FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

today marks the one month mark for our VFT plants... as first time caretakers of these plants i read up and read up and read up via forums here, had a loose gameplan going in, changed that gameplan after a week, changed my watering routine I had planned on and not having all moved to their new styrofoam cups as I planned to varying results.

I only had one cup handy and gently moved the two smaller and frankly worse looking of the two B-52's hoping the larger more established looking plants could hold on better while waiting to move. those two plants took off!! they have vigorous new growth coming in, sprung right back up from the curled state they were in and are looking strong. (front right)

the 2 other B-52's did not handle their shock very well so far, between shipping and now being moved - however new growth is lurking underneath and coming up, (front middle)

the leftmost are the two pinnacles which were the most lively and nice looking of the bunch, from the small cup they were in and screwing up with watering plan I had they look to have been overwatered a little so they were immediately removed from sitting in any water before getting them moved, they are already springing back up again (all the leaves got really droopy as you can see there)

in the rear are the 3 sad typicals from Lowes, no sign of new growth from them thusfar, any traps you see are non-functional but the leaves are beginning to perk up, the small cubes they were in were packed deathly tight in there hoping after a couple weeks of adjusting to their new home and now being acclimated to full sun it will do them some good!

the day they arrived/potting take one:


the one month shot after being carefully moved into new homes a couple days ago:




we'll see how month two goes! hopefully improvement we shall see!

two month update, minus the entire group of plants being blown off the porch and into the ground during a storm a good month of growing! luckily none of the roots were disturbed and no plants seemed to even notice being gently put back into their pots! all are growing nice and strong! even the two that got burnt fairly bad outside and potentially dried out partially are doing well.

the biggest difference is on the light and food starved hardware store VFT's we mercy-rescued on 5/17. now on 6/28 they are much happier and all three springing up lots of new leaves/traps tiny ones but hey considering how lightstarved the poor things were I'll take it!

week by week seeing marked improvements from the little setbacks we had.

hardware store flytraps..purchased on 5/17 photo on 5/28 when they came home they were clearly lightstarved no functioning traps, razor thin wilted leaves all just laying around most with no traps at all on them or deformed dried out ones. now almost all fully functioning traps from new growth a few of which just opened this week:

same plants 6/28:


the two charred B-52's springing back to life, I could have cleaned up some of the dead material before the photos but I sorta liked the look of all the dead stuff with all the new life springing up around/through:
5/28:

6/28 update:


this pair were immediately moved into the insulated cup after being planted and reading up more here and swapping it. the other plants did not get swapped for another week or two. wish I had taken the photos a day or two earlier as a lot of the lower large traps were actually open (they are feasting outdoors here)
5/28:

6/28 update:


last but not least the Pinnacles. wish I had replanted these into Styrofoam same as the other B52s they came with, it is just now throwing up new healthy growth a few of the traps arrived dead with droopy leaves and those leaves never came back but all the new growth that is coming up has been straight upwards growth and look great. I'm trying not to focus on the longer older non functioning traps/leaves drooping since the new growth since planting it has looked fine!

5/28:

6/28 update:


VFT are a disease and I have it, send help.

7/29 three month update! Both Pinnacle plants still look rather pitiful with most of the old traps still hanging on for dear life, at least the new growth (sparse but there) is all nice looking

with a few new plants! everything still going well, the DCXL's are freshly repotted after their uprooting/shipping coast to coast. small plantlets from leaf pulls made last year. currently getting them acclimated to the outdoors here in NC

everything else is coasting right along funny how on the 4 B52 plants 1 of the 3 was a really small plant to start, it along with another of the 3 almost identical (sizewise) plants... got setback from the scorching by the sun and now they are all looking great the two big ones just are huge, with the other two being half size and quarter size of the big ones they are almost a perfect tier of their life experience so far growing with us.


the new lil babies


B52 Closup


formerly burnt B52's


the good side (AKA sunny side!)


