Adventures of the Travelling Bog Planters

[DaniL]

A backstory on these bog planters:

A few months ago, I told my preschooler that some plants were actually carnivores. It blew his mind, especially when he learned there are native ones here in BC. He's also super into the idea of bogs. The tractor that's sunk in Burns Bog holds a special place in his imagination. He can ID pictures of VFTs, droseras, different pitcher plants, and cobra lilies. He's even been teaching his daycare buddies about them, lol.

We have a plot at a local community garden, and a communal flower garden I started on my apartment's property as a pollinator habitat and to get neighbours out working together during early covid times. So 2+ mths ago I thought it would be cool to put together a bog container for my son, and to show the kids at daycare and my community garden, and talk about the importance of bogs and CPs. Not wanting to invest a lot of $$ or go crazy just yet, I picked up a VFT at the garden centre, ordered some drosera and Sarracenia seeds, and prepared myself for the long haul. Then I found you all!

Thanks to the amazing generosity of @Carson Hardy and @Smilodonichthys I now have 2 fully stocked bog planters of mostly native bog plants, as well as some cool and unusual CP additions. These will hit up the daycare in a couple of weeks, then my community gardens later in the summer. They may even make their way to the local elementary school in the fall. I plan to add more ID tags and decorative features like rocks and wood. It's likely I'll need to get a 3rd planter at this rate I also now feel like I absolutely need to make a ping rock because they're fascinating. Everyone is super excited to see these planters and learn about them.

And so begins the adventures of the travelling bog planters

I used two plastic hanging baskets because I need something small and light enough to be transported. The bottom half is 50/50 peat and perlite, and the top is about 70/30 LFS and perlite, with some sphagnum moss from @Smilodonichthys . They'll live on my balcony but come inside in winter by a cool window in a mostly unheated room for their dormant period. Updates will be shared here.

Thanks to everyone who's answered my questions so far and contributed to what I think is a really fun, educational project! I'm truly grateful.

Also, whenever we kill a fly or a silverfish, my kid yells, "Feed it to the fly trap!" like an angry dictator. It's the best thing ever.

 

[DaniL]

That proud parent moment when your baby VFT catches its first fruit fly and learns to fend for itself... you can see the dark spot inside the trap on the far right one at the back...

 

[Joanie]

A backstory on these bog planters:

A few months ago, I told my preschooler that some plants were actually carnivores. It blew his mind, especially when he learned there are native ones here in BC. He's also super into the idea of bogs. The tractor that's sunk in Burns Bog holds a special place in his imagination, but he also understands the importance of a carbon sink to the environment - he equates them with the Great Dying mass extinction with its elevated levels of carbon dioxide and volcanic activity (because death is a subject kids his age are becoming aware of, volcanoes are cool, and then came the dinosaurs).

We've always gardened together. We have a plot at a local community garden, and a communal flower garden I started on my apartment's property as a pollinator habitat and to get neighbours out working together during early covid times. But my kid's level of interest in carnivorous plants is next level. He can ID pictures of VFTs, droseras, different pitcher plants, and cobra lilies. He's even been teaching his daycare buddies about them, lol.

So 2+ mths ago I thought it would be cool to put together a bog container for my son, and to show the kids at daycare and my community garden, and talk about the importance of bogs and CPs. Not wanting to invest a lot of $$ or go crazy just yet, I picked up a VFT at the garden centre, ordered some drosera and Sarracenia seeds, and prepared myself for the long haul. Then I found you all!

Thanks to the amazing generosity of @Carson Hardy and @Smilodonichthys I now have 2 fully stocked bog planters of mostly native bog plants, as well as some cool and unusual CP additions. These will hit up the daycare in a couple of weeks, then my community gardens later in the summer. They may even make their way to the local elementary school in the fall. I plan to add more ID tags and decorative features like rocks and wood. It's likely I'll need to get a 3rd planter at this rate I also now feel like I absolutely need to make a ping rock because they're fascinating. Everyone is super excited to see these planters and learn about them.

And so begins the adventures of the travelling bog planters

I used two plastic hanging baskets because I need something small and light enough to be transported. The bottom half is 50/50 peat and perlite, and the top is about 70/30 LFS and perlite, with some sphagnum moss from @Smilodonichthys . They'll live on my balcony but come inside in winter by a cool window in a mostly unheated room for their dormant period. Updates will be shared here.

