I grow lots of things. Passion-flowers, carnivores, voodoo-lilies.. And miscelaneous strange & unusual things.. Some producing edible fruit, some just doing something cool. But all of them do Something besides simply sitting there, being green & converting CO2 to O2. Anything can do that.

Here's the flowers I expect to see when my passiflora vines decide to bloom- I have all of these, I used my pics of the ones who have bloomed for me, and shamelessly stole the rest from the 'net.

I have more than the ones pictured here, but their tags were lost somewhere so I'll have no idea what they are untill they bloom, and some kept their tags but I can't find a picture. Passiflora 'Whirlygig' for example. When it blooms it will suprise both you and I.

Alata	Amathest_lavender_lady	Biflora	Bluecrown	Caerulea~white
Edulis_flavicarpa	Herbertiana	Incense	Incense2	Incense3
Incense4	Incense_big	Ligularis	Sunburst	Pfordtii
Platyloba	Pura_vida	Quinquangularis	Seemannii	Victoria

These are the ones who have bloomed for me- I'm collecting the pollen from all of them and trying to create some hybrids. So far I have Incense X Caerulea for sure... Now comes wating for the fruit to mature, the seeds to sprout, and the plant to grow to such a point that it flowers and I know if the last 2 years (by the time it flowers) have been a waste of time or not. We'll see tho, Sunburst is a hybrid... Maybe I'll get lucky and create something cool.

So anyway, here's what's popped so far:

Seeds! I've got a lot of seeds who I'm attempting to sprout...
When they do and if they live to flowering age, I hope to have a bunch of flowers such as these:

actinia	alata	amethystina	cincinnata	edulis
edulus leaf & flower	foetida	gracilis	herbertiana	incarnata
ligularis	loefgreniicorupa	micropetala	mollissima	organensis
pohlii	quadrangularis	serratodigitata	subrotunda	villosa

I have a pile of passiflora plants & seeds.. Some seeds have sprouted so now they're seedlings.. In no particular order, they are:

Recent arrivals as of Nov '05:

Passiflora 'Balam' (P. coriacea x P. xiikzodz)
Didn't know I had this one.. Thought it was Kewensis... Must have bought it from ebay as that or something.. Just goes to show how impossible these are to ID without seeing the flower. It's a hybrid created by John MacDougal, and apparently rather "Extremely hard-to-find and sought after". I crossed it with my sunburst (both ways) but as of this writing I don't know if it "took".

Passiflora Antioquiensis:
Call me weird or retarded or whatever.. But I spent $75 on this one. It's quite rare


I keep many carnivorous plants- Some live outside in a small bog I created.. It was a "pond".. Which I filled w/ peat moss & distilled water. Ponds at least ponds that small take a bit of care to keep clean.. Else they're just a slimy nursery for mosquitoes. A bog is much easier.. Pour some (distilled or rain) water in occasionally, keep it damp & (at least from what this beginner has read) your plants will be quite happy. I created it about 4 months ago and so far everything seems to be doing fine.

On 22 Dec 05 I recieved a pile of gemmae I ordered from Best Carnivorous Plants, a place in the Czech Republic.

Gemmae are the asexual reproductive products of my pigmy sundews- They produce some every year if grown under the right conditions. (which I have not been able to reproduce...) Anyeay, gemmae can grow into mature plants in as little as 3 to 4 moonths, where as seeds might take a year or more to readh the same size & maturity.

Some can be *Quite* small- That's the edge of a penny.

They arrived on a bunch of little zip-lock bags, wrapped in damp paper towells:

Here's some close-ups:

Some were already sprouting:

Here's one on the tip of a 3/0 brush. (the tiniest brush I could find..)

Aaaaand here they are in the pot they will call "home" from now on:

So in a few months I'll have ea bunch of new baby drosera.. Very cool, as apparently some are rather rare. What kind are they? I don't remember ( I "planted" them at about 4 am thismorning.. Couldn't sleep so I decided to do something rather than just lay in bed..) But all the pots wear labels, So I'll know when they grow up.

I've built 3 terrariums so far- This one is my largest. With the little ones I quickly ran out of space.. Hence the creation of the big one. It's 48" wide, 24" deep, and 36" tall.

