FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

andynorth wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 10:46 pm

Fishkeeper wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 2:47 pm Do you know what media that is? It looks sort of odd, though maybe that's just me.

"I see dead plants". It looks to be old media that has dead flytraps in it to me.

I would repot it in good media asap.

I posted about repotting but it poofed. I believe there was another opinion that I should wait on the repotting until I could see if I could even get the plant going again. If not I’ll be going to Home Depot soon and buying peat and perlite. Just looking for the right white pots as the last thing for that job.

But your opinion is to repot before seeing if my lighting change helps anything? Thanks in advance

I would. The existing media looks bad imo. And if its in the media from a big box store they use tap water, ugh.

Repotting stresses a plant. For a struggling plant it could be very stressful. How high were the lights?

Intheswamp wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 7:35 pm Repotting stresses a plant. For a struggling plant it could be very stressful. How high were the lights?

I raised them a decent bit because they were burning the parts of the plant still left alive down to the last trap, and I was worried that they would burn any new growth in that case.
The one that’s lower is the neck that drifts partway down when I try to adjust the height. I feel like there should be a way to jerryrig it, but I can’t for the life of me think of how.

I finally got a ride to Home Depot yesterday and got a smaller bag of perlite but got stuck having to get a humongous bag of peat because they only had Miracle Grow and Mosser Lee in the smaller bags which is unfortunate because I’m guessing the stuff will get stale before I use it? If so is there a way to mitigate that to some extent? I got Premier which was the second recommendation I think you gave me.

Here’s a really silly question that I didn’t think of until today - how do you tell when it’s a 1 to 1 mix? I mean they look so radically different, I’m not sure if I will eyeball it correctly?

Oh I got pots too, but they’re only 5 and a half inches deep. I was trying for at least 6, but all the deeper ones were extremely large. These only have 3 drainage holes as well and I’m wondering if that’s enough or if I need to drill a few more?

Do I need to wash the moss to get it the right amount of moist before I put the plant in?

And obviously what are the thoughts from you about repotting? It’s basically down to about to lose the last trap so I’m probably just gonna be repotting the rhizome here which might be less stressful? I do see a huge difference in the medium in my pot and the stuff in the pics other people have posted so it does seem like I may have to stress it so the crappy stuff it’s left in doesn’t keep potentially damaging it.

I have a large bag of Premier that sits outside my door and it seems to be OK. I have used about half of it over a couple months and seems to be fine. I left it in the original bag and just cover it back up after use. I think as long as you keep it covered you should not have to worry about it rotting. It sits in the store for quite a long time.

Below are some photos to show you how high I have my lights right now. The...the two 3-panel garage lights (80watts), three Yescoms(22watts), and the single Viparspectra(100watts) that I've got hanging...your lights are a total of 20watts, for comparison. How does it feel to the back of your hand when you hold it, say, a foot below the lights? Is this photo of yours the current height of the lamps? I dunno...they just seem too high to me, but I'm probably missing something here. Did the pot dry out badly beneath the lights, or maybe just the top layer of moss?

As for the drooping light... What about putting a nail or hook, just inside the bookshelf (where it won't be really visible) about a foot higher than the curve of the neck. Tie a nylon/sisal/cotton/whatever string, or maybe some wire, from the hook to roughly the middle of the lamp's neck pull it up snug a little above where you want the lamp at...that probably would keep it from drooping. Kind of like somebody with a sling on their arm.

There is also what is referred to as "mineral burn" that will give the plants a "burned" look and will kill the plant if it continues. The mineral burn comes from using a grow mix that is high in minerals or highly mineralised water (usually well above 50PPM). Another thing that can cause it is a build-up of minerals in the water tray...the trays need dumping and washing out once in a while to remove minerals left from when the drain water evaporates (you need to let the tray stay dry for a day or two before watering again. Top watering helps with washing impurities down and out of the grow mix into the tray...that water needs dumping after it drains. Top watering will also help pull some oxygen down into the mix. Top water maybe every week or three. Just some thoughts....

The Premier brand will work well. I rinse pretty much all my ingredients...I'm "OCD-Me", remember. A 5-gallon bucket and a paint filter bag makes things a little easier. But, with the volume that you're working with you shouldn't have a difficult time rinsing it. You'll see a heavy "milk" residue when you rinse the perlite...though nice and white-looking, it can have "stuff" in it that we don't want. A couple of rinses of the perlite and it will clear up a lot. The peat moss will forever give off it's tea/coffee color but it will be clearer after 2-3 rinses. You're reducing the chances of mold and mildews from growing in the pots by rinsing...and lowering the TDS level a good bit. I've mentioned it before...lots of the experienced growers do not rinse their stuff and do good. Your choice to rinse or not.

Btw, I may have already mentioned it but a TDS meter is an excellent tool to have on hand...lots of uses for it. Very handy. $15 on Amazon and with care they last a long time...here's the one I got: TDS Meter

The peat will indeed continue to decompose, but not quickly. I mean, it's been in the ground for probably several years already. Store it out of the sun and rain. Someplace where ants or "critters" are apt to tear into it. You're in a cooler environment than I am so you have that added storage benefit, too. It should last for a good long while. To insure it doesn't go bad you need to get more plants to use it up faster!!!

