So you were so inspired by yesterday's post that you are ready to try growing some meat-hungry plants on your own? Look no further than the wealth of information that is growingcarniverousplants.com. This site has a lot of information and some links to plant sellers.
growingcarniverousplants.com
NatGeo does it again with a stunning photo essay on the weirdos we know and love as carnivorous plants. The photos are mind-blowing and the one above is not even the best- check out the whole slide show for more. Did you know pitcher plants can live for decades? Just goes to show you can learn something new every day.
Ellison and Gotelli are trying to figure out what evolutionary forces pushed these plants toward a taste for meat. Carnivorous plants clearly benefit from eating animals; when the scientists feed pitcher plants extra bugs, the plants get bigger. But the benefits of eating flesh are not the ones you might expect. Carnivorous animals like ourselves use the carbon in protein and the fat in meat to build muscles and store energy. Carnivorous plants instead draw nitrogen, phosphorus, and other critical nutrients from their prey in order to build light-harvesting enzymes. Eating animals, in other words, lets carnivorous plants do what all plants do: grow by grabbing energy directly from the sun.
Alas, they do a lousy job of it. Carnivorous plants turn out to be very inefficient at converting sunlight into tissue. That's because they have to use a lot of energy to make the equipment they need to catch animals—the enzymes, the pumps, the sticky tentacles, and so on. A pitcher or a flytrap cannot carry out much photosynthesis because, unlike plants with ordinary leaves, they do not have flat solar panels that can grab lots of sunlight. Ellison and Gotelli suspect that only under special conditions do the benefits of carnivory outweigh the costs. The poor soil of bogs, for example, offers little nitrogen and phosphorus, so carnivorous plants enjoy an advantage there over plants that obtain these nutrients by more conventional means. Bogs are also flooded with sunshine, so even an inefficient carnivorous plant can carry out enough photosynthesis to survive. "They're stuck, and they're making the best of it," says Ellison.
LBrandt on Etsy is another fantastic example of haute terrarium design at it's finest. Lindsay works out of Arizona and offers "a rare preserve where Nature. Meets. Design." Got to love it and her shop is chock full of innovative designs. No one can call these terrariums cheesy 70's revival. Keep up the inspiring work Lindsay!
LBrandt on Etsy
Sheena at inthelittleredhouse.blogspot.com recently shared a beautiful terrarium-making experience replete with gorgeous photographs. I adore the above photo of the end products but the whole post is lovely. Go check it out!
inthelittleredhouse.blogspot.com
I was lucky enough to discover the gems that are Caroline's terrariums at shelflifegardens.tumblr.com. Her terrariums are full of glass, wild colors and contrast. Caroline uses all recycled glass and slow growing plants for one-of-a-kind arrangements. She also plans on collaborating with a glass blower to create more unique containers- which sounds very promising. For those of you lucky enough to reside in San Francisco, check out Caroline's terrariums at the Tedda Hughes Gallery and Boutique, beginning this Friday. March 5.
shelflifegardens.tumblr.com
Tedda Hughes Gallery and Boutique
How to remove those stubborn dead leaves from your terrarium? 14" scissors! I am finally getting a pair of my own and hopefully my terrariums will be looking a little neater sooner than later.... I have put off pruning for too long.
I purchased a pair off ebay, and then realized you can find them on plain old amazon.
