Pinguicula- Mexican Butterwort Mix
Pinguicula- Mexican Butterwort Mix
Mexican Butterworts or Pinguicula spp. make excellent houseplants and are among the easiest carnivorous plants to grow. They use their sticky, glandular leaves to lure, trap, and digest insects in to supplement the poor nutrient conditions they obtain from their environment.
They are found in a vast variety of habitats- wetlands, bogs, fog forests, limestone cliffs, volcanic rock faces. Some grow in moss, others in just cracks in the rocks. We have gone down the route of mimicking the volcanic rock, free draining route.
With a mix of pumice, zeolite, lava rocks, vermiculite, and a couple grades of washed sand this mix won’t compact and is able to be used for years to come. We now have hundreds of pings in this mix happily flowering and multiplying away and we hope yours do too!
Planting your pings is pretty simple they have a small root system with very shallow roots, just pop some mix into a shallow pot without drainage and keep a water reservoir, occasionally letting it dry out to top up again. Sometimes we use spag moss as a layer on the bottom or hold the reservoir but it’s not necessary. You can also pop them into a shallow pot with drainage holes and keep them in a tray of water, it depends on how you’d like to water them.
Only use distilled or rain water and do not fertilise or feed them! They get everything they need from insects. Pinguicula can handle a decent amount of direct light and in fact this can bring out their fabulous colours, however they’re not sunbathers and can burn. Aim for a few hours of direct sunlight during the morning with less intense sun rays.
Temperature wise, they can handle just about any temperature also, but they may go into dormancy (succulent phase) if too cold, it’s not an issue they will suck up all the water into their leaves, this is when you don’t water them as much and when the warmer temperatures start again they’ll perk back up ready to catch more insects. You will know when they’re in dormancy it’s a very obvious difference, they will not have the obvious sticky leaves.
New Zealand Made
Please note, more than 5L will incur an excess shipping weight fee please don’t hesitate to contact us to provide a quote for you.
