I've been trying to grow Darlingtonias for a while. I've tried growing them from seed and I've tried buying them.

I'm determined to get this growing. The problem is that I live on the Gold Coast in Australia (South East Queensland). The summers can get up to 40 degrees in summber, but normally doesn't get much above 30, with usual "hot" days into the mid 30s. This is just too hot and the plants kick the bucket.

It happens to be a perfect temperature for Nepenthes, and all of my lowland and highland plants flourish out-of-doors. My Sarracenia, Drosera and Dionea also do very well, with a dormancy occurring where needed. Even Cephalotus has been growing well. So it is now my goal to maintain Darlingtonia.

I've just got another one and I'm trying something new.

I've got a very wide flat pot with styrofoam beads around the edges (in contact with the walls of the put), the centre is mainly sphagnum and the surface is a couple of CM of course perlite.

I've then set up a solar powered pond fountain (about $30 from eBay) and set it up so that just before the sun hits the plant the fountain sprays water over the pot. When the sun passes - so does the fountain. This avoids constant watering.

I've also set up a couple of solar fans to blow air over the pot - again they only come on as the sun is on the pot.

If this doesn't work then I'll relegate the fountain to be only for my Heliamphora (which currently shares the setup).

My next step is one of two options:

A cool box outlined by Barry Rice
http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq6010j.html

A solar powered cooler (do a google search for it - about $300).

I'm more likely to go for the solar powered cooler...

I'll keep everyone posted but I'm very eager to hear what has worked for you (and where you live so I have an idea of your temperature ranges).

Cheers,
Philip

Hi Phillip,

I think your problem is not the heat - its the humidity. I grow Darlingtonias no problem in Canberra, where they took up to 38*C no problems last summer. The difference here is it was dry when it was hot, which cooled the sphagnum via evaporation. But you get comparatively high humidity when it gets hot, which slows evaporation. But your fans and fountain, may make a difference - I'll be keen to hear how it goes.

Another important consideration is pot size and type. I use styrofoam esky crates with holes in them, like the type used for freighting vegetables. Your local greengrocer will be glad to give you one if you ask - make sure you bleach it and wash it out before using it. Styrofoam boxes are great because they give good insulation, allow evaporative cooling via their drainage holes (poke a few extra with a screwdriver if you want), let the sphagnum grow through the sides (which looks amazing), take a longer time to heat up because of their size and give the plant tons of room to spread out. The latter point is especially important, because the stolons produced by even small plants reach a long way. Also, use a potting mix of 1:1 sphagnum : scoria. If you can't get scoria, go to Bunnings and ask for a few bags of the hot rocks used for BBQs (the hot rocks are large chunks of scoria).

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

John.

In Canberra you also have cold winters, which may help

My tiny seedlings are struggling along... I will try the foam pot thing to see if I can keep them going through summer.

What about terracotta? That would provide some degree of natural evaporative cooling...

Hi again,

Sertotius - ask Jessica Biddlecombe about someone down your way who grew Darlingtonia using run-off from an air conditioner. They apparantly had beautiful plants.

Terracotta works well as a Darlingtonia pot. but I think terracotta will be a real problem in Sydney and probably the Gold Coast because water hardness is much harder in both places than here - Canberra's water is ultra-soft and originates from snow melt purified by alpine Sphagnum wetlands. Perfect for all carnivorous plants right out of the tap!

I used terracotta last year, but moved to the esky boxes to give the stolons room to move. I was largely convinced it was a better method after seeing Richard Sullivan's plants (Richard is at Bathurst and has grown Darlingtonia for years. He says they thrive on neglect).

I can see merit in arguing that a truly cold dormancy produces healthier plants capable of withstanding heat during summer. One observation supporting this was the loss of two Triffid Park Darlingtonia that had not received a really cold (as in freezing) winter. One was grown by me and another by a work colleague. Mine was selectively targeted and eaten by snails during hot weather, which suggests it was releasing some sort of volatile chemical induced by stress (ie. a kairomone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairomone). It otherwise received the same conditions as my current Darlingtonia, which received little (if any) damage from snails. My colleague's Darlingtonia died from heat stress, but was otherwise grown identically to my Darlingtonia (shaded, terracotta pot, sphagnum, lots of water).

I will try a Triffid Park Darlingtonia again this year and report back on success or failure.

Hope this also helps.

Cheers,

John.

PS - see the following weblink for Darlingtonia growing hapily under high temperatures and low humidity. I firmly believe the low humidity allows for far more efficient evaporative cooling of substrate (specially sphagnum, which is a branching moss with a high surface area) and keeps the roots cooler.

http://cobraplant.com/index.php?main_ ... 3c4c5004cdb1dc29e76091493

PPS - some photos to illustrate some points.

D_pot_2009-2010: this shows how much rubbish can build up in a terracotta pot over 18 months. Note that the water used here originated from alpine Sphagnum swamps and comes out of the tap soft, and with relatively low amounts of dissolved solids (as opposed to Sydney for example). 100 mm (4 inch) pot for scale

Darlingtonia_californica_Canberra: my cobras as they are today. They were produced by one mature plant with a 15 cm high stolon growth in 18 months. Like Sarracenia, they can outgrow their pots very fast. Medium used is pure Sphagnum, but I would have mixed this with scoria if it were handy. The boxes are sunk into nursery flats lined with plastic to hold water. Watering is per council regs..

