FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi there,
I am new to this forum, but y'all have always been so helpful in my Google searches of the past!
I have had my ping, whose name is Luci, for almost two years, and I'm freaking out over its rapid deterioration. Honestly, it feels weird not calling her by her usual pronoun, as bizarre as that sounds. So I'm going to refer to my ping as "her". Forgive me for being weird!
I recently had a friend of mine (who grows carnivorous plants professionally) repot the plant from a tiny plastic starter container into this white ceramic hanging planter. I live in Oregon, and we had unusually terrible winter this year. I have always had her in the one decent window we have in our house, which faces south and is still a little on the dim side. The temperature dropped so drastically over the last few months, that poor Luci started to suffer from being next to such a cold window. My roommates, well-intentioned as they are drowned Luci with water about a month ago, and she has developed this horrible moldy film over the potting medium around her. It spread remarkably quickly, so I trimmed off the molding leaves and tried to scrape as much mold off of the surrounding dirt as I could. She lost over half her leaves this way over the span of about two weeks. Unfortunately, mold is still rapidly spreading around and on my plant, and the ends of the leaves are withering away. In addition, her leaves are falling out on the bottom, with a slight brown tint on the inside corner. The leaves I had trimmed off had been leaving this strange sticky brown stuff on the ceramic edge, which is pretty visible, and I will attempt to get some better pictures of her other maladies if necessary.
This plant has been with me through a lot of rough times and she is the one plant that made it out of a previous living situation with an abusive ex as well as my consequent homelessness (I had a friend caring for her for a few months in 2015). Luci holds a great, great deal of sentimental value to me, and I will be devastated if I cannot rescue her. Do you think she can be returned to health? Would you please help me? Thank you so much!

Why would a professional CP grower pot it so far down that it can't get much light or air circulation? I'm just curious. One of the Ping experts here will be able to help you out.

Smooter80 wrote:Why would a professional CP grower pot it so far down that it can't get much light or air circulation? I'm just curious. One of the Ping experts here will be able to help you out.

I was wondering the same thing. I'm no expert but I would say repotting it in a non-ceramic pot that is filled to the top would be best. That way it can get as much sun as possible. Plus if the mold is in the soil it's best to get rid of that soil.

Hey there and welcome to the forums! Despite her delince, I am quite confident that Luci can recover. I, too, have named my butterworts and given them the "she" pronoun, so don't worry! You're in good company. It is absolutely amazing to hear how you've come through so many things, and I can totally understand and respect why Luci is so special to you. I'm sure we can recover her, together!

Firstly, do you know what species the plant it? I can see that it is a Mexican Pinguicula, but it is a little hard to tell exactly what species or hybrid it is. A large number of Mexican Pinguicula have very similar basic care needs, so please don't worry if you don't know for certain. If you aren't sure, please could you let me know roughly how large the plant is in diameter? That'll give me a general idea.

She is definitely struggling due to a lack of light; the long, dark green leaves are indicative of that. I would honestly re-pot it into a regular plant pot (you can get smallish ones that are great for Mexican Pings), as she will need more light in order to survive and later flourish. Does the ceramic container have any drainage holes? If so, you could fill the entire thing with soil and plant her right on the surface so that she has better access to light. If not, a plant pot with drainage holes would be preferable as, while they are highly robust and take a lot to critically damage, Mexican Pinguicula are more prone to rot than other species, and so need somewhere for water to escape out of to stop them drowning.

The depth at which she was planted will also mean that there is very little air circulation around her, which will be part of the reason as to why you are having mould and fungus issues.

What soil mixture do you use (if you know)? Mexican Pings are significantly more tolerant to minerals and nutrients in their soil than many other carnivorous plants, so a huge array of mixes can be used successfully, but it helps to know what your preference is and see how we can work with it, if it needs any tweaking at all.

And finally, with regards to the cold window, these plants can handle short bursts of cool temperatures as long as they don't freeze. An inside window (particularly a south one) should be more than sufficient to give you good, healthy growth year-round. Do you know, roughly, how much direct sunlight the window gets? I don't see why you couldn't keep her on that windowsill, despite any tumbling cold.

Thank you.