Plants Swaps

I was involved in a interesting plant swap recently. There was a post on the Carnivorous Plants page of Gardenweb - someone was looking to trade a dozen carnivorous plants for any number of things - irises, coins, etc. I've been wanting a Venus flytrap, but I haven't been willing to pay for one, since I'm not 100% sure I know how to make it thrive. I saw this as an opportunity to get something for essentially nothing.

I emailed about my irises, but they weren't the kind he was looking for. He asked if I had any old coins - I did, but I wasn't sure what I had and I wasn't sure I wanted to part with any of them. I found my coins - I had wheat pennies, buffalo nickels, silver Jefferson nickels, Mercury dimes, silver Roosevelt dimes and silver Franklin and Liberty half dollars, and other miscellaneous coins.

After a little negotiating, we came to an agreement - half of the Roosevelt dimes and half of the half dollars for the dozen carnivorous plants. From what I know about each of the items in the trade, it was an even swap.

Once the plants arrived, I was pleasantly surprised. They were packed well and looked like I had hoped. There were two pitcher plants, four sundews and six Venus flytraps. Since receiving these plants, I've been reading everything I can find on carnivorous plants - I want to make sure I do everything right. I feel comfortable with the pitcher plants - I already have some of those and they are thriving.

Getting the plants in the mail sent me on a mission to round up all of my pots to figure out which pots I would put these plants in. I started two piles in the driveway - pots with drainage holes and pots without. I thought I would need pots without for carnivorous plants, but after a little reading, that doesn't seem to be the case. Venus flytraps don't like to be swimming, and I'm not sure what to do with the sundews yet.

While I was de facto organizing my garden area, I started thinking about plants I wanted to repot and divisions I wanted to make, to get ready for the plant swap in a few weeks. I repotted some succulents and a cactus. I divided my aloe and Euphorbia tirucalli "Fire Sticks". I've got a lot more that I can do and I'll probably do a lot over the Labor Day weekend.