Projects and Observations

In addition to raising plants, the Texas Triffid Ranch also offers tips, projects, and general observations on plantkeeping and associated bits of fun.  Most of the day-to-day news and discussion happen at the Texas Triffid Ranch LiveJournal, but particularly involved or detailed projects show up here as well.  This space will also include reports on field trips, botany and horticulture-related events, and photos from recently attended shows and conferences.

Gothic Gardening columns

Starting in 2009, Gothic Beauty magazine began running a series of columns on unorthodox gardening techniques and suggestions.  These columns appear here in their original form.  Columns updated when a new issue of the print magazine appears.

Column:  "Getting The Lay of the Land"

"Just for a second, think about the two words “gothic gardening.”  Just for a second.  Did you get images of an overgrown cemetery or abandoned park, festooned with creepers and dead branches?  Do you have images of an herb garden where everything therein is medicinal or poisonous?  How about antique Wardian cases full of ferns, club mosses, and other antediluvian remnants of past life?  A pond overrun with water lilies amidst a half-sunken fountain?  Statuary and gravestones?  Topiaries? A greenhouse full of orchids and Borneo pitcher plants?  Roses?  Lilies?  Angel trumpets and moonflowers? Nightshade and privet, or Venus flytraps and butterworts?  Stark white marble ground cover to reflect the full moon, or narrow pathways between pumpkin patches and rosemary bushes?"  MORE

Projects & Observations

Observations:  "LOLPlants"

"Because you can't be serious all the time."  MORE

Projects:  "The Proletaripot"

"Back in 2007, horticulturalist and indoor plant specialist Bob Hyland offered instructions for converting a standard 2-liter soda bottle into a sub-irrigation planter he called a Volksplanter.  While his design was very ingenious, I needed to do a few modifications to optimize its use for carnivorous plants.  I jokingly called it a "ProletariPot" as an inside gag dedicated to the British comedian Alexei Sayle, and the ProletariPot has proven itself to be an excellent replacement for standard plastic pots."  MORE

Observations:  "It's Always Saddest When It Happens To Someone You Know"

"Were I the sort to judge based solely on the covers, Timber Press would have been the girl next door who stopped by after lunch.  Tall, pretty without being overly focused solely on looks, and able to run rings in conversation around a room full of Ph.Ds.  In other words, just like the woman I married.  Strangely, while she says that she doesn't have any problems with the other person in my life, she sometimes lingers over the horticulture section of my library, and I can't tell if she's glaring in silent jealousy or contemplating an attempt at stealing my mistress from me. Sometimes, I suspect it's both."  MORE

Observations:  "How To Take 'Carnivore' Out of 'Carnivorous Plant'"

"Several friends of mine have cut out all but vegetative-based foods from their diets, either for ethical or medical concerns, and they also have concerns with feeding live or dead animals to any plants they might purchase in the future.  Others have worries about prey animals getting loose in the house.  Still others just don't want to have to feed their plants if the plants aren't able to catch prey on their own.  All of these are perfectly valid and reasonable objections, and absolutely none of them prevent dedicated vegans from keeping carnivorous plants.  It's just a matter of selection."  MORE

Observations:  "The Essential Books Necessary If You're Going To Keep Up"

"The problem is that many books on carnivores are written for the typical fifth-grader working on a report for class back around 1963, not for serious enthusiasts wanting more than a sensationalist view of Venus flytraps.  Of the others, I've come across painfully inaccurate and potentially catastrophic tips (my personal favorite was the suggestion that minerals could be removed from tap water by boiling it, which is a really good way of killing a pitcher plant or butterwort), obsolete or outdated species descriptions, and growing tips written by individuals whom I suspect might have seen a picture of a flytrap one time about a decade ago.  Even so, I still have six books that I use for reference on a constant basis, and if I can't replace one, it doesn't get lent to others." MORE

Projects:  "When We Had No Crawdad, We Ate Sand"

"The quality of sphagnum moss can be checked by making sure that a bag or bundle specifically reads "PURE SPHAGNUM MOSS" and smelling the bag or bundle, as contaminated sphagnum moss tends to smell like old manure.  Even salt-soaked coir can be used if it's soaked and rinsed with rainwater, and then drained and dried.  But how often does anyone check the quality of the sand they're using?"  MORE

Projects:  "I Kin Haz Cthulhufruit?"

