The Kimoto Carnivorous Plant Blog

As I mentioned near the end of Part II, I found a bowl-shaped pot that I thought might work as a water reservoir. The more that I thought about it, the more I thought that it would be too tall, so I decided to look elsewhere.

While I was searching through my local Orchard Supply Hardware, I noticed a stack of 5-gallon plastic buckets. This was the perfect solution. Not only are those buckets nearly indestructible, but I could cut off the bottom to whatever depth I needed.

The dremel tool cutting wheel made quick work of cutting off the bottom of the bucket and the hole saw rapidly cut the PVC pipe opening.

I (very carefully) removed the Dionaea that I just transplanted the other day (risky, I know) by lifting out much of the surrounding soil along with each plant. I then dug out the soil in the center of the container until I reached the bottom. Fortunately, the sand/peat mix really sticks together, so it was pretty easy to make an opening for the water reservoir without having to remove all the soil. In fact, I used the cut-down bucket to cut the hole in the soil.

Once I had completed the excavation, I placed the reservoir on the bottom of the pot and stuck the PVC pipe through the hole that I had cut in the top (which was the bottom of the bucket). I then filled the pot with soil again and replaced the plants.

I should mention that I ran the pipe all the way to the bottom of the pot. This shows that I had forgotten by basic physics. When I started to fill the reservoir, the water began backing up into the pipe almost immediately–the pressure from the air above the water was keeping the water from completely filling the reservoir. I solved this by pulling the pipe up so that the mouth of the pipe was very near the top of the reservoir.

I plan to temporarily remove the pipe and drill a series of holes in the bottom several inches of the pipe to remedy this, since I really don’t want to have the pipe sticking up as far as it is now, and I want the added stability of having the pipe rest on the bottom of the pot.

Coming next: Adding more plants!