FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Yeah I started with thinking the orchids would love that window since they've ALWAYS been in east windows. Nope, a day later they had sunburn on some leaves! So yeah, I got super upset about that since it's a huge window! I was so excited to have it for them. The window was changed out almost two months ago now, so I'm not sure we'll see the 118* again with the better glass, but I'm sure it'll still be quite high. The sun might not be as harsh too, but I'm not chancing it and just went with the succulents and cactus. Never had much luck with cactus but I think I was underwatering them. Everyone seems pretty happy but we'll see how they do in summer. I'm assuming with this light they'll love this window! And no it doesn't angle to the south, it's almost exactly due east. I'm not sure why this one tried to kill my orchids?

I'll check the roots today to see how they're looking. I did very slightly dampen the soil when I potted the cyclosecta though, even though I REALLY didn't want to have to, but it was bone dry. I did move the baby into the pot with the parent for fear of maybe transferring whatever this is to the other baby plants. I'm not sure it's anything transmittable though. I'm sure it's probably rot. Which plants are so weird, why look like you're drying out and dying if you're too wet? Shouldn't you get mushy? ha ha! I really looked over the soil when I dumped it out of the cup and didn't see a single sign of bugs, which makes me happy. The soil was damp but not wet, the bottom of the cup was slightly more wet though, but no where near where the roots even will ever go.

Now I'm scared to water my pings! I've never done a rest before, dormancy is easy compared to this! Check them once every couple weeks see if they're ok and that's it. This half dormancy half still caring for them is much trickier! I'm worried they'll dry out, but then worry about watering them too much. I did water my original two from 8 months ago, they seem fine with watering a slight bit more then the others. I watered the babies slightly since I figured they might need it a little more. The others the tops of the soil is drying out, but I'm not sure when to water again? Do I water a lot let it drain through and then leave them until they dry out or do I water just a little? Ha ha! I got into CP thinking they would be easier just water them a decent amount and they'll be happy, I didn't realize pings needed such different care in winter since I assumed even with the succulent leaves they'd still be taken care of the same. I thought since they don't fully go dormant the care would only slightly change. Especially since I read that the first few I got didn't need this, but as I said the one the leaves are much smaller right now, so yeah even though I read no, I guess it does need a rest. Not that I mind much it's just I'm worried I'll do it wrong and kill these poor things!

Dampening the soil won't hurt, dry peat is a pain to maneuver so it's understandable. I'm glad you didn't see any bugs! Also, wet soil near the bottom of the pot is pretty normal, although this can wick up through the soil to the roots.

The winter dry can sound quite complicated and freaky, but it really is very simple. The keys to getting them to enter their winter dry stage are photoperiod and water; if you gradually lower photoperiod and only water once every 2 - 3 weeks you'll see the changes in the leaves. Not all Mexican pings enter their succulent state, even if you try to induce it properly, but all you can do is try. I've left my plants for two to three months without water over the winter dry and they were fine - but I don't advise leaving them quite that long! I've been watering mine once every two to four weeks, partly depending on when I remember.

To water the plants, just fill up their tray (or dish, whatever you're using) 1/2 to 2/3 full, and then empty whatever is not absorbed within a few hours. It's best not to leave water in the dish overnight (I talk as someone who needs to do this more frequently herself!!) because it likely won't evaporate and could make the soil quite wet, as well as encourage mould in certain circumstances.

I usually start reducing water in early October, as this is when photoperiod naturally decreases for me, and then start increasing water again in mid to late February. (Halloween to Valentine's Day is a good guideline.) If you find you get to February and the plants haven't had much of a rest, don't worry too much about it, I don't think one year will hurt (although I've not done any studies into this).

Mexican pings are really very tolerant to "neglect", like phalaenopsis orchids, as long as their basic needs are met, and sometimes forgetting about them for a week can be surprisingly beneficial to their long-term health. Other kinds of Pinguicula such as, warm or cold temperates, can be trickier, but Mexican ones, generally, are the simplest.

