FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I made an earthbox style container with a 20 inch pot for my order of VFT's from FTS. I got a mirror, UK sawtooth II, bristletooth, Shogun star, and a Fuzzytooth. All were bought as bareroot starter plants. This was my second time planting VFT's and im new to all this, so please excuse me if my planting skills are horrible It was very fun looking at each and every plant, and I cant wait until spring to see how nice they look! Anyways, sorry for blurry pictures in advance, I just have my phone for a camera=/ I basically did all this today, I was just so excited about getting my plants haha They should all get great coloration with the AZ sun, i'll just be carefull with them during the summer

That looks great! Good job nice large pot

That looks so nice!
What's the difference between an earth box and a mini bog?

Vern wrote:That looks so nice!
What's the difference between an earth box and a mini bog?

Haha I have no idea I just saw it on youtube and thought that was the name of it

How does the PVC pipe watering system work? Do you use a pump to move water out of it?

stubbingsj wrote:How does the PVC pipe watering system work? Do you use a pump to move water out of it?

No, it's basically just to put water into the bottom to refill it( haha don't worry, I was confused about it too ) Just look up "Earthbox" on youtube, and there are some videos that explain how they work, that's how I learned about them

I just checked this morning and it seems ive got a leak=/ its like slowly slowly leaking, any suggestions? the dirt on the bottom didn't fall out of the pot, its just there from yesterday when I was putting the soil in the pot.

Wikiwakawakawee wrote:I just checked this morning and it seems ive got a leak=/ its like slowly slowly leaking, any suggestions?

I would try emptying the reservoir, let the outside dry off, (or dry it with a towel) and caulking the hole with some standard clear caulk. If you want it to look pretty, then let the caulk set and paint over it.

Yeah I was afraid I'd have to do that=/ haha but it took like 3 gallons of distilled water to fill it up, and all of that gone to waste... but I guess I should do it to prevent further water loss in the future=/ Or should I just water from the top and leave it as is? It is a big pot, and wont dry out very easily...

If you want to save the 3 gallons of water, ('cause if you don't, Greenpeace will probably call you ) put it in your bathtub and lean it over to drain the water out of the overflow holes. Then you can let it dry and caulk.

Looks awesome! Nice job. Between being from Chandler and currently living in Austin, I can tell you you're going to want some partial shade starting late spring. I set up an EarthBox planter last spring and the VFTs in it couldn't take all-day full sun. The ones that survived are still doing somewhat poorly but I think they're going to make it through the winter and have a glorious comeback this spring. I built a wooden frame with a shade screen on top to try to give them a break from the most direct, overhead sun. Unfortunately, I did it too late so I have to wait until this summer to see whether it helps.

Wikiwakawakawee wrote:What's the difference between an earth box and a mini bog?

An EarthBox is the physical, plastic, self-watering planter. A mini bog is any planter that is set up to emulate bog conditions.

How does the PVC pipe watering system work? Do you use a pump to move water out of it?

No, it's basically just to put water into the bottom to refill it

The soil wicks up the water and evaporation and the plants get rid of it. The only difference (from the looks of it) is the EarthBox has an overflow drain so that you can't overfill the reservoir with water.

Thanks everyone!
xr280xr, I was going to do that exact same thing for shade! I got tips from "Arizonaflytrap" and he's helping a lot. I've noticed my VFT's (that I got about 2-3 weeks ago from the mysterybox) have gotten some crazy red coloration...an example is the fuzzytooth towards the end of my post, and the A2, their colors look more amazing everyday! I would carry the pot into the bath tub if I could, haha but it weighs a ton, I can barely lift it off the ground!

So shortly after planted these little guys, my brother brought his dog(Chihuahua) and it would jump on top of my earthbox and smashed my plants! Some of them broke, and got squished, then on top of that, my VFT's were already staring to get burned from the AZ sun in January! So I that was about 3 months ago, and now they seem to be doing better, waking up and what not. I had to get some shade cloth to keep them from getting burned even more, and I also put some LFS as a top layer to help keep more moisture in the soil below(Works great pretty far !:) ) This will be my first growing season with CP's so im very excited! Most of my plants colored up nicely after only about a week after being planted, so that's pretty cool Here are some update pics:
Ps. they're not much to look at right now, but hopefully they will be by the end of the growing season

Very nice! With all that diversity, that pot is going to look awesome during the growing season

pieguy452 wrote:Very nice! With all that diversity, that pot is going to look awesome during the growing season

Yeah I'm really excited, this is going to be my first growing season But maybe I'm overestimating how much they'll grow in a growing season, or am I wrong to do so?