Here's the whole thing:

Most of the lights are off so I could get the picture. There's a few banana seedlings in there, just so when you go "what's that", that's what. The pyramid shapes on the top house 1 75 watt hallide bulb & 1 150 watt flourescent. Under each back shelf are 2 40 watt flourescent bulbs, the common "shop light" kind, and under each side shelf are 2 22 watt (each) compact flourescent bulbs. With all the lights on the thing pulls 500+ watts, and lights the whole room. The tube looking thing on the middle top is a chimney above one of the cooling fans (activated by the thermostat near the bottom of the terrarium) which aids in cooling the whole thing by convection. As the warm air rises up the 'chimney' it pulls in cool air through slots in the bottom. (look at the bottom left- see the slot cut in the plexi? That's a cold air intake.)

The back & sides are 1/4" plywood, with reflective mylar sheet spary-glued on to create mirrors directing the light back toward the plants. The underside of the top just happens to be a highly polished side of plate aluminum I found at the recycler's It's almost "mirror" quality.

Humidity is adjusted with a humidistat (near the bottom of the terrarium as well) and a home-brew ultrasonic humidifier I tore apart & remade to my spec's. It blows mist down from above, and the entire device is hidden behind the chimney. When set at 65%, I go through about a pint of water every 2 days.

The shelves are 1/8" aluminum plate I picked up at the local metal recycling place (it's sold as 'scrap' there & I get it by the pound) with 1/2"x1" wooden sides bolted on. Cracks are sealed with 50 year silicon calking, making watertight trays within which the water can be about 3/4" deep if I wish.

The lights are controlled by an appliance timer ($5 at hardware stores) & is "on" 18 hours, then "off" for 6. Thus the plants "see" an 18 hour day with a 6 hour night. The heat & humidity controlls are "on" all the time, however rarely turn on during the night cycle.

Here's the bottom shelf, closer:

The bottom right side, showing the thermal & humidity controlls:

And one of the small side shelves:

And here are some of the plants who live inside the terrarium:

baby1	baby2	big	burmanni
burmanniroots	capillaris	capillaris2	capillaris3
dielsiana	nitidapuchella	nitidapuchellablooming	nitidapuchellaflower
scorpiodes	spatulata

The dielsiana aren't but about 2 week old seedlings.. And the scorpiodes are 2 week old gemmae.

There are a great many carnivorous plant stores on the internet all one has to do is search.

These are the ones I have ordered plants from.. All are good-

Best Carnivorous Plants. Based in the Czech Republic- Really nice pics on their site.
California Carnivores. The owner is the author of the carnivorous plant bible- The Savage Garden.
Cook's Carnivorous Plants. They sell on ebay sometimes..
Sunshine Sundews in Austrailia has a nice selection.
Sarracenia Northwest has a monthly plant contest.

Links to passion flower seed providors, discussion groups, and picture collections:

Rare Exotic Seeds carries both carnivorous & passiflora seeds.

www.passionflow.co.uk has Piles & Piles of info about passion flowers

www.passionflow.co.uk/reg.htm

www.passiflora-bruckelt.de

www.blumen-passiflora.de

http://mpeixoto.sites.uol.com.br/index.html

www.passiflora.it

www.kingma-vermaat.tmfweb.nl

http://membres.lycos.fr/houelc/collection.htm

http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/passiflora-l.html

www.passiflora.org

www.passiflora.tk

www.passiebloem.nl

www.passiflorasite.100.nl

http://biological-diversity.info/native_passiflora_main.htm

www.nafralevi.de

http://forum.msg.icpro.de/PM4D/PM4DH/PM4DHF/pm4dhf.htm

www.passiflora.ch

www.sementes.de

www.sunshine-seeds.com

http://home.t-online.de/home/Gregory.David/html/body_passiflora.html

www.passiflora.info

www.golatofski.de

http://br.f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/yurieduardo2003

http://13005.forum.onetwomax.de

http://www.exot-nutz-zier.de/

Anyone wishing to remove and use any of the pics on this page may ignore the copyright warning below and do so with my blessing. Have fun.