Plants

Over the course of the last 14 years, I’ve had the chance to grow several genera of carnivorous plants. My main focus currently is highland Nepenthes. In my experience, the breadth and depth of different adaptations is most spectacular in this category of plant, and from a horticultural standpoint, they offer a rewarding amount of challenge. My own experience pales in comparison to other growers globally, but I’ve enjoyed the journey that’s taken me to my current point. I began my journey with plastic boxes, which I’d lug up and down to the basement every night.

Eventually, my collection began to suffer in the summers. With help from a part-time job, I bought a mini-fridge and began moving my plants in.

I worked with several versions of mini-fridges as my collection slowly grew in size. It was clear after a while that this could only be a temporary solution. From an efficiency and stability standpoint, it simply wasn’t working, and constantly cycling the fridge was damaging the compressor. A larger solution with more thermal inertia would make the system more stable and require less cycling. So after saving up, I was able to buy a large chest freezer, make some adjustments and then move my collection completely over.

Ever since, I’ve made increasing changes to the system, using off-the-shelf components to add redundancies. In this system, I’ve germinated seeds for the first time, grew plants from unrooted cuttings, and tuned the daily temperature and humidity curves to something similar to nature.

This chamber has allowed me to grow species I’ve been dreaming of as a kid, from quarter-sized seedlings all the way into large specimens. Gradually, an ecosystem has taken root in the fridge, with small ferns, mosses and even little mushrooms popping up. Surprisingly, some level of equilibrium has naturally established itself and a fresh smell of forest life has taken hold. Though I’ve been very happy with the results from something relatively simple, space is still a premium and I’ve been planning to move to the next stage of growing chambers. But for now, enjoy some photos of the plants!