FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I got this sarr "danas delight" about 3 months ago. He has been in direct sun for about 5 hours a day (before fall started, less now.) I repoted him in lfsm, perlite and silica sand. In that time it has only produced 2 viable pitchers, all of the other ones come up with black tips at the top and never fully develop. There have been no pests to my knowlage, as everyday i spend at least 30 min just staring at my plants up close and all are treated bi-weekly with a weak neem oil solution. Just wondering whats going on. Thank you everyone!

Here he is when i first got him (after repot)


And here he is now

I just got our first pitchers like less than a month ago, but look at them all the time and from what I see there it looks to be a watering issue but I don't know much about the medium mix you are using nor your conditions it is in, nor your watering style to say for sure. they look very "dry" if you will.

take that with a grain of salt though, I have mostly hypothetical knowledge I'm not quite yet dangerous enough to be experienced!

is there a particular reason you treat it twice a week with neem if you don't have pests?

Whoops, I meant I spray the neem once every 2 weeks, and its just more for prevention than anything else. I forgot the ratio I was using, but its about 5-7 drops of neem concentrate (I have a pipette that I marked for this purpose awhile ago, the measurement is lost to time) in 10 oz of water with a half drop of dawn blue soap as an emulsifier.
My media is 80% lfsm, 15% perlite and 5% silica sand keep in mind this not exact at all, I eyeball it when mixing media. My temps have been around the 70's lately, more around 80-90 when I first got him.

For watering probably about once a week I topwater with more than enough to soak the pot, there was one week where is was super hot and the media definitely dried out more than I would prefer, but that was a month ago.
Would it still be showing signs of being dried out from that long ago?

First off most people use peat based soil for Sarracenia. Some do use LFSM but it breaks down faster and gets kind of mushy/slimy.
Secondly, Sarracenia like a lot of water. You should fill up that water tray you have your pot in and keep it full of water always. And yes if it dried out the leaves will get all brown and crispy and not come back.
Are you getting new growth coming from the rhizome? That's what will tell you if the plant is doing ok or not. As long as new pitchers grow I wouldn't worry about the old pitchers.

Yeah I read peat was better as well, I just had an abundance of lfsm laying around and I really wanted to get them out of the tiny 2" pot they were shipped with. Next repot will definitely be peat.
It does have new growth coming, about half are still coming up with black tips, the others look alright, not great though. But seeing how it is fall its probably starting to send out the phyllodia-type leafs instead of pitchers
Im just happy to hear its probably watering and not pests. Also its been raining all week, so its water tray is full. I will make sure to keep it that way.

Thank you!

yeah if I had to guess, watering is the big issue there. like I said I am very uhh green to growing them but I tend to read myself blind researching before getting into anything (limited money, can't afford to kill things!) I would make sure it had some more water it looks like you have a decent sized pot for it also, I have much smaller pots for ours (that are much smaller plants) and I keep their water levels on most of ours up to about 1/3rd mark of the pot. different types I water a bit differently but in the warm NC sun, they did well for the month or two we've had them in spite of just being punished by heat/sun.

if I had to guess the new growth developing the black tips, is simply the plant not being hydrated enough.

looks like it will be a beautiful plant once new growth overtakes the old!