How to pollinate Pinguicula

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]The long awaited how to pollinate pings.

[00:00:04]>> [music] >> I say long awaited because Daniela asked me almost every single year, "The people want to know how you pollinate your pings?" And I say, "I bet they do."

[00:00:17]>> [laughter] >> Just kidding.

[00:00:21]Um so, I'm going to use a brush today.

[00:00:24]People use other things, but a brush is totally acceptable thing to use.

[00:00:28]Um if you're wondering what is a ping, a ping is a Mexican butterwort. They're hummingbird pollinated in the wild where they grow, often in Mexico.

[00:00:39]Um and so, they have this long spur in the back for the hummingbird to get the nectar out of. They're pink or red or very like beautiful flowers just like many other hummingbird pollinated flowers cuz hummingbirds like pink and red.

[00:00:53]Um so, the business parts of the flower are actually uh inside the throat. The spur, although it has nectar, it doesn't have anything to do with the pollinating. And these petals are just for show. So, all the business is right in that tiny little area, right in the throat.

[00:01:10]Um you can see up at the top of the throat, there's a little apron, let's call it, that hangs down from the top. That's the stigma, the female part of the flower, which is made for receiving pollen.

[00:01:25]So, we're going to get the pollen, and the pollen is actually behind that skirt semi awkwardly um on two little anthers on either side.

[00:01:33]Let's see.

[00:01:35]I actually had to see if there's pollen in here before, so.

[00:01:40]Let's think it more. I got most of it last time. Let me try one more thing here.

[00:01:45]Honestly, older flowers usually have more pollen.

[00:01:48]There we go.

[00:01:50]So, you can probably see the pollen all over that.

[00:01:55]And then we're going to march on down here. And then you get to pick what you want to combine it with. What do we want to combine it with? I might as well combine it with this over here.

[00:02:04]This is a Moranensis.

[00:02:07]And I'm going to put the pollen, it's all over there, on that little skirt up in the top there.

[00:02:15]Boop, boop, boop.

[00:02:17]And you know, even a tiny bit of pollen to our eyes is probably a hundred, a thousand little grains, and so you don't need a ton. That'll be plenty.

[00:02:25]Then it's going to take actually kind of surprisingly long time to ripen and make seeds. I would say almost a month usually.

[00:02:32]How do you know when to collect your pink seeds? The reason I use this flower largely so I'd be over here conveniently cuz that is a pod that has to be collected right now, right this second.

[00:02:42]The pink seeds will absolutely uh fall away very quickly. I think uh part of the difficulty of it is actually getting the flowers um to bloom at the same time and crossing them. That's obviously a difficult thing.

[00:02:56]Um but then also it has to work and not all crosses work.

[00:03:02]That's the kind of thing you have to figure out for your own, crossing different flowers all the time and seeing what will work and what won't work. But it all doesn't work and so there's that big barrier to success. And then sometimes, you know, the ovary will even swell up. That's where the seeds are inside, uh the fruit.

[00:03:20]But then when it opens there's nothing.

[00:03:22]Or sometimes it'll look like it's totally going to do it and then all of a sudden the flower stalk will wilt and it'll have and it'll go away and it's done. And there's really nothing you can do to stop it. It's either going to work or it's not going to work. And sometimes things work that you wouldn't expect. So it's worth trying.

[00:03:37]But the next hurdle is remembering to come back and get these seeds. I have so much to do. I'm running around doing all these things. I almost missed this one except for I came over here to do this video. See, the universe is rewarding me for sharing information with you guys.

[00:03:52]Um but you can see on Danielle I showed that one, it's split down the middle.

[00:03:57]There'll be a little line a day or two before and that's your like, "Okay, let's go look. Let's go look." and keep looking. And it opened today and honestly, tomorrow they could all be gone. Definitely like, you know, two or three days all gone. So, yeah, I catch those seeds.

[00:04:12]You don't need to do anything to make them sprout. You can sow them right away. We just sprinkle them right on ping mix. It's best to do them under lights, I would say. But here now comes the really tricky part, which is growing seeds uh pings from seeds.

[00:04:25]It can take as long as 6 years to bloom a new ping cross if you're growing seeds the old-fashioned way. Um so, obviously it's not for the impatient people and you should be prepared for the idea of gently pulling out tiny little ping seedlings from overgrowing moss or slime or algae cuz that often happens when you're growing them.

[00:04:50]But as I often say, you know, our failures disappear in the plant world and our successes um remain and so, you'll see there's all kinds of things that I did make work out and so, it's totally possible. I think one of the philosophies about this kind of game because there are so many opportunities for success and failure in this. There's so many plants here.

[00:05:11]There's so many crosses I do. So many seeds I collect. So, I have a possibility every single day of accidentally letting some plant die or forgetting seeds or not seeing a flower that I would have liked to cross and you could literally sit here and cry over spilt milk all day long about things that didn't work out. But it's like a net gain sort of a game, you know, so I'm also doing so much that there's just so many happy things that are um happening. And that's what I mean. Your successes remain. You get to see all your successes bringing you joy over and over again for all the years and so don't focus so much on the things that don't work out. Always something that's not going to work out. Um, but our successes what make it all worthwhile worthwhile. So, you know, I always want to give a healthy dose of reality check when it comes to doing some of these things because I think a lot of people who say grow tomatoes from seed expect them to be this tall in 6 weeks, but things probably won't even germinate in that amount of time and then it's a years game to get them up to flowering size. Again, totally worthwhile. We're here to inspire, but also a gentle reality check.

[00:06:33]>> [music]