Meadowview Research Station Part 1: The Plants

Meadowview's Sign and Some Sarracenia

Whew, finally getting around to going through my photos from a few months ago and wanted to share some photos of Meadowview Biological Research Station. It's an awesome little place to visit.

Sarracenia x catesbaei flowers

As I stated in some of my earlier posts from May, I had an awesome trip to the Richmond area in April. It was a short trip and there were definitely more things I'd have liked to do than I actually got to do, but, nevertheless, I did get the opportunity to visit some cool sites.

Sarracenia flava

Phil, Rich, Siru, and Dennis were awesome to meet in person and visit with as well as get tours from of the Meadowview properties. I'd definitely recommend contacting them if you're ever in Virginia.

Sarracenia x moorei

When I visited, I was just a tad too early for really great pitches, but, my, were the plants in bloom. (In contrast, up here, my plants started blooming just last month).

Sarracenia rosea

Among my favorites were Sarracenia rosea...

Bog Iris

The bog Iris that seem to pop up in well maintained bogs, and

Whitish-Flowered Sarracenia rosea

This Sarracenia rosea which appeared almost white in flower color.

Sarracenia and Iris flowers

It was just really cool to be able to see such a plethora of flowers. Given how unusual that weather was on the East Coast this year, we've had plants growing at all sorts of odd times. I think Meadowview was pretty lucky in that virtually all of their Sarrs were flowering at the same time. Ordinarily, that's an impossible occurrence.

Sarracenia flava

Typically, Sarracenia flavas and some others will flower much earlier in the season than Sarracenia minor and some others, making it rare to get crosses between those two species. But this year, almost everything flowered together. (My only exception was Sarracenia leucophylla, which is only now just flowering for me and is definitely the last of the species to flower).

Sarracenia x catesbaei

I really enjoyed seeing plants in bloom and growing after the long winter. Since my indoor-gardening season is about six months, it was truly refreshing to see plants out-of-doors.

Sarracenia rosea

I also really liked seeing plants which I have difficulty growing because of their low cold tolerance.

Sarracenia leucophylla just opening among the flowers

I'm not sure what, if any, crosses or breedings Meadowview did this year, but, for my part, I let most everything open pollinate, with some assistance. (I'm hoping to cross my S. rosea with my extremely vigorous S. purpurea sbsp. montana and use those offspring for future crosses).

Sarracenia x catesbaei

It was also refreshing to see that Meadowview, like me, doesn't have the time to trim up all their plants come spring. Siru and Rich were working hard on that, but, like all gardening, there is never ending work, such as pruning.

Sarracenia flowers

I was also happy to be able to buy a few plants and take them home. There's always room for one more, right?

Some Awesome Hybrid Flowers

I think the coolest Sarracenia flowers I saw were this hybrid's because it was so different. The camera didn't really catch the vibrance of them, so you'll just have to believe me.

Nepenthes rafflesiana

Of course, Meadowview isn't just Sarrs. They have some awesome Nepenthes, too. This giant Nepenthes rafflesiana in their lowland greenhouse was one of the most awesome lowlanders.

Nepenthes inermis

Meadowview also has a highland growing area, too. Many of those plants are Rich's and he has grown some striking plants, like this Nepenthes inermis. (When will mine start producing awesome upper pitchers like this?)

Nepenthes truncata

The prize for biggest pitcher, though, probably has to go to this Nepenthes truncata. It was gigantic!

Sarracenia seedlings

And the prize for smallest pitchers went to these little Sarracenia seedlings. They were so tiny!

Utricularia longifolia

Perhaps the coolest flower of the whole place was this Utricularia longifolia. This is one plant that I haven't managed to flower yet. I'm hopeful that mine will at some point...

Utricularia inflata

It was also neat to see some native Utricularia in bloom among the Sarrs.

Sarracenia leucophylla

I do wish I could time warp so that I could have seen the fields of Sarracenia leucophylla in pitcher, too. This was one of the only plants that had any pitchers when we visited.

Sarracenia flava

With that, I'll finish with this awesome little flava which probably had the best pitchers of any plant we saw on our visit.