Some dry frozen pitchers

[edwardyeeks]

These two just came out of the fridge yesterday:-

N. lowii x campanulata

N. truncata x spectabilis

This one was out of the fridge since last September. The colour shows no signs of fading yet! (some of the bleached colour happened during the dry freezing process)

N. x Dyeriana

All in all, dry freezing is quite an easy process. You'll just need a scissor, patience and the heart to cut the pitchers I dry freeze my pitchers for 6 months.

[winterkid]

Wow.
Interesting.
May I ask what you do this for?
Did you like try to preserve pitchers in transparent plastic/acrylic?

[plantlover]

Nice!

[delphiguy]

excellent... mind sharing the procedures you did?

[edwardyeeks]

Originally Posted by winterkid

Wow.
Interesting.
May I ask what you do this for?
Did you like try to preserve pitchers in transparent plastic/acrylic?

Hi Sam, I do this to preserve the beautiful pitchers our plants throw out once in a while! also, I plan to cut pitchers as some plants grow to keep track of the pitcher size. I did not preserve them in transparent plastic/acrylic, the x Dyeriana pitcher was in my living for the whole time.

Originally Posted by plantlover

Nice!

Thanks Aaron.

Originally Posted by delphiguy

excellent... mind sharing the procedures you did?

Hi delphiguy, actually our very own forum has an article about this and I did my dry freezing process based on it. https://archive.petpitcher.net/nepenthes/...thes-pitchers/

Basically, here's what I do:-
1) Cut the pitcher. (gotta force yourself to do it if you want to! )

2) Wash away all dead insects inside the pitcher. (I don't use detergent as I fear it might cause the pitcher to wrinkle)

3) Dry the pitcher within an hour. Since I don't have a hair dryer, I use an electric standing fan and tissue paper to dry up the whole pitcher including the interior of it. For that reason too, I only work with big pitchers so far, small ones are too hard to dry their insides with tissue paper. Especially those toothy peristome ones!

4) Dump it in the freezer and wait for 6 months.

5) Once done, I take them out and hang them upside down to allow any condensed water to evaporate.

Some observations I have made so far:
-During the first three months, the pitcher tends to freeze rock solid. After that, it becomes soft again. This is where water has already dried up from the pitcher cells. You can actually take it out, but I leave it for 6 months as precaution and to really sterilize any bacteria on the pitcher.
-When dry freezing, try not to take it out and let water condense on the pitcher until it's wet. A short while is ok. I suspect because of this, my x Dyeriana pitcher had some colour bleached away.
-Some slight colour bleach or pitcher change is inevitable. Don't damage the pitcher or it won't look nice

I haven't used spray paint on the pitchers, but so far, they still remain fine and do not brown up yet.