Thanks to everyone who's answered my questions so far and contributed to what I think is a really fun, educational project! I'm truly grateful.

Also, whenever we kill a fly or a silverfish, my kid yells, "Feed it to the fly trap!" like an angry dictator. It's the best thing ever.

View attachment 24821View attachment 24822View attachment 24823

They look great and those plants will definitely bulk up over the summer!

 

[DaniL]

They look great and those plants will definitely bulk up over the summer!

Thanks! We finally have some sun here near Vancouver so hopefully they'll start to thrive now, instead of holding in place in the cold gloom

 

[DaniL]

Some new additions - a neighbour collects and tumbles rocks as a hobby. He sometimes drops off bags of interesting leftovers for us to keep or add to our building's rock garden. We decided a fossilized seashell and a triceratops made suitable additions to the bog planter, as well as a few other interesting things. And now that everything is acclimatized to the outdoors, my S. purpurea has been surprisingly successful, with 4 flies in 1 pitcher. Pretty impressive considering it's on a high up apartment balcony and it's only been outside all day for less than a week.

.

 

[DaniL]

The bog planters visit daycare. It was impressive that even the youngest (2yrs old) sat for a good long time to listen and watch as we fed the CPs some dried bloodworms. I was also surprised that, while of course the VFTs were exciting for everyone to see, they were just as interested in looking at and hearing about the sundews, pitcher plants, cobra lily, and triantha, and even some of the other non-CP bog plants.

Some good questions and observations included, "Can they eat us?" "Where are their eyes?" "Look at all those eyelashes!" and "How do they actually eat the bugs?"

I was surprised how long this kept their attention. They asked about the soil/medium, got to touch the LFS and were surprised it was so damp, and enjoyed just looking at them (of course, some couldn't help themselves from touching, and had to be moved back a few feet, lol). The oldest ones enjoyed this for a good 30mins, and were sad when it was time to say goodbye to the CPS.

 

[Lloyd Gordon]

Future forum members.

 

[DaniL]

The bog planters visited the community garden late this summer to meet the neighbours, but were sadly hit by rounds of mealy bugs (on the drosera and pinguicula) and aphids (on the VFTs) that I couldn't get under control. Nothing has definitively died, except for one pinguicula, but most things failed to thrive after August. Things have mostly been dormant since we had a few weeks of near freezing temps here earlier this fall. I've cleaned them up, and dabbed with alcohol + a couple of drops of dish soap to hopefully kill off any remaining mealy bugs and aphids.

Funny enough, I felt the least equipped to take care of the Cobra Lily, but that has been the one that has grown the most

My question is this - we're about to get down to -12C weather this week. I had initially planned to keep these out on my balcony next to my apartment's wall under a fleece garden cover, but with temps this cold, I'm thinking to bring them inside into a cool-ish bedroom. BUT, would this pull them out of dormancy and be a problem? I'd say they've been practically much dormant for about 2 months now, except for the VFTs and cobra lily, which are still green. If you look closely, you can see the drosera heads tucked into the moss, waiting for a better life...

 

[Lloyd Gordon]

If you leave them out above ground, you'll get mush or black stuff at those temperatures. If you keep them in a dark room with the window open and chilly, they may not break dormancy.
Just don't let the room get too cold, you do not want to get mould or condensation on the walls.

 

[DaniL]

If you leave them out above ground, you'll get mush or black stuff at those temperatures. If you keep them in a dark room with the window open and chilly, they may not break dormancy.
Just don't let the room get too cold, you do not want to get mould or condensation on the walls.

Thanks! We tend to keep the room at about 10C during the day to avoid condensation, and a little warmer at night when we're sleeping in it

 

[Smilodonichthys]

I agree with Lloyd. The arctic outbreak coming through probably wont last long enough for them to break dormancy if taken inside. I think they would survive just fine outside with a bit of cover but it might set them back a little. The best option would be if there was snow before the worst of the cold that you could pile up over them to insulate without raising the temps.

I lost a bunch of fly traps when I first started growing them when I left them on my deck railing uncovered in the dry freezing wind. They pretty much freeze dried and turned to mush with all the freeze thaw cycles that followed. Now I keep my flytraps under the deck out of the wind for the winter. All the other species you have in there I grow completely exposed to the elements outside in flood tables. I'm not taking them in for the arctic outbreak this week and I'm not at all worried about them.

