cephs in my green house

[snapperhead51]

Its a hot topic all round the world, some people have no trouble growing them others have total disasters, I have written up a care thread on here , but may be many of you find it hard to read or understand , what conditions cephs need or like or will tolerate !.
so here will put some pic's up of a few cephs I have here in my green house , and may be some wild shots too later on, from a trip I did late last year to Ablany at ceph home land , seeing them in the wild and seeing what they feed on and the soils they grow in, gives me a difernt perspective on how I should grow these plants in my green house, seems now I have it reasonably sorted out after changing some potting mixes and positions of the plants and watering .
so here is a few pic's , you will probibly want to know more of what I have done, and happy to get into any indepth discusion with any one on these plants , dont know every thing , but should be able to know most problems or remidies you may need.
J























that will do have many more but this will give a good selection to talk about
John

[DND]

Ahhh, those are some awesome cephs there. What is the biggest pitcher that u measured from them?
How old are the seedlings in the last pics mate?
Soon I noticed that some of my seedlings are slightly raised from the soil and I saw aerial roots into seeds. Is this normal? I'll try to upload some pics later, however now I have to work, so will catch you up soon back into thread and skype for sure.

[Miro]

Amazing plants

[HEFE]

Well John, it is great pleasure to see your beautifull cephs, they are amaising. I only could be dreaming for such success.
Now, in our mass-order of carnivorous plants, i ordered one ceph, and I hope that will succeed to grow the plant, better than the last time.
When the plants came, I will have many questions, and I hope that it wont be boredom for you to answer of some of them.
Cheers
Andi

[Tares]

Hello John,your plants looks great and thanks for postting these pictures.Would you be so kind to tell me what fertilizer do you use for your Cephalotus? Do you use any fertilizer for them?

Regards,

Eftim

[snapperhead51]

Hi Dimi
pic below on the size of the pitchers, on that plant.
the seedling are from last years germination , my own seed, from flowers I pollinated . sown on the 8/3 /11 germination was in very early spring, our spring time the reverse of yours .
if your roots are showing you can cover them with a bit of live sphag if your concerned, or just some more of the mix your using in that pot , but if the plant is still growing , not a lot to worry about, I suppose if you going to expose it to high sun , then it would be proper to cover them .

[snapperhead51]

Thanks Eftim.
I don't use any fert at all , just now , i will start using meal worms and crickets , soon though , as in the wild plant they had a lot of hard body beetles in them , more than any thing else, so they are very slow digesting plants , I am going to cut up the bugs in to Small pieces , to quicken the nutrients s , well that is the hope , will let you all know how it goes , so people in the US use osmocote , I tried that and it killed the pitchers , too strong, may be the one they use in the US is a different chem release , will check it out as well , I have tried some native fert from here called focus , its very low in all nutrients , as all out native only can have very low KPH for them , that seemed OK as well
John

[snapperhead51]

Amazing plants

thanks Miro

[snapperhead51]

Well John, it is great pleasure to see your beautifull cephs, they are amaising. I only could be draming for such success.
Now, in our mass-order of carnivorous plants, i ordered one ceph, and I hope that will succeed to grow the plant, better than the last time.
When the plants came, I will have many questions, and I hope that it wont be boredom for you to answer of some of them.
Cheers
Andi

Hi Andi
the cpehs look great when growing well i do like them very much, is no problem ask any thing you want, will give you my secret ceph mix OK he he eh , its based on what i saw at Albany , tried to make a medium that looked and felt like the soil i saw and felt there, its is working well as you can see from the pic with my thumb in it above , there the healthier plants now with this new improved medium
John
I used, 1 part chopped live shpag moss, 1 part, coco peat, 1 part fine white silica sand , 1 part fine perlite, just be sure to wash any coco peat till all tannins are out and do a TDS reading on it before you use it the TDS reading must be below 8 , 800 ,8000 depending on how your meter reads . and don't not compress the mix keep it light and fluffy, the other one is just strait live sphag moss , they seem to like to grow in medium that there roots is easy to grow in and not work hard to push the roots down into , very light and airy , like a fluffy compost .
hope that hepls
J

[staninik]

What a beauty! I hope that when i get mine cephalotus it'll grow to such a perfect plant as yours.I know i'll need your and the others help for this so if it's not a problem i could look for your advises.