Ugh I love spiders. I want to hug them all. I wish more people had an appreciation for them! They really are our little eight legged bros.
Kovari
joined 2 years ago
Thank you. It really is a stress relaxer. It took a while to get everything set up for sure. This room has about 110 plants in it, most on the shelving on the wall opposite of the windows. I've got another 60 scattered in another room. I like bringing nature inside :)
Here's the view from the chair!
"Fridge dormancy" is the term for doing that. Basically giving them a period of lower light (some is still necessary, so a glass door minifridge with backlight is what I use) and lower temps is what they need. In higher growing zones they can just stay outside during the winter since they tolerate snow well.
I use an app called planta to keep track of them, but honestly when I buy a plant I get used to it and research it a bit if needed. Once you get used to the main species they are similar in care needs. I'll certainly post my collection soon!
Yeah they can seem intimidating if you don't have houseplants. I have over 170 in my "indoor garden" so it's not bad for me since I have the setup, but the amount of light they need is kind of annoying. Luckily I have an extensive cactus collection so I have lots of lights. Don't ask me why I'm crazy enough to collect cacti in zone 4....
The other thing with carnivorous plants is they get their "fertilizer" from insects, so fertilizing it otherwise is actually bad. Likewise watering it with anything but rainwater or distilled water can kill it.
I have a rain barrel set up for all my plant watering so I'm all set! But when people get VFT's sometimes that mistake is made for a while and they end up dying. Like I said... they require specialized care but they're very rewarding when you see your VFT with a ton of huge hungry traps :)
It's kinda funny innit? It seems most people expect them to be a tropical plant but a huge variety of them are temperate and do need a dormancy period in order to stay healthy. I'm in zone 4 so it's a little colder than they can handle, so for people in my zone with a carnivorous plant collection we need to be crafty. Putting them in a mini fridge works so they don't die overwinter.
Wait is that really how that works? Geez..that doesn't seem right.
Edit; on second thought, I do kind of see how this would be beneficial...on certain topics. Okay, I'm not sure how to feel about that exactly yet.
Lol. Just bugs! I have a bog garden planter outside and they catch their own dinner, but my indoor carnivorous plants need to be fed periodically. Dried mealworms work fine.
Other carnivorous plants include venus fly traps, pitcher plants like sarracenia and nepenthes or csphalotus, and pings. They require a bit of specialized care but so fun to watch and rewarding.
So fricken true
Does anyone remember that shrine where you had to attach a giant ball to like a raft or something in between some walls in some water? Yeah I had no idea how to do that, was I supposed to make like a paddle boat or something? I ended up just making a giant long ramp and walking up the platform with the ball....
Botw had some shrines like this too where it was like "oh I didn't know I could do that, oops I'm at the exit by accident, oh well"
I dont know if my niche will quite fit the site yet, but I've followed a lot of animal subs ( crestedgecko, aidke, partyparrot, the twenty thousand cat subs... catsbeingcats of course a favorite ) and also a lot of botany style subs ( botany is the obvious one, houseplants, houseplantcirclejerk, savagegarden, mycology ) and then the unusual to pique interest ( unusualvideos, atbge, designdesign, barbarawalters4scale, hmmmgifs )
Special call out to /todayilearned a /awwducational for giving me fun facts to share with my co workers.
I think if there were master communities it would help appeal to a broad crowd.
Thanks, that's Atlas! He's the biggest sweetheart (and asshole) I know.