Monthly Archives: May 2014

And that about does it for Texas Frightmare Weekend 2014. As always, many thanks to the crew and staff at Texas Frightmare Weekend for exceeding everyone’s expectations once again, and many thanks to everyone who came by the Triffid Ranch booth, either to buy plants or just to say hello. And just wait for next year: when the Triffid Ranch comes back out of hiatus, things are going to go BOOM, and in a good way.

One of the underrated aspects of carnivorous plant research involves the number of animals that take advantage of the plants’ insect-attracting abilities. When I first encountered Sarracenia pitcher plants in the wilds south of Tallahassee all these years ago, I regularly spotted green tree frogs camped in the pitchers, waiting for their next meal. Here in the Dallas area, I’m constantly shooing baby Mediterranean geckos out of the pitchers when I need to repot plants. I won’t even start with the orb-weaver spiders building webs in the greenhouse and continuing their dinner theater rendition of The Battle of Gorash VII with the MedGeckos. However, although I’ve seen photos of spiders pulling prey out of Sarracenia pitchers, I’d never seen it myself, and come to think of it, I couldn’t remember seeing a crab spider in Texas since I moved here.

Well, there’s always a first time. A sharp-eyed customer at Texas Frightmare Weekend spotted this little guy camped on the lid of a Sarracenia flava pitcher, and “Sid” stayed there for the entire weekend. Before you ask, he’s back in the Sarracenia pools right now, chowing down on the explosion of insects practically raining down on the plants. (Next time someone dealing with an unnaturally cold Dallas winter chirps “Oh, but at least the bugs won’t be so bad this summer, right?”, please punch that person right in the heart for me. I’m having to clear grasshoppers out of the greenhouse from where they’re eating my Buddha’s Hand citron’s foliage, thank you very much, and I suspect the insect problem is only going to get worse once summer starts.)

Looking back over the last five years of attending Texas Frightmare Weekend, the evolution of the venue is just staggering. It’s easy to assume that it’s all about the attendance, and attendance at this year’s event was tremendous. “Great flowing rivers of humanity” is probably the best assessment, at least from this angle. No, it’s that the attendees always expect to see each show top the previous year’s show. The Frightmare crew then reciprocates by shooting well past expectations. It’s the same with the vendors: every year, we get attendees who come back to see what we have this time. It’s a wonderful game of heightened expectations and nuclear escalation, and I suspect that by my tenth year, I’d better have real triffids for sale or else.

Because of that, new plants weren’t the only things needed. New containers and new ideas showed up as well. Both a pair of statuary heads and a set of metallic skulls incorporated several happy experiments in painting techniques, and they disappeared right away. I’m not going to say what the experiment entailed, but keep an eye on this space for developments.

One of the many reasons I love showing plants at Texas Frightmare Weekend is because you honestly have no idea what’s going to happen next. Guests wandering around asking questions always make a show: I spent the first half-hour of Sunday morning having a great conversation with actor Mark Rolston about Roridula and other non-sundew sticky-trap carnivores. Since one of the many draws at the show was the advertised reunion of three of the actors from the film Aliens, he was out wandering the dealer’s room with Jenette Goldstein, and I jumped when I saw her, but not for obvious reasons. Instead, I saw her at my table and thought “What’s Pat Cadigan doing here? I thought she was in London.”

Another reason why I love coming out here is what I now call “the hotel room effect.” Namely, when you have multiple people traveling across the country, or across the world, to an event such as this, and they share a hotel room, everyone sees everyone else’s swag. Understandably, one sees something that another found and asks “Where the hell did you get THAT?” Time for another trip downstairs, where the new folks go nuts and the original purchaser figures “Why not get another?” And that’s how it started. One congoer comes by…

…and then she comes back for another…

…and then she brings friends.

In fact, it’s now time for a group photo of the plants.

You know, next year, I may have to sell carts just to help them haul their stuff up to their rooms.

At shows and events, I’m regularly asked “where do you get your containers?” I’m the first one to admit that a lot of the more memorable ones are serendipitous. Old aquaria, old computer monitors, modified shipping containers, and all sorts of strange things show up at the door. If they’re reasonably water-resistant or can be made so, if they can hold soil, and if they can admit sufficient light for photosynthesis, they’ve all got a shot. The trick is finding them. Thrift stores, pet shop closeouts, estate sales…there’s really no telling.

By way of example, I’d been wanting to do a series of very small but still practical container arrangements, using small carnivores such as Drosera spatulata and various bladderworts as the main focus. The problem comes from finding the right container. You need a glass or strong plastic container with a mouth wide enough to admit plants and potting medium, that can accept water and the occasional fruit fly, and doesn’t look cheesy. Tough order, especially with the number of food and beverage companies moving to cheaper plastic containers to save weight and corresponding shipping costs. The best bottles for the job are liquor bottles, which can be a problem for someone who can’t drink.

In this case, sometimes the best surprises are themselves surprises. A couple of months ago, the Czarina was in a mood to wander around estate sales, and we came across a small yard sale on the way. The guy holding the sale was apparently moving to Seattle to “do something in music”, so he had a lot of music equipment that simply wasn’t of interest to anybody else. However, he had a thing for a particular brand of Japanese whiskey with distinctive bottles, and he thought he’d throw a couple into the sale for 50 cents each. When I bought both, he brought out a whole box full of them, and I bought the whole lot for $2. The Czarina thought I was insane, but that charge has been leveled at me before.

The reasons for grabbing these bottles were threefold. Firstly, they were good thick glass, meaning that the bottle wasn’t going to crack or break if someone looked at it cross-eyed. That’s a major consideration for any plant arrangement: moisture will actually encourage the expansion of cracks in glass, so it’s better to start with something that can handle the weight of plant and soil. Secondly, the mouth was more than big enough to admit plants, soil, water, and various tools without trouble. Thirdly, the bottles had two distinctive flat panels on each side, intended to hold the labels, that gave big clear panels for viewing the plants inside. How could you lose with that combination?

Well, apparently a lot of Texas Frightmare Weekend customers agreed with me, because a lot of them went home with new sundews. I suspect that both plants and keepers are going to be happy with these for a very long time.

And before anybody asks, yes, I’ll try the same thing with Crystal Head Vodka bottles, but only if you supply the bottles. Either that, or I find an estate sale where the deceased was VERY fond of Crystal Head.

Five years of attendance, and I thought we were ready for Texas Frightmare Weekend 2014. We’d been through rough times and good times with the Frightmare crew, and figured that we had a fairly good idea of the crowds and the interests inherent in those crowds. Well, those crowds surprised all of us. Not only is this the biggest horror convention I’ve ever attended, but it’s easily the largest media convention I’ve ever seen, and it’s definitely giving Dragon*Con and the San Diego Comic Con some much-needed competition. And the sheer variety of that crowd? Off the scale. It’s times like these that I wish I knew more languages, because I desperately needed a bit more fluency in French, Russian, Japanese, and Portuguese that weekend. Yeah, it was like that.

Since this was such a spectacular weekend, the photo spreads for this year’s show are going to go on for a while. Hope you have a couple of weeks to keep checking back for new ones…