Yeah I've been reading up on this a bit and it seems like I'm doing ok so far. I plan on doing Halloween through valentines, nice and easy to remember. I just worry that plants that seem to need a decent amount of water in summer can go so dry in winter. Yeah I slow down watering and fert for everyone I have from orchids to houseplants to the succulents etc... but for some strange reason this just seems so different. I guess since it's my first time doing it it's just making me nervous that I'll hurt them in some way. I have the mosquito dunks in the tank water in the bottom and it really looks gross, like dog food or something sitting in there! ha ha!! They're good for a month, and the life cycle is like 28 days, so after that I'm hoping to empty the tank (well my husband will it's a bit too heavy for me with my health) and clean it out good then go back to normal. So far just having the fly strip in the other room at the other end of the house where the amaryllis are is doing a lot! Which is good to know that the larvae isn't any where near my CPs. The orchid mix is probably starting to break down right now so I assume they are in there too not just the bulbs, but I only repot in spring after flowering (unless they're new to the house then I repot ASAP to check roots and make sure the plant is healthy) I did soak a dunk overnight and put the water into the humidity trays to help with that area.

Now with watering I'm worried I'm watering too much in summer for the pings? I've slowed down slightly with the neps and they seem ok, I'm still keeping water in the sundews like I read. I don't keep water in the saucers for the pings but I do water often in summer. Is this not good? I water like twice a week. I know the sundew water dries out in that amount of time so I just water everyone then. Should I only water once a week for the pings?

So far the cyclosecta is looking ok, the baby didn't make it though. The laueana is still slowly getting brown. Not spreading too much to other leaves, but the leaves that are affected are getting worse. If it keeps going too much longer I'll cut them off and see what happens. I pulled the plant up yesterday and the roots are like the other one, the older ones are brown, not mushy just brown and there are new ones coming in. So I'm assuming it was too wet. I put him back in the same soil and hopefully he'll dry out soon and get healthy. Of course now I'm scared to water these two at all! The others I'll be fine watering next week, but these two I'm going to be nervous about! ha ha!

Sorry to ask so many questions!

The first time is the hardest - I was a nightmare over my first winter dry!!

Once a week would probably be really good for the pings. If you feel the soil is drying out thoroughly too quickly then twice a week is acceptable - a lot of it depends on climate and where you're keeping the plants. As they are in a humid environment, water evaporation may be slower so once a week should be fine and dandy.

I'm sorry the baby cyclosecta died, that's really unfortunate. The leaf issues on the laueana could be due to it adjusting to humidity, combined with possible rot issues, so hopefully the reduction in watering will help that one as well. Dry, brown roots are the good kind of dead roots (the "normal" kind), so it's encouraging that they aren't mushy and squishy.

It's completely understandable being nervous about watering, too, but once the plants have had some time to recover they should be fine to water as you normally would the others, they just need a short respite to regrow any damaged tissue.

Questions are good! That's how we learn. So no worries there.

have you thought about planting your pings in straight sand with a layer of LFS at the bottom to hold water (per advice/instructions from Grey herself )? mine are planted in an all-mineral mix and they love it helps to cut down on the risk of root rot from being too wet...let's more air in to the roots for oxygen

I'm thinking of getting the all-mineral mix from cascade to try. The cyclosecta is putting out new leaves, but the tips on a couple of the older ones are browning slightly. The laueana is the same, not looking too good to be honest. It's not getting worse though I don't think. I watered last week, dumping any water left in the saucers after a couple hours. Haven't done anything since. All the others are still doing well. (well one nepenthes seems to be holding water this week, so it's not going to get any more for a bit I also loosened the moss from around the base of the plant to try to dry it out a bit. I really hope doing that will prevent it from wilting any farther) But the pings all seem happy except these two. I'm not sure why?? the humidity is the same, even with the heat being on more with the cold finally getting here this winter.

I did find this in my research though! this person has the same exact issue with the same exact plants! I almost registered on that forum to see if they got them from the same nursery but they're in the UK so I assume not. It's just happening the same with them at the same exact time.

http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.ph ... opic=56660

The all-mineral mix from Cascade Carnivores is actually what I use lol...just rinse it well first; it puts out a TDS of over 200ppm!

I'm wondering if that could be a problem with me. I've noticed since repotting when I got the last few pings that there seems to be a white build-up in my saucers all of a sudden. Is it too late? Should I flush the pots somehow? I don't really want to unpot them then rinse everything then repot with the same soil, since I worry it'll harm the plant. If it won't harm them then I'll do it. It's the ping soil from SNW. The first time I got it it was fine, there is no white build-up in the first grouping. But the last bit I potted with a second bag I ordered they have it in the saucers. I never thought to rinse it since the first batch was fine. It does seem like a slightly different mix from the first one, more sand. Which is kind of a pain with watering, but I'm getting the hang of it.