 

[DaniL]

I agree with Lloyd. The arctic outbreak coming through probably wont last long enough for them to break dormancy if taken inside. I think they would survive just fine outside with a bit of cover but it might set them back a little. The best option would be if there was snow before the worst of the cold that you could pile up over them to insulate without raising the temps.

I lost a bunch of fly traps when I first started growing them when I left them on my deck railing uncovered in the dry freezing wind. They pretty much freeze dried and turned to mush with all the freeze thaw cycles that followed. Now I keep my flytraps under the deck out of the wind for the winter. All the other species you have in there I grow completely exposed to the elements outside in flood tables. I'm not taking them in for the arctic outbreak this week and I'm not at all worried about them.

Good to know! My balcony is covered, so they won't get any snow regardless, but it's quite windy up here and that drops the temps below what ground level experiences. Then the sun hits the building in the morning and it gets quite warm, so it's exactly that freeze thaw cycle you mentioned that I worry about. I'll bring them in and cross my fingers.

 

[DaniL]

Welp. Guess the bog planters liked being inside, even by a cold window. They've gone full on out of dormancy. It happened within a couple of days of bringing them in, so I didn't want to shock them by putting them back outside with the fluctuating temps. Hopefully it doesn't affect their summer growth too much, as they did have a couple of months of down time. I have a light on them now.

On the upside, it's nice to see something growing this time of year, and earning their keep. The drosera already caught a fungus beetle that made its way inside somehow

 

[Atom]

This is inspiring me to build my own when the weather warms! Super neat.

Did you seek out a specific pot for this or just what you had already around the house?

 

[DaniL]

This is inspiring me to build my own when the weather warms! Super neat.

Did you seek out a specific pot for this or just what you had already around the house?

Just what I already had. They're just 2 old hanging basket planters with the hangers removed. Then I removed the tiny saucers underneath that came with them to hold water, and got 2 larger, sturdier saucers to serve as a decent reservoir for them to sit in. I got them here (but in person, because this place is close to me and has lots of handy growing supplies, including the sphagnum moss I used in the planters) https://www.jonsplantfactory.com/product/black-saucers/ I really like the hanging baskets because they're quite light, not too deep, and small enough that I can move them easily (i.e. take them to visit daycare, schools, and my community garden), but also pack a decent amount of plants in there.

 

[DaniL]

Mealy bugs have hit again It seems they overwintered inside and woke up after my plants did. They really do a number on my drosera. I've been using a bit of rubbing alcohol and dish soap to try to control them, but many of my drosera are down to nubs again, except the d. rotundifolia which seems immune to them. Is there any way to get rid of these evil pests?

I also found this tiny fellow in one of the pots today. An interesting development, since the bogs have been on a high up balcony and then inside for the last several months, with nary a snail to be seen at any point since planting last summer. Cute and mysterious as it is, for the safety of all plants involved I sent it back into the black hole from which it came and flung it off my balcony...

 

[Lloyd Gordon]

Usually mealybugs are indoor problems, the fresh air, sun and rain (and maybe predators) get rid of them. Check the pots, roots are often infested. For dews and VFT's with mealies, it's often best to dispose of them unless they're valuable plants. Unlike Sarr's, most treatments will kill the plants.

 

[DaniL]

Usually mealybugs are indoor problems, the fresh air, sun and rain (and maybe predators) get rid of them. Check the pots, roots are often infested. For dews and VFT's with mealies, it's often best to dispose of them unless they're valuable plants. Unlike Sarr's, most treatments will kill the plants.

Shoot. That bad, huh? They actually hit last year while outside on my balcony, and seemed to be gone after a few treatments and bringing them inside over winter.

If they're in the roots, would that mean they're also in the medium? If so, would you recommend starting over with fresh medium after getting rid of the affected plants?

 

[Lloyd Gordon]

You could inspect the medium around the roots of the affected plants. If mealies, might be best to change medium.

 

[DaniL]

You could inspect the medium around the roots of the affected plants. If mealies, might be best to change medium.

Thanks for the advice! I dug them out and checked the roots, and they look all clear. I did flush them with some water just in case, and plugged them back into the old medium. I'll keep at it with the soapy alcohol and start hardening the bogs off to go back outside. Hopefully nature will take care of itself that way.