> 1. What mix do you recommend?
>
> 2. Does it ever freeze in the part of Spain where Droso's live?
Hi David,
The only soil mix I can personally recommend is the soil I saw in
the habitat I visited - I don't have first-hand experience with any
other ones. I'm not a soil expert, but as far as I can see, it
consists almost entirely of a very, very fine silica sand, some of
which is in the form of sandstone rocks of all different sizes.
There's maybe 5% fine clay mixed in as well. In other words, this is
a very nutrient-poor soil, and becomes compact and rock-hard when dry,
to the point that water even has a hard time soaking in.
Many other growers use perlite-vermiculite, sand-peat, and sand-pine needle
mixes with good results. I personally would steer clear of mixes that
retain a lot of moisture though, which is Drosophyllum's number one
enemy, from my experience. If the stem and roots are kept very moist or
waterlogged for just a few hours, the plant will die.
Your second question is a good one. A few weeks ago I promised to
obtain information about the annual temperatures and rainfall in the
habitat I visited and post it on the list, but I still haven't gotten
around to it. In September the Spanish Mereorological Service announced
that it would soon go on-line, and I was hoping that this might be an
easy way to look up this data, but they're still not connected yet.
One of these days soon I hope to visit the university library and look
it up using the conventional method. In the mean time, I think Lecoufle
and Slack mention something about its winter hardiness in their books.
I don't remember at the moment, and I haven't been too worried about it
myself since where I live it almost never freezes. When I know something
I will post it.
Best regards,
Gordon Wells
Instituto de Robotica e Informatica Industrial
Edificio Nexus, planta 2
Gran Capitan 2-4
Barcelona 08034
SPAIN