(y'all looked better from the back...)

and the two month milemarker for those lil spindily almost dead hardware store fly traps, chomping away on bugs and new growth exploding from them:

month four, a couple photos:

DC XL's have settled in nice so far and have returned to being upstanding young citizens:



love the deep red the B52's have got over the past couple of weeks, frontmost left pot are the ones that got burned earlier in the season badly, right one is the nicer plants!


groupshot - bottom of frame = rescues from lowes filling in nice, middle burnt boys, back is the smaller of the pinnacles



overhead view of the same plants, pinnacles once again slightly out of frame


last but not least....the Pinnacles that I skimp on photographing, I should clean them up before photo time but I like tracking the growth... a much less vigorous cultivar than the B52's that is for sure, but consistently large traps, I'm hoping this one shows us more in the next year or two, it was hard to love it when the B52's were busy showing off since arriving.

super neat traps, really nice coloring on that b52

have you ever had a lowes flytrap with good coloring btw? mine just has faint pinkish tones and thats it

saltyop wrote:super neat traps, really nice coloring on that b52

have you ever had a lowes flytrap with good coloring btw? mine just has faint pinkish tones and thats it

we've had our 3 flytraps from lowes for hmm just slightly over 3 months now, they were green/pale from light starvation at first, now that they are turning into decent lil plants again they are still primarily green but some of the larger/older traps now do have a slight pink to them but for the most part just green through and through

I wish I had access to a couple of those rocket farms flytraps other people on the forums have at random stores those seem to be nice beautiful colors

Finally got around to checking your progress posts! Wicked cool seeing them grow into themselves.

Those B52s are looking nice. Bet you're excited to see the DC XL and Pinnacle get larger traps. Really awesome the typicals are thriving also. It's so rewarding being able to save plants that stores haven't paid much mind to!

Mawy_Plants wrote:Finally got around to checking your progress posts! Wicked cool seeing them grow into themselves.

Those B52s are looking nice. Bet you're excited to see the DC XL and Pinnacle get larger traps. Really awesome the typicals are thriving also. It's so rewarding being able to save plants that stores haven't paid much mind to!

definitely looking forward to seeing how the Pinnacle does next growing season it wasn't nearly as vigorous as the other plants (it was shipped with a bonus smaller plant and it did quite a bit of growing the larger plant was so/so) it definitely put out the biggest traps of this season between it and the B52's but by a very slim margin (just over 1 1/4")

at the greenhouse we went to today at UNC Charlotte they had some more mature Pinnacles there and they were absolute monsters if I would have had a tape measure I would have checked them haah

pretty excited for everything next growing season added six new plants today that we purchased at the greenhouse too!

Plants are looking great. My Pinnacles look like that. They are kinda shaggy looking, need a trim. Thanks for the pics

what is likely to be the last photo of 'Pinnacle' before dormancy kicks them further back down (L), with 'brutal shark' to the (R)



the larger of the B52 cups these were my biggest/best they started slowing down a lot sooner than the other cup and starting to put up their winter growth -- my theory is that since so many of these were taller and in the open the weather/sunlight affected them sooner than the other cup that is much more dense and packed together but lower growing already.



the smaller cup of B52's the ones that got set back burnt. probably the best they've looked all season is today/right now. the summer growth hasnt started dying back as much on it but it is already much lower growing than the other cup!



the trio of lowes rescues as they sit today.


good growth for the half summer we have owned the DC XL's in these 3 cups. looking forward to next growing season with them.


not a VFT obviously but my live sphagnum is slowly growing and filling up the topdressing here! can't wait to slowly expand that!

looking great, it isnt time for dormancy here in texas yet but good thing I can just leave them outside. those flytraps are looking great but I have to mention that the live sphagnum to me looks like algae growth. I might be wrong though. these updates are great

saltyop wrote:looking great, it isnt time for dormancy here in texas yet but good thing I can just leave them outside. those flytraps are looking great but I have to mention that the live sphagnum to me looks like algae growth. I might be wrong though. these updates are great

some of the old sphagnum turned a lil slimy and slushy (was trying to grow it in a ziplock bag on the porch) that is the more gel like stuff you see, the live heads that got snipped apart and placed around up close you can see them growing properly the photo is just a mess of dead materials and some of the more "cooked" materials. looks funny, but underneath most of the leaves of the plant there it looks a lot better/like it should. the good is slowly starting to take over the bad! it was also just heavily misted before the photo! I was paranoid about algae at first with the bag and had been keeping a close eye on it. it just wasn't growing very well much of it turned a nice orange and some reddish in the sun, but the growth wasn't doing well, after breaking it up and into the top of the pot, slowly but surely its turned itself back around, very few parts of it up close actually have the full on slimey look to it and most of it is growing nice lush growth from it. we'll see how it goes! it has been enjoying the sun so far!

I figure with these updates, if nothing else for me to see how things are doing might help some folks looking at particular cultivars to see how the month by month went for us. who knows! still in the mid to upper 80s here, hit 90 today in NC, had about a week where things cooled down to the 70s then right back at the heat, looks like after this heat breaks within the week we should be back to "fall" temperatures.