It was quiet, and it was concise. The beginning of November is always a relatively quiet time, when cooler weather encourages everyone to stay in and bolster themselves before the holiday season starts. As such, the last autumn open house for 2021 went without major issue, and now it’s time to get everything ready for winter.
The main upshot of last weekend’s show is that Venus flytrap and North American pitcher plant season is now over. Between shorter days and cooler temperatures, these, temperate sundews, and the Australian triggerplants are going into winter dormancy, so they’ll be missing from Triffid Ranch shows until the beginning of April. The good news is that with a long winter nap, all of these are more likely to have a good blooming season in spring, so keep an eye open for the 2022 Manchester United Flower Show toward the middle of spring.
As for upcoming events, the next two weekends are going into a massive gallery renovation and rearrangement, including preparation of a slew of new enclosures that will be ongoing through the end of the year. The weekend of November 27, the Triffid Ranch makes its last road trip of 2021 to show plants at the Blood Over Texas Horror for the Holidays show at Palmer Event Center in Austin, and then everything comes home starting on December 4 for the Nightmare Weekends Before Christmas open house series. (By request, since Christmas itself falls on a Saturday, we’ll be opening the gallery on December 24 from noon until 5:00 for everyone who either has the day off or who wants to come out during lunch breaks if they’re working. Besides, December 24 is also Fritz Leiber‘s 111th birthday, and I imagine he’d have loved a party full of carnivorous plants.)