How do you rinse soil like this? It's not like I do with other things where you can use a mesh strainer. Is it like fish tank sand, put it in a bucket and fill it with water, then carefully drain and repeat? Problem is that's a lot of distilled water! I would use rain water, but I worry that might still have stuff in it, I only use the distilled for the CP.

I'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you, gardengirl13, I've been away and having gotten back last night I'm exhausted today and not functioning completely properly!

I've had a read of the forum topic - curious how it's happening at the same time. I've had plants do exactly what is shown in the photos as well with other plants in the same container doing fine and dandy. Humidity has been raised as a potential issue and I know we've looked at that, but the humidity in your tank seems fine.

I used to get white residue in some saucers, only where the bottom of the pot would touch the saucer. I don't really know enough about what causes it to say what it could be, although it is possible it could be dust from perlite or sand (depending on what's in the mix).

I don't use any organic stuff for my Mexican pings since losing the bulk of my collection to browning heart disease after a particularly warm spring a couple of years ago. If you can get any cheesecloth, you could always dump some soil into a sieve lined with cheesecloth (or something similar) and rinse it out, so you don't lose any of it.

Well an update on everyone. Not too happy. The cyclosecta kept getting worse. then it spread to the heart. It started getting brown there and that's when I said enough and tossed her so it wouldn't spread. The laueana isn't getting any better either. I was going to toss it too but it had a flower bud, I wanted to see it bloom just once. But it's been over a month now and it's still sitting there. No flower yet. The leaves are looking sad and not doing well. And now, sigh, the gigantea has one leaf drying out!! What is going on?!?! Since last week was valentines day I thought I would water a little earlier then 2 weeks. Also v-day weekend it was -15*F overnight and only hit 8* as a high, so the heat was on a LOT last weekend all three days of it. So everyone was super dried out, even the sundews needed their saucers filled every day due to evaporating! So I thought watering again would be ok for the pings. It really was only a couple days early for watering. Not like it was really too soon. The humidity in the tank I think was still ok since I added water to the bottom every day, it wasn't evaporating dry, but the level was down noticeably so I'd just top it off.

The one problem sundew is still looking bad, but I pulled off the dried flowers and kind of sprinkled them on the soil to see if I can get babies since there appears to be one baby already! Hopefully I can grow some before the mother plant dies on me.

The hardest to grow plant I have, the pitcher plant, has given me a lot of new pitchers! In the photo the one on the right and the one in the middle back are the two that it came with when I got it. The others are all new! Sadly the big one caught a ladybug 2 weeks ago. Poor ladybug! But it has a few spots that look like more new pitchers coming soon too! I'm so excited!

The other nepethes pitchers I have are doing ok. The soggy one seems to be not wilting anymore, but also not growing much. But it is winter. The one in the front window with lots of sun, the tuncata, has put out a nice big new leaf and 2 new pitchers for me. He seems very happy so far! The locally bought one comes and goes. The weird stem thing he had after we moved seems ok now, but one more leaf has yellowed near that spot. But it's putting out new leaves top and bottom and oddly I think he gave me about 5+ new pitchers in the last 3 months or so! With the heat being on a lot more the last 6+ weeks he's slowed down the pitchers a lot. I was kind of hoping it would have stopped so those pitchers could have come in spring/summer and had a chance, but I think about 5-7 of the little leaves might be aborting them due to the dryness of winter. We'll see how he does.

So since the laueana seems to be not getting better how much more time should I give him? If this does turn out to be a very long drawn out version of brown heart is it better to just toss him now? The gigantea isn't right next to him, but the leaf tip is looking like it's going the same way. So does that mean it is spreading? But wouldn't the plants closer to him get it first?



baby!


lots of new pitchers!


brown tip on the one leaf, and it's about the 5th one up not just a lower leaf dying naturally. They don't turn completely brown and soft like a natural decline and death, it's a dry brittle end.


still looking bad


nepenthes





ETA: one more question maybe I should post this elsewhere? Since my flytrap will be outside for the first time ever (I've had it for almost three years now, first winter no dormancy, second dark in a closet and this winter it was in the basement near a window for a little light. When do I start bringing him outside? I know the native guys can go out sooner since they can handle the cold better, but should I wait until it's over 50*? I've always kept him with the other CP in the tank in spring/summer/fall under the lights, so allowing him outside is new to me. Plus it's a bit scary. I worry he's too small to survive. He'll be in a pot not in the ground where animals can get him, but I worry about squirrels.