Thanks to one of the warmest, wettest UK winters since records began, the utility area at the end of our (soon to be demolished and replaced) garage/shed, which is home to three compost bins and three large water butts, is also hosting a small, but growing (and irritating) colony of mini mosquitoes.
The greenhouse just next door is sure to make an attractive hanging-out space for these pesky critters, and so I’ve taken steps to try to keep their buzzing and biting under control.
Enter, stage left: my latest botanical acquisitions, sourced from Wack’s Wicked Plants, a specialist carnivorous plant nursery based in Malton, North Yorkshire.
What we have here (from the left) is:
- Sarracenia alata ‘red tube’ – a North American pitcher plant from the De Soto National Forest, George County, Mississippi.
- Drosera filiformis – a sundew that traps its prey on long, sticky, downward-curling stems.
- Dionaea muscipula ‘giant peach’ – a venus fly trap with a red-coloured interior leaf.
- Sarracenia x purpurea ‘Barba Papa’ – a hybrid North American trumpet pitcher plant.
Obviously they’re all quite small plants – the better to ensure they survive the mail order delivery process – so I’m looking forward to watching them grow and develop (and devour those damned mosquitoes) over the course of the growing season. I’ll post more photos as they do.
If you’re interested in obtaining a few organic bug-catchers of your very own, check out the full range of carnivorous, insectivorous plants at Wack’s Wicked Plants. Or see the list of shows and plant fairs that Wack and H will be attending this year, if you’re keen to buy some larger, more menacing specimens.
2 replies on “Greenhouse Pest Control, the All-Organic Way”
Do your water butts have lids.
Yes, they do. (Although they don’t quite fit properly, so they’re just balanced on top at the moment.)