I went through the "Do I measure things by dry volume or wet volume" phase. The reason I stressed over this is that the peat will compress some when wetted so it becomes an apparent smaller volume. But, the peat will fluff back up some and somehow be "good" with the perlite. If you feel like you won't have enough peat moss in the mix then do what I do...I usually use a heaping, rounded off container full of peat moss but a level container of perlite. The easiest and simplest way is to measure them dry. Take an appropriate sized container and scoop out ever how many scoops you think you need. I then rinse/wash this ingredient and set it to the side when finished washing. Then I take the second ingredient and scoop out the same amount of it as I did the first one...(using the "heaping rounded off" method, if I want to). Thanks to the more experienced and *very* patient folks' advice on the forum they convinced me that it isn't rocket science! The measurements don't have to be exact...get it as close as you can and it should work.

5-1/2" pots should work well. Just keep the water below about 1/2" and let it dry out between waterings. Flytraps like it moist but don't want but only want the tips of their toes below the actual water level. I would drill 3-4 holes in the sides of the pot, just above the bottom...that way the drain holes won't be able to get blocked by sitting on the flat bottom of a water tray.

You definitely want the moss moist. By rinsing/washing the peat moss it will be good and moist when you're ready to use it. After the last wash squeeze it out as much as you can and it should be ready to go!

If the mix that the flytrap is in now is a fine, squishy, almost slimy mix...I'd repot it. The roots need to breath and once the mix breaks down (or is poor quality to start with) it hinders oxygen/air getting to the roots. With a fresh peat:perlite mix it should drain readily and allow oxygen to get to the roots. Also, wcrosman mentioned that the store probably used tap water to water the flytraps...lots do, they don't know any better (or don't care). So you might even want to take the roots and swish them around in some distilled or rain water to rinse them gently. Once you get the flytrap planted in it's new digs then top water it to settle in the mix around the roots...dump that drain water. I'd probably let it sit a day before filling the water tray. Be sure you have a bit of the white rhizome sticking out of the mix...don't plant it too deep.

It sounds like you've got the ingredients that you need. Best wishes and...have fun!

That was the current height yes. It wasn’t about drying out the moss, but as soon as I had it under the lights all the green started turning brown. I lowered them again because the rest of it is browning too even with the height. They weren’t doing that before. When part died it didn’t start off being brown, but it eventually turned from green to black. I can’t think of anything else that I have done in the short time I’ve had the lights that should change that process so much. I lowered again because the height doesn’t seem to change that.
There’s the height and the last trap kind of wilting I guess you’d call it. The moss isn’t really slimy per se, but it’s different than when I first got it. Mushy kind of is probably better description? I’m getting ready to repot today, but I have to have my mom drill holes in the pot. I have bad tremors and don’t trust myself to not drill holes in myself lol. I was watching the repotting video and it looks really helpful. It looks like the rhizome is completely covered by the medium? But very gently patted in there. I was wondering if the perlite was at the bottom and the peat at the top, but I can see it’s mixed thoroughly which helps. My mom was the one who suggested it was probably divided. She grows a lot of traditional plants and flowers.

I’m a little worried about breaking it out of the pot because I’m not sure if I can gently bend the sides and slide it out like he did. The pot isn’t like a nursery pot. It’s a little sturdier plastic. Was thinking if his method doesn’t work I could maybe cut a side gently with a pair of scissors but I wasn’t sure if that would screw something up? I don’t even know what a rhizome looks like. I’ll be looking that up. And I thought I was supposed to completely flush off all the old soil, but it looks like he leaves a bit around the rhizome and roots. I was thinking about it like transferring fish from the store container to a fish tank which is good to have their water mix with the tank even if it’s a huge tank to a small container because it adds bacteria that should be there. But I’m going to try to do according to video as much as possible. I like step by step instructions I can see.



The nail idea is great thank you. If it’s at the current height or lower it doesn’t drift actually so that’s ok.

Oh I feel nothing on the back of my hand from the lights until I’m like 3-5 inches below it maybe. Then it’s warm. But more than that I don’t feel anything.

Great so I have to edit in the rest of this after I post it. Was almost done and accidentally swiped it off the screen. It saved the above but not the rest of what I wrote. I am frustration. Weird I see it saved it all but the paragraphs are in different order. :shrug:

I can’t see your last post with all the questions so I have to see if I missed anything important to edit in.

ETA 1 - I don’t believe you mentioned that TDS meter before, but do I need it for jugs of distilled water or is it for rain water? I wasn’t sure if distilled water sitting in jugs might go “bad” for plants after sitting for awhile or something.

I’m actually going to finish down here so I don’t have to keep editing and going back. Will minerals build up in the tray from distilled water? It’s the same soil and water I’ve been using since I got it, and the main decline didn’t happen until that flower stalk that I somehow didn’t see until I posted here. The browning started when I was using the second light with the first after I had it at about the height I did now, and I think it would have browned the current trap if it was lower unless it was just healthier than the other growth that browned and that’s why it’s more wilted than getting brown atm. I’m not sure. I just can’t figure a sudden mineral burn after it has been same soil and water since October unless it could suddenly go off after that amount of time?

