagation and cultivation methods for their Proteas, which was good to hear. People in S Afr swear that most Protea are hardy to -10C (12F), which would put them hardy to z8b. Since Portland is z8b, I have subsequently ordered 1400 seeds from South Africa to start in my soon to be greenhouse. I grew about 100 Protea seeds last year and I learned a lot about what kills them! I will have much better numbers this time around. I've sectioned off a large sheltered portion of my new yard for the S. Afr and Oz garden... Give me 5 years and then ask me how it's going...

Anyhow, here're some photos.

Protea Pink Ice, one of the hardiest hybrids. Blooms right through frosts, according to Ron.


One of my favorites, Protea repens. Notice the Aulax in the background.


Most arboretums worry about weeds. UCSC worries about the ever encroaching Leucospermum cordifolium. Poor them.


A neat Grevillea that looked like a pine tree. I don't know the genus well enough to ID it yet.


Speaking of weeds, here is a self sown 6yr old Leucadendron argenteum. Ron is checking the tag for the date.


Last, a Mandavilla laxa. One Green World sells this plant which is supposedly hardy to z8 also. It's going over my soon to be trellis.