Willow87

Wow Sherry, those look great! I love venus fly traps, I just wish I could keep them alive lol.

The Hollyberry Lady

Willow87

Maybe that was one of my mistakes, I think Ifed mine. It also got at least a couple of hours of hot afternoon sun in the summer and that may have also killed it. Yours looks so happy and its catching little bugs too

lkailburn

Great shot! I've got a coffea arabica that i picked up this summer. It was already 4'tall by 4' wide. It's now closer to 5' tall. So far has been very easy indoor plant, we do have a small cheap incandescent grow light above it but i bet with good windows it could do without. When we bought it, it already had green cherries on it, it has since flowered on a few occassions but has not formed any new fruit. so far the greenies haven't turned red but i'm still hopeful :-). Another easy indoor plant: cacao! we have one in the same room as the coffee I can dream of days of coffee and chocolate haha.

-Luke

The Hollyberry Lady

lkailburn

Yeah so far the existing fruits have not shriveled up or dropped off so that's atleast good. Since we've had it, i think it has flowered 2 or 3 more times. Not over the entire plant, but maybe 1 large branches each time, with a dozen or two flowers each bloom. what are the conditions that yours is in? have you noticed continual growth like i have?
the cacao is actually said to be a very very picky plant to grow. so far it has done well. Its biggest killer is lack of humidity (they say it likes 80% humidity). I thought for sure it would die here in colorado. the humidity in our house is 15-20% in the winter (ack too dry! a whole other story). But we keep an oscillator style humidifier in the same room, near the cacoa and run it most days. Even with that, the humidity probably is no more than 50% and yet it is growing constantly. It's not a fast grower but the growth tips are constantly changing. In fact, when we first repotted it, i lifted the plant up too high and snapped clean off the top growth point. Since then, it has started pushing out two new tips from the break! :-) It is an understory plant so NO direct light. We have it next, not infront, a large west window and so far has shown no signs of burn.i plan on keeping it indoors year round.

I would love to do a vanilla orchid, i hear they are great for bathrooms with showers. do they need a lot of light? Our bathroom does not have any windows.

-Luke

The Hollyberry Lady

Jananas Bananas

I have Vanilla Orchid. It is a very special plant for me. I have mine in my bay window which does have a lot of light year round, but I also have an AeroGarden and other grow lights there, so it has supplemental lighting as well. It is a very forgiving and easy plant for me. Mine has not flowered yet. Yug in Hawaii grows it, I'm sure his have bloomed as he posted pictures of it.

I sent Sherry a piece of mine last year and it died because I mailed it in December! DUH! I keep trying to get a variegated one, but am always out bid at the last minute. I'll get one eventually.

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Jananas Bananas

jreidsma

Unless you happen to have said insects in the bathroom for some reason....


I would love to have a cocoa tree! That would be awesome Vanilla would be pretty cool to

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The Hollyberry Lady

Jananas Bananas

Yes!

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Jananas Bananas

The Hollyberry Lady

Jananas Bananas

I wonder if Yug has the right insects, is that in the right area of the world? He is an orchid expert. I may PM him and ask. I wonder if he gets the pods and uses them? Maybe he will check into the insomnia thread and we can pick his brain.

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Jananas Bananas

lkailburn

Well darn, it's too bad our bathroom does not have any windows. I'll have to save that one for a future time. for all of my indoor plants i hand pollinate if they flower, just to help encourage any chances of fruit growth. In fact, i'm not yet holding my breath but my indoor loquat MIGHT be forming fruit. I have no idea, as I've never watched one go from flower to fruit before but the buds where the flowers used to be are swelling up big time!

-Luke

Yug

The insect that pollinates Vanilla planifolia is found in South America. I have to do it by hand, and it helps to do it before noon. The latest I have hand-pollenated a bloom successfully was about 2pm, but that is not recommended. The blooms only stay open 1 day. I can get the 'beans' without a problem, but my drying/curing efforts need some work. If too fast, it gets crispy and is unusable; if too slow, it gets moldy and is unusable. It should be about the consistency of beef jerky - mostly dry, but semi-pliable. Mine is blooming currently, but my d@mn work hours make me miss the blooms 4 days each week. Without pollenation, no pods, and no work on the drying technique. I grow them because they're different, and don't need any special care in this environment. Orchid-wise, they're downright ugly. Some of the leafless Vanilla is more attractive, and many have some red color in the lip.

stevelau1911

I find that with venus fly traps and other carnivorous plants, they need a dormancy period with much colder temperatures so I've been putting them under my tarp bed where I keep my potted boos & other hardy plants which has gotten as cold as 22F at the coldest part of winter. Surprisingly, some of the old traps stay green over the winter.

I used to try taking a venus fly trap indoors, and eventually it seemed to run out of energy and never flowered, but I got much better results when they were over-wintered outside.

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I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

my picture website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

Yug

I had one of those, and grew it until it flowered. Cute little white 5-petal blooms on a long thin stem. Any fertilizer should be extremely weak, and very low in nitrogen. These typically grow in swamps/bogs. They like damp, higher-acid type conditions.

lkailburn

interesting! i have an "octupus plant" (can't remember the actual name) that i have indoors in a mini-greenhouse that so far seems to be doing quite well. any idea if the dormacy applies to "octupus plants"? lol

by the way, where in NY are you? i grew up in rochester.

-Luke

stevelau1911

If the octopus plant is a tropical species, then no, they won't need a dormancy, but you just need to find out what its native climate is. I'm 7 miles south of Rochester in henrietta. The cool part about venus fly traps is that they make pups like crazy so I can get a bunch of divisions each year and give them away.

BTW here's my sarracenia white pitcher plant and venus fly traps back in august. They made a lot of growth since then since they tend to grow super fast during the warmest part of the year, especially when I used the wall o water on them.

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I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

my picture website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

lkailburn

very cool Steve thanks for the info.

HBL - the coffee tree heard us talking the other day. I went and looked at it this morning and look what i found! two cherries are starting to turn color :-)


I also found this this morning. Our mostly dormant pom has thrown out a flower for us! Notice how we have also decorated the tree haha, they are our charlie brown christmas trees this year rather than going out and buying another tree just for the holiday.


-Luke