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Hi. Firstly thank you for the replies - that's fantastic.

RE humidity, yes, the humidity hits near 95% most of summer - I'm 100 metres from water (both ends of my street).

The ones I had die were from triffid park too. This one is an ebay special.

The news so far - 10 degrees lower than a sphagnum pot directly next to the Cobra setup. Air temperature approximately 28, sphagnum pot (roughly same size and colour), 26 degrees and the cobra pot was obviously about 15-16 degrees.

Now... this was two days into spring so I'm yet to see what happens when we hit mid-35s in the heat of summer.

If this setup fails - I'll use those boxes. If it doesn't fail - I'll probably still use it because of the space - bu I'll wait until next winter.

The good news with the humidity is I'm getting some fantastic Nepenthes pitchers forming.

RE cool winter - It gets cold here, not freezing, but winter nights regularly get down to and sometimes just below 5, and days are normally maximum around 20 and sometimes below 15. The location I have my plants is particularly shaded during winter temperatures are always low. This gives my Sarracenia and venus flytraps really good dormancies - I've grown a veritable crop of them both from seed to flowering age (over 200 VFT and close to 50 sarracenia). But it isn't freezing - so maybe not low enough for Darlingtonia.

RE water - I've gone and purchased a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter (yes - on eBay again) and measured all the water I have access to.

In Cleveland (QLD 4163) the tap water TDS was about 125 ppm. Funny thing is that the "filtered" tap water at the same office was the same TDS.

On the Gold Coast (QLD 4216) the tap water TDS was about 115 ppm.

My rain water tank was about 50 ppm (not bad seeing as I'm surrounded by salt water).

My dehumidifier (run 24 hours a day dumping out 6-12 litres per day) was also about 50 ppm.

If I get a chance I'll take a photo of my setup and some of my other plants too.

I also have one of those nice little eBay TDS meters - in Wollongong we have about 70 ppm, which is the lowest of any tapwater I've tested in Australia or overseas. Interestingly those charcoal filter jugs only reduce it to about 50 ppm, and the one at work actually increased it to 75

I have had a D. regia in a large terracotta pot for about 2 years and there is no evidence of salt or calcium scale building up - but the other thing to note there is that I soaked the pot in a bucket of water for a few weeks before potting the regia. I think that helps leach out some of the mineral salts from the clay. Mineral deposits from tapwater aren't a huge issue as I top-water it. I will probably try a similar arrangement for my darlingtonias when they get a bit bigger...

I would put money on our TDS being lower than for many decades. The GC water supply went right down and then has been overflowing frequently in the last 12 months.

Brisbane isn't much different. Lots of rain over the last 12 months.

An update - today the sun was very intense in the morning. At about 11am the temperature in a sphagnum only pot got to 32(at about 5cm deep).

I never realised that sort of heat builds up. The air temperature was far less, maybe 26-28.

The Cobra lily maxed out at 22 degrees - so it seems to be keeping to roughly 10 less than the pure sphagnum. I'm not convinced this is the complete solution given air temperature might go as high as 40, and humidity will go higher.

I live in the pacific northwest and grow cobras... Coastal and montane forms. I also know where several populations are in the wild and have observed them on many occasions. Cobras can handle fairly hot temps into the low 100's (around 40 Celsius) with no problem. The key is to provide them with a very cold dormant winter. My plants at home receive full sun at temps around 40 Celsius and the growing media is warm to the touch. They grow just fine and I don't lose plants. The winters exposé them to freezing temps and snow regularly. That is what keeps them going. Also from what I understand, they do not take in nutrients through the roots but solely through the pitchers. This enables them to be watered with really any type of water, acidic or alkaline. In nature, they come from serpentinic environments where the soil and water is heavily laced with toxic metals and other minerals, making the water hard and alkaline in some places.

Here are some pics of some cobra lilies in the wild from my last couple trip to California.

This first spot is a bog in a flat open forest.

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This colony is growin on a steep hillside along a seep that flows into a rapid stream. The first picture is of the stream

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As you hike up the creek, you eventually notice lilies are covering this steep hillside to your left.

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They also grow right over bare rock surfaces as the plants in this picture are doing. This tells you they can withstand dry and hot temps as this particular area gets hot and very dry during the summer.

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There are also many different species of rare orchids and leopard lilies that grow in this same area. Here is a cypripedium californicum lady slipper orchid.

[IMG]http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff288/pascoman81/trips/Northern%20California%20trip%20with%20Jessica%20and%20kids/DSCN0532.jpg[/IMG]

Here is another locality that is overgrown with lady slipper orchids as well as pinguicula macroceras. They can be found growing amongst the grass clumps or even on the bare exposed rock surface.

Habitat

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And here are the plants

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This spot is a roadside ditch that has both darlingtonia and pinguicula macroceras growing in it. This spot is a very exposed locality fed by a mere trickle of water. It get very hot and dry here in the summer.

[IMG]http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff288/pascoman81/photo-117.jpg[/IMG]

The pinguicula were in bloom this time!

[IMG]http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff288/pascoman81/photo-116.jpg[/IMG]

It's really too bad I've gotten rid of really everything I have and am taking off to Australia for a year :)

Josh