All posts tagged pitcher plant

Three Things Thursday: 8 June 2017

*three things that make me smile: an exercise in gratitude – feel free to steal this idea with wild abandon and fill your blog [or Twitter account or Facebook page or diary or life in general] with the happy*

Emily of Nerd in the Brain originally created Three Things Thursday, but it’s now being hosted by Natalie of There She Goes. Anyway, here are my three things this week…

First, letter-writing. I mentioned in my recent post Small Calm Things, that I had made a start on some letter-writing and over the past few days I’ve written quite a few. Sitting in the limery as the rain hammers down in our British summer, it’s rather nice to put pen to paper and know that I will be raising some smiles as a result of my efforts.

Second, new inks. I have a project in mind that involves alcohol inks in muted colours. Until now I only had bright colours, but this morning’s post brought me the earth tones I need, so I’m now all set for getting arty.

a new art project is on the horizon

Third, pitchers. The pitcher plants and the monkey cup in the limery are growing like mad and it does make me very happy to see them doing their job and looking so fabulous.

And if you want to see lovely pictures of some of these plants in their native habitat, check out this post from Nerd in the Brain, who recently went to visit the Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden.

So, those are three things making me smile and that I am grateful for this week. What is making you happy?

26 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on June 8, 2017 • Permalink

Posted in Three Things Thursday

Tagged alcohol ink, art, carnivorous plants, letters, Nepenthes, pitcher plant, Sarracenia

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on June 8, 2017

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2017/06/08/three-things-thursday-8-june-2017/

Three Things Thursday: 4 August 2016

As usual I’m joining with Emily of Nerd in the Brain (and others) for Three Things Thursday’. As she says…

*three things that make me smile: an exercise in gratitude – feel free to steal this idea with wild abandon and fill your blog with the happy*

First, a new (sort of) table. For ages we have been searching for a second hand bistro table to go in the limery. We found lots of table and chair sets, but we didn’t need chairs; we found very expensive old tables; we found tables needing a significant amount of renovation; we found wooden tables… but nothing just right. We could have bought new, but we really wanted not to add to the ‘stuff’ in the world. Finally, on ebay, we spotted a company selling refurbished catering equipment… including bistro tables. It is perfect…

IMGP0080

Second, monkey cups! Until the other day I was pretty convinced that my monkey cup pitcher plant was not very happy as it didn’t seem to be producing pitchers. However, when one of the tomato plants fell over, the pitcher plant got covered in compost so I had to move it and clean it off. And when I took it out of its corner, there at the back was one big pitcher and one developing one. Clearly it’s happier than I thought.

Third, finally reaching Mornington Crescent. Now I’m pretty sure that only a small proportion of my readers will understand why this made me so happy. If you do, then you are probably smiling too; if you don’t then just accept that it’s the main ambition of fans of a Radio 4 show called I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue sometimes referred to as ISIHAC.

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So that’s it for this week. What are you feeling grateful for?

ADDENDUM: Since the questions have already started, I’d better say that you can read about the joke that is Mornington Crescent HERE.

16 Comments

by The Snail of Happiness on August 4, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in Three Things Thursday

Tagged ISIHAC, limery, monkey cup, Mornington Crescent, pitcher plant, refurbished, table

Posted by The Snail of Happiness on August 4, 2016

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2016/08/04/three-things-thursday-4-august-2016/

More carnivores

I’ve rather fallen in love with the carnivores in the limery… not so much the Venus fly traps (which I expected to be very exciting, but are, in fact, fairly dull), but the Sarracenias (pitchers) and Droseras (sundews). These amazing plants are thriving – they have all grown since their arrival and have been working hard, with the sundews being particularly effective at catching small insects and the pitcher consuming the larger flies (houseflies, horseflies etc).

Unfortunately we have had rather a lot of flies indoors this year because the field behind us has had livestock in it for the whole summer. So, despite the pitcher doing its best – with a little help from the Nepenthes tropical pitcher, which needs to be kept in a vivarium to maintain high humidity – we still have rather too many insects for my liking. Which has given me a great excuse to get some more plants (it was always on the cards once the limery was finished). So, let me introduce the four newbies:

Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purpurea – Purple pitcher plant

Sarracenia flava – Yellow pitcher plant

Sarracenia catesbaei - S. flava x purpurea

Sarracenia catesbaei – S. flava x S. purpurea (hybrid of the two above)

Cephalotus follicularis Albany carnivorous Pitcher Plant

The Sarracenias are bigger plants than the one I originally bought and are in 9cm pots, but should grow significantly bigger. The Cephalotus is very small as yet – only a few centimetres across – but also should get much bigger.

The structure and morphology of all these plants fascinates me. I could spend hours simply looking at them in wonder…