FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I've been thinking about adding my first butterwort to my CP collection, specifically a pinguicula cyclosecta. I've done some research and it seems that they just need to stay moist with distilled water and avoid frost. The only thing I'm worried about is choosing a medium and pot size for it. Can I just use sphagnum moss? And should I put it in a large pot in case it grows big?

Pinguicula cyclosecta is a gorgeous plant, and can develop vibrant purple hues with enough light. Great choice, especially for a starter Ping! This is a Mexican Pinguicula, so it has two growth states: carnivorous and succulent. The carnivorous growth state takes place during the growing season (mid-spring to mid-autumn, or there abouts), during this time the plant should be kept damp, but not wet. Keeping it moist would be okay, but please keep an eye out for root rot as Mexican Pinguicula in particular are more prone to it than other species.

During the succulent state, which takes place during the dormancy season (mid-autumn to early/mid-spring); the plant will change its leaf growth noticeably, and you only need to keep the plant lightly watered. You can forgo watering throughout this time of year, but you don't have to.

As for using sphagnum moss, I typically don't recommend it as it can retain 20x its weight in water, which is bad for Mexican Pinguicula. You can use it on the surface of the soil to help retain a little moisture, but planting the Pinguicula solely in it could be problematic. You can use a mix of peat and perlite/silica sand or a completely mineral media such as perlite, silica sand, pumice etc. I grow my Mexican Pinguicula either on pure perlite or a piece of tufa rock. You also won't need too large a pot as these plants have very shallow root systems and don't grow as big as a Venus fly trap.

I should also add that these are ideal windowsill plants, and I grow all of mine on my windowsill year-round (in England) without a problem.

If you have any other questions please feel free to ask!

^ Grey to the rescue

Grey really knocked out pretty much everything you need to know about it. :p

Just as a note though, another really good mineral medium for pings is calcined clay. There's a couple different brands out there, usually marketed as aquatic plant soil. Schultz Aquatic Plant soil, PondCare Aquatic Plant soil, and Turface (I think this one is a field conditioner) should all be the same thing and work well. It's really porous and holds a lot of water, but at the same time is really chunky and doesn't ever break down.

The only real downsides are that it doesn't provide any nutrients, and you need to wash it since it has a lot of dust.

Seriously, it's so nice to have Grey back!!!

Thank you Grey and w03 for your advice I just got my cyclosecta from Cascade Carnivores. It arrived in great condition wrapped carefully in sphagnum. Luckily it arrived when the weather cooled down to 70 degrees, so it has plenty of time to acclimate before it gets warm again.

It's so cute and tiny! I've seen some butterworts grow large, but do cyclosectas grow large?

I just got one of these as my first ping as well! I've been growing mine in a mix of 1:1:1 peat, perlite, and coarse silica sand. I was a little worried about over watering so I done some research and found that some people have great success using african violet pots because they keep the soil moist but not soaking wet. I've had it in a sunny windowsill since I got it, and its starting to look really nice. I plan on taking it outside in the summer to see if the added humidity helps it out (I won't give it direct sun during midday hours outside).

Here it is when I first got it. It was in a semi-succulent stage of growth
IMG_5035 by tagregory174, on Flickr

And here's a picture of it taken yesterday. I took some leaf pullings and spread them around the pot, hopefully they take, if not oh well. You can see how it's starting to make some carnivorous leaves now, and it's getting a nice purple-blue tint on the edges of the leaves. It looks like its pretty happy with my care.
IMG_5290 by tagregory174, on Flickr

@Morpheus Your ping looks great My ping is in the CP soil from FlytrapStore which has more peat, perlite, and silica sand. I don't know the ratio but it definitely has more peat.

Are the ping pullings from the bottom leaves or the new growing leaves? I was thinking about do that later on when my ping gets bigger.

I use a top dressing of sand or sphagnum on all of my pots, I hate the look of perlite and peat haha. Plus I'm a neat freak so I like things to look uniform and crisp. I bet you'll be fine with that mix though, it sounds like pings are somewhat adaptable to media mixes, as are most CP's. I just bought some pumice and turface to use in ping mixes though. After hearing about where some of them grow in the wild I think some species may prefer mineral mixes over peat. But then again, I'm also new to growing pings lol. The debate for Pinguicula potting media really reminds me of the debates for Paphiopedilum orchid potting media. There appear to be infinite numbers of various mixes and what one grower has amazing success with, another has horrible results with. I think it all just boils down to what works best in your environment

I took mine from the lower leaves. I didn't do any research when I took them. I just decided that I was going to take pullings purely to see if I could get something to strike from a hail-mary attempt. I've heard that some pings propagate in the most unlikely places from accidental pullings so I gave it a shot.

I noticed that my ping doesn't have sticky leaves yet. I'm sure it has carnivorous leaves because of the gray hue. I tried to put a couple ants on it but they won't stick. I wonder why.

It could be due to the plant adjusting to its new environment, they tend to stop producing mucus for a little while after a transfer.

I don't mean to hijack your thread, jadewuvchicken but I wanted to let you know that my leaf pullings have strikes! I think all of them may have struck I just barely stuck the ends in the sand. You should try it with your ping if you still have some succulent leaves!

That's awesome! My ping is making a lot of new leaves so I might try it too. I'm thinking about naming my ping Rupert and making clones for an army of Ruperts!

I got a cyclosecta from them too! A single cyclosecta in a pot I formerly had filled with moranensis is pretty sparse. Just a few weeks after I got it, it entered its succulent stage. Right now I have five leaf pullings sitting in a bed of vermiculite under a light.

Sooo I can use 100% perlite and mothering els and my ping would be fine? I'm about to get a pirouette and can't find any silica sand anywhere soo im trying to figure out the best media at the moment