FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey all, I was wondering if someone could advise me on how soon to wait to unpot and treat my flytrap after I just repotted it?

What happened is I repotted and split my flytrap and it's babies and put them all in fresh medium, washed the rhizomes and trimmed off a ton of black leaves, but during the process, I noticed that the rhizome of the larger two plants had some chunks of black of them. They didn't smell and they didn't feel squishy, but because it was the first time I was doing a proper repot (and not slip-pot) of my flytrap, I kinda panicked and thought I didn't have time to ask about the markings, and just gave the rhizomes and roots and wash, and popped them all in their fresh medium.

Afterwards, I looked around online and read that I really should have cut out the black parts from the rhizome (and the roots attached to those parts) before repotting. But the plants are obviously in a stressed state right now from their first full repot.

When is the best time to take the two affected plants back out and do a bit of rhizome surgery to remove the rot with a sterilized scalpel? How long should I wait before I go ahead and do this? For reference, I repotted them Sunday, May 14th. Should I wait a week or two or more?

I know where I went wrong. Even though I thought I wasn't, I was overwatering them during dormancy, and I should have let them dry out more between waterings. I kept things too wet. We live and learn!

Thanks for any advice!

Leave it. Don’t worry about repotting. Part of the rhizome will always die off (turn black) while the other part is actively growing. It’s part of the life cycle of the plant. Repeatedly repotting and/or dividing a plant does more harm than good.

Thanks for letting me know that this is actually part of the natural process. Out of curiosity, when I do my repot next year, when I see those black parts again, should I just leave them or remove them at the time. Is there any benefit of removing those parts during the repot process?

You can remove them next year when you repot. Like dead growth above the rhizome (traps/leaf blades), it doesn’t hurt the plant. It could get moldy, but removing dead growth is mostly for aesthetics. For the rhizome, it’ll grow on the opposite side of the black dead parts, so removing all the black parts of the rhizome will make it easier to center your plant in its new medium.

Thank you so much for the advice! Appreciated!