"Allison's citrons definitely qualified as Cthulhufruit, as they looked as if they were about to jump off her blouse and attack passersby like the facehuggers in the film Alien, and suggested a "How To Protect Yourself From An Assailant Armed With A Piece of Fresh Fruit" defense course as taught by the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce instead of the Monty Python troupe.  At that point, I knew I had to get one."  MORE

Projects:  "Avoiding All Puns involving Light"

"The human eye is an exquisite sensory organ, the culmination of approximately 600 million years of evolution.  It can register a wide range of color wavelengths, it can be used for closeup and long-distance viewing with a minimum amount of adjustment (just try to use a magnifying glass for a telescope in a matter of seconds), and it can adjust to both bright light and near-darkness with equal alacrity.  That's, of course, the problem: because the eye's evolution was dictated by its need for such rapid adjustment, what seems to be adequate illumination for navigation or even reading isn't the same as what's necessary to keep a plant alive."  MORE

Observations:  "You Have The Care Down, And Now It's The Feeding"

"By definition, the main appeal of carnivorous plants lay in their ability to reverse the standard arrangement of who eats whom.  Sadly, while serious enthusiasts can appreciate the fluting grace of a Sarracenia leucophylla trap or the dropping allure of its blossoms, all most people care about is that the plant catches and digests insects and other prey. That's a start, but this is only one of the merits of raising carnivores. This aspect is also what gets most of them killed."  MORE

Observations:  "The Perfect Starter Carnivore"

"As I write this, I have a carnivore terrarium on my desk: it's a little two-liter glass cookie jar with an adjacent 23-watt compact fluorescent they light. That light won't produce enough light for a lot of carnivores (Venus flytraps, for instance, usually request more light), but little D. adelae thrives on it. You know it's happy when its tentacles turn red and each one has a nice fat glob of mucilage on the end: that mucilage requires a lot of energy to produce, so it's a great indicator of light levels in the terrarium. In fact, adelae doesn't much like direct sun, and it tends to die back if it gets too much light."  MORE

Observations:  "Putting The Plants To Bed For The Season"

"Right about the end of October, anyone who's purchased a pitcher plant or flytrap for Halloween is coming to a sad realization:  they won't be able to enjoy their plants' company for too much longer.  (Well, that's if the purchaser lives in the Northern Hemisphere.  Australian, Argentine, and Aotearoan carnivorous plant enthusiasts are seeing their plants first bloom around then, but then they'll have the same disappointment in April.)  That display of color and form is a last gasp for the season, an attempt to capture a few last insects before going dormant."  MORE

Projects:  "Bathtub Luffas In A Bathtub Fit For Gin"

"Many better writers than I have made fun of the inadequacies and creative embellishments found in seed catalogs and on seed packets.  At the Triffid Ranch, I often laugh at the catalogs that sell Venus flytrap and pitcher plant seed as if they can be planted in the garden alongside the lettuce and carrots.  Likewise, the last time I saw anyone selling saguaro cactus seeds for "easy" propagation of a plant that needs twenty years to grow to a meter in height, I laughed so hard that milk came out my nose. This was especially entertaining because I was drinking Pepsi Max at the time.  Some people's definition of "easy" is another's of "wanting to hang the copywriter by his/her ankles from a tree branch, get a few cricket bats, and play Viking Piñata for a few hours."  And then you have the minor aggravations, such as the missing step in raising luffa squash."  MORE

Projects:  "Surviving The Cube"

"For those outside of the carnivorous plant nursery trade, "cubes" refer to the prepackaged carnivores sold in hardware and home improvement stores' garden sections.  The name comes from one particular supplier of carnivores that uses clear plastic boxes to ship and display its plants, usually with three varieties of carnivore with diametrically opposed growing conditions all jammed into the same space.  The boxes are an absolutely brilliant way to ship pitcher plants and sundews with a minimum of wasted packing space.  Unfortunately, they're not a good permanent living solution."  MORE

Projects:  "Capsicum Peppers for Bonsai"

"Interested bystanders considering moving into bonsai have multiple reasons to be dissuaded from giving the art a chance.  Many, particularly Americans, are put off by the amount of time necessary with many tree species for initial training.  Others don't feel comfortable with risking a valuable scion or yamadori to a design that might kill the tree. Still others feel intimidated by the techniques themselves, and wish for easier starter plants for practice before risking a pomegranate or Wollemi pine to shaping and cutting. In recent years, herbal alternatives to standard trees, particularly using rosemary and other woody shrub herbs, have achieved a popularity of their own, and an intriguing alternative is the Capsicum group of peppers."  MORE

Observations:  "Bless Your Heart: The Carnivorous Creations Story"

"While variations appear under different brand names (for instance, the Toys ‘R’ Us chain sells a setup with drastically different packaging, the sets are essentially the same.   Each one features a high-domed terrarium with heavily-Photoshopped clusters of various carnivores, and the claims 'Grow Over 10 Varieties of Carnivorous Plants!' and 'Actually Eats Insects', or some variation thereof, appear on the box in bright, lively text.  The kit itself includes a terrarium base and growing dome', a bag of sphagnum moss/sand potting medium, a packet of carnivorous plant seeds, a small bag of blue gravel, three 'bog buddy' plastic reptile and amphibian replicas, stickers to go on the outside of the terrarium base, and an instruction guide.  Technically, it’s possible to grow a collection of carnivores from this kit, if you follow the instructions to the letter, and keep them alive for years."  MORE