FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Has anyone ever attempted some of the beautiful sundews on this page?

http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq5261.html

Ever since I first read that page, I have wanted to see if those platypoda and stolonifera were even possible in indoor cultivation. I know I am nowhere near the skill level needed to try something like that yet, but it's a goal I'm working toward at some point in the future. I imagine that there are many challenges with these sorts of sundews, from vertical growing room to temperature gradients- has anyone had luck with these types of sundews?

I don't think my current HID lighting would work at all (I just burnt a flytrap flower stalk ), so I'd want to invest in some proven fluoro or possibly LED fixtures first. Outside is also a possibility during the summer-I'm technically zone 8, but it's the pacific NW so it's not your typical stable hot and humid weather- it tends to range a lot and heavy rains could always be an issue

I "grow" D. ramellosa (part of the stolonifera complex, I don't think I grow it too well) indoors under lights in a cool basement. I've had some challanges, it took off rather fast until the leaves continuously got smaller and smaller, and eventually stopped growing. I believe that this may have been due to me not feeding it enough. It was potted in a peat heavy mix, so I repotted it into a much sandier mix. After I did this, new growth sprouted. So far it is doing fairly decently, it actually gets pretty hot where they grow during the day (up to 77, I plan to put a piece of plexiglass between the lights and the plants). I open a window at night in my basement when it isn't in the middle of winter, so they drop to about 60. So far, it seems crucial that they get lots of food, lots of light, and decent humidity (I keep a bag around mine with the bottom cut off, so humidity stays around 60%). I was originally sacrificing light for temps, as I had the lights higher above the plants with a fan running under the lights. Unfortunately the fan also cooled down the T5's which lowered their output. My ramellosa's seem to be dewing up better without the fan, even though the temp under the lights gets up to 10 degrees higher than it used to.

I plan to get some more winter-growing sundews now that I have gotten the grow area a bit more worked out. I'm also wondering if it wasn't all my fault that my ramellosa initially failed, perhaps due to a bad potting mix.

Also, these go dormant in the summer, so I don't think it would really matter if you kept the pot outside (probably would not want to, considering how unpredictable the rain is here in the Pacfic Northwest and the fact that these guys need to stay pretty dry during the summer).