Thank you for all the repotting and rinsing advice that’s definitely super helpful. And yeah I’m definitely rinsing both. Any extra precautions I can take to potentially make things better I definitely want to do. I don’t remember if I mentioned but I didn’t see the rhizome poking out in the video they did, but maybe it was and I’m just not seeing it? So it’s supposed to be slightly visible from the top then? Thanks again. Between you guys and the video I feel more confident with this. Only thing the video lacked is the actual mixing of the peat and perlite but I figured it’s probably like hand tossing a salad to get all the ingredients well mixed in lol.

Here’s the pots btw. The trays they came with attach which I don’t think would work so I bought separate ones for them to set on.
Actually looking at these with the attached tray off makes me think maybe I shouldn’t drill any holes? Not sure.

Guess I wasted everyone’s time as I did repot it but my other guess is that this is not a state it can come back from

If anyone thinks it can I’m still more than willing to try anything else but I know it’s supposed to be white there. Also I think that’s sphagnum and it was really hard to get broken up gently. Yikes. Did my best.
I’d like to try again. Do I need to repot a VFT bought from here? I could just remove the one I just put in if there’s no way to bring it back. And would that same light setup work for pings? I’m hoping I don’t have to buy a different medium for those but I still need to look into it.

Some people leave some of the old grow mix stuck to the roots, some people try to remove as much as they can. I don't think leaving an abundant amount of it will help the plant and I don't think that washing the roots glistening clean will help it much (might even damage more roots). Get as much old mix off as you can without damaging the roots badly is usually my goal.

Thoroughly mixed moss and perlite is what you want. The pot you got looks fine and with the raised ridges on the bottom you probably don't need holes drilled into the side.

You would want to see the lower white areas of the leaves sticking out of the grow medium. Planting too deep is a mistake many new growers make.

Blackened leaves are caused by several things...mineral burn is a prevalent one and will eventually kill a plant, thus my mentioning it. It could very well be something else, I don't know.

If you had to get your hand four inches from the light before you felt any heat from it and you had had it up at 12-16 inches I doubt the light burned the plant, I'm not an expert, though, and could be wrong. The plants live out in full sun where you can feel the solar radiation (heat) hitting you. The plant was declining when you first posted about it, I believe something possibly in the mix wasn't helping it and possibly light deprivation in the beginning weakened it...just some thoughts. It looks like it has some good roots on it, so now you have it in a good moist grow mix, maybe a 1/4-1/2 inch of water in it's tray, and good lighting above it. It's "wait and see" time. It looks bad, but there's still hope for it...time will tell.

Yeah, losing a post is aggravating...just part of forum life, I suppose.

No need to test distilled water, it should be 0PPM. My rain water is very clean down here, usually running 0-2PPM but on occasion has pegged in around 15-20PPM. When I jug up my water from the buckets I usually will test it to see how clean (or dirty) the rain was...I always wonder what the storm system passed through when the TDS is higher. Or, maybe, something blew onto the roof that the rain water is running off of...ash, soot, exhaust, smoke, dust, etc., (that's another reason you want to let the first little bit of rain pour on the ground and then start collecting it). I think your tap water will be too high, but you could test it with the meter. It's also good for testing water trays...as the plants are watered the pots will leach minerals into the water. When trays dry out the minerals remain and over time the TDS level can actually build up in the trays. Checking the water all along keeps you from having your plants sitting unknowningly in high mineral content water. You can also check the TDS of the rinse water of your peat to see the effect the rinsing is making on the peat moss. It's also a good tool when you're trying to figure out what is going on with an ailing plant by ruling out bad tray water or a big buildup of minerals in the peat (measure drain water). It's just a handle little tool, IMHO.

Like I said above, it's "wait and see" time for this one. As for a new one, sure, go ahead and repot it. These are usually tissue-cultured plants and there may be a half-dozen little plants in the bunch. There is usually a paper or net-type wrapping around the root bundle and it's stuck down in the "soil". Some people carefully remove the "net" so the roots can spread easier, some people leave it "as is". I've removed the wrapping before and scattered the small plants out in the pot. The very first flytrap I got I didn't unwrap. It's going on three years old and is not a giant. I'm interested in seeing what it does this year...it's a tight clump of plants. A couple of flytraps that I got a few weeks after the first one I did tear the wrapping off and scatter them in a large pot...they're all growing, too. So...pick your poison on removing or not removing the root wrapping...and if you remove it, then you need to decide if you want to plant the clump intact or do you want to separate the little plants. Having said all that, I suppose some big-box-stores may cell larger, individual plants at times...but, all I've found at Wallyworld and Lowes have been bunches of small plants. YMMV.

If you decide to put a new trap in the pot you just repotted the ailing plant in you could move the ailing one to a 20oz Styrofoam cup or something.

Hang in there. Btw, have you requested some seeds from the seed bank? Sundews are cool, too.