FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

and letting my flytraps get rained on for the first time lol!! I'm kinda nervous and here's why:

when I first started growing I had the "fear" of rot just drilled into me. that paired with losing all of my first ones to rot and I got scared of it. so I've never let them get rained on because they are just in 8.5, 16, and 20 oz cups with a 50/50 mix of peat and perlite. it would rain, and I would freak lol...the fear is kinda still with me lol. so, I thought I'd try something different just to prove that they will be okay getting rained on in the smaller pots (unless it's days in a row then I might be nervous). so I took all of them out of their little individual trays and just set them in the big main Sterilite container so there would be a bigger "tray" area that won't get flooded as quick. at least I hope I don't lose any; I don't really have the money to replace any lol what's your method if you let them get rained on?

I only move mine under a swing or something siimlar when we have really hard downpours... I found that they are hard to just uproot unless freshly planted. I even let my smaller ones get rained on.. and as far as rot is concerned, I think as long as it's not raining for months and you have some sun shine, you should be alright.. but I've only been doing this for a year so See what others say about it..

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Yea, if it's gonna be heavy rain I'll put them under shelter lol...what I did do though is put a screen thing over them when its gonna rain that I can remove , so when it does rain it dispurses the raindrops into smaller ones lol...sometimes into a mist of sorts lol...

If anything rain is good for flytraps, since it flushes out the soil of contaminants that have accumulated over time.

There's no reason at all to fear the rain. It would have to be raining for a very, very long time (like a few weeks straight with absolutely no sunshine) for even a chance of root rot to develop. So don't sweat it

pieguy452 wrote:If anything rain is good for flytraps, since it flushes out the soil of contaminants that have accumulated over time.

There's no reason at all to fear the rain. It would have to be raining for a very, very long time (like a few weeks straight with absolutely no sunshine) for even a chance of root rot to develop. So don't sweat it

Since you're in Michigan and I'm in MN, do you leave yours out to get rained on all the time? Even when it's like in the 60's? Right now we are at 64...

My plants are in a greenhouse so they typically don't get exposed to the elements, but before they were always outside as long as it was above freezing. They would get rained on in the fall when it was in the 40s and they were as happy as can be.

Even with the greenhouse I will sometimes purposely leave my plants outside so they get rained on and the soil gets flushed.

We leave our flytraps outside pretty much all year unless it is below freezing at night. Our winters are cold and wet, with lots and lots of drizzly rain. Even with temperatures in the 40s and raining, as long as flytraps get plenty of sun, they do great. We just dump the water out of the trays when the rain is done.

So, came home and my plants had gotten a nice drink (there was 1/2" of water in their holders lol). And omg they look like different plants lol!! All green and the leaves look young and crisp again!! So from now on I think I'll let mother nature do the watering lol...apparently they are loving it

the only downside is that I had to do some dead leaf/old rhizome clean up, because the rain moistened that and mold started growing lol. but hey, the mold let me see what needed to be removed

I love the rain. If it rains about once a week for several weeks, I don't even water the plants manually.

I've had mine sitting in trays of water for days (and then eventually emptied because they don't need that much water) so I don't know how much exposure to water is needed before root rot sets in. It could also be the size of the container, though. Sitting in 1" for a 16-oz cup container for days is probably worse than 3" of water for a 3-gallon planter, even though you would think both are using the peat/perlite mix and the peat would get saturated and take up no more water at some point.

oh, I plan on emptying out the containers after it rains. if they get soaked they won't be sitting in water lol...

so far all is going well; I've only had to manually water my plants once since I started this lol. so far all plants are doing well. I did have the old rhizome die on my Pink Venus and leave it with a really short root (which now the plant is in the house till the root grows longer) but I think that was more Mother Nature than the top-watering by the rain. but, if it's gonna be rainy for a few days in a row they get covered so they don't get overly wet. if they get a good soaking it takes about a week for them to dry to where the cups get light, and the 50/50 peat and perlite mix seems to drain well even in the rain. but the fear of root rot is still in the back of my mind lol...

I just empty the tray of rain water into a gallon jug, for future use, when either it stops raining or gets an inch in the bottom. Mine stay out day and night during growing season, I don't even cover them or anything.

We just had several rainy days in a row, totalling about 3 inches in the trays. I think my fly traps liked it, you can judge for yourself though.

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