FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I just bought some Sphagnum Moss and Perlite, but I don't think I have any Peat moss. Would it be alright if I pot my new cultivars when they come in just in 1:1 sphagnum moss and perlite?

I wouldn't recommend it.

Long-fibered sphagnum holds too much water to be an integral part of a viable potting mix; this causes root rot and will kill a flytrap.

You really should use sphagnum peat moss. Regarding what you have, some bags of sphagnum peat don't specify "peat" - look at the photo below. Long fibered sphagnum is on the left, and sphagnum peat moss is on the right (the peat is often darker than shown and will turn dark dark brown with water added...very dirty looking). If yours is very fine (like soil) then it's sphagnum peat, which is awesome. If it looks like thin dried plants moreso than soil (and the color of it won't really change with water added), then it's straight sphagnum which holds a LOT of water - too much for a flytrap.

Two of my plants are grown in pure Long Fibered Sphagnum, not peat. They do great. I think the trick is to make the Long Fibered Sphagnum no longer... long. In other words, I spent about 30 minutes with scissors just cutting the LFS into as small pieces as I could. It has worked well so far, but I think I like peat better.

Nickrober wrote:Two of my plants are grown in pure Long Fibered Sphagnum, not peat. They do great. I think the trick is to make the Long Fibered Sphagnum no longer... long. In other words, I spent about 30 minutes with scissors just cutting the LFS into as small pieces as I could. It has worked well so far, but I think I like peat better.

sounds like it will work

Venus flytraps from my country are always planted in sphagnum moss..

sphagnum should work just fine, just make sure that it doesn't stay too wet for too long. You can add some perlite to the mix to lighten it up and improve aeration & drainage.

I found a bag of peat/sphagnum moss in my mom's magical cabinet. Then I sat outside waiting for the mail truck to come. An hour later, it came and I went out to get my lovely new cultivars, but to my dismay, they were not there. I'm having a ton of trouble making drainage holes in the plastic pots I bought yesterday too. I've tried a drill, but the plastic is too hard and the one hole I made cracked the whole bottom of the pot and sent the pot flying into the wall!

I WANT MY PLANTS!

WoW
*fail*
you gotta be gentle man, let the drill slowly make a hole. dont just jam it in

MichaelG wrote:I found a bag of peat/sphagnum moss in my mom's magical cabinet. Then I sat outside waiting for the mail truck to come. An hour later, it came and I went out to get my lovely new cultivars, but to my dismay, they were not there. I'm having a ton of trouble making drainage holes in the plastic pots I bought yesterday too. I've tried a drill, but the plastic is too hard and the one hole I made cracked the whole bottom of the pot and sent the pot flying into the wall!

I WANT MY PLANTS!

Make sure that it's not the Miracle-Gro brand of sphagnum.



I got to replant a couple plants a month or so ago when I realized that I had made that mistake. The fertilizer in the sphagnum will kill them. If it is that, go with the regular sphagnum you have. Assuming it is actual sphagnum moss, that and perlite will work fine. But if the peat moss you have isn't tainted, that'll work great.

And actually, as someone pointed out, learning how to drill plastic is a bit of a trick. It's all about the pressure. Take the broken pot, and practice drilling on the remains. It is possible to drill hard plastic without shattering it. It takes patience, and you have to get a feel for it. Also, using a very thin drill bit helps. Once you have a small hole drilled, you can then move up to a larger drill bit on the same hole, and it'll go much easier. Just be patient with yourself.

I'm no handyman by any stretch of the imagination, but it can be done.

The reason I cautioned against using sphagnum moss is because I'd read about using this type of medium last year. I just found the article -

"A popular growing medium among those goofy mini-terrariums you find for sale at the hardware store is dried sphagnum moss (also known as long-fiber sphagnum moss). Although it provides an acidic environment that Venus Flytraps love, it holds too much water, causing Flytrap roots to rot.

"Of all the growing mediums we have experimented with, dried sphagnum moss caused more Venus Flytraps to die than any other soil mix. If you plant this as a growing medium, repot your plant into 1 part peat moss and 1 part perlite immediately."

http://www.cobraplant.com/venus-flytrap.html

I made sure it wasn't the miracle gro type. I actually read your post about that mistake in the "stupid mistakes" thread somewhere else. I went to Home Depot and a couple other stores but the only stuff they had had the Miracle Gro kind so I didn't buy it.

My dad said that he'd drill tomorrow, but if it doesn't work out I'll just buy some cheap plastic pots that already have holes and then decorate them to be cute enough for my plants. Plus, I ordered another 5 plants today so I'll need more pots anyway.

My dad drilled the holes today. He looked at me really weird and then informed me that I had been trying to drill holes with the screwdriver feature of the drill.

Haha, I guess that's a common mistake?

Hah! Sounds like something I would have done.

The drill feature made 4 nice, even holes in each pot! I'm so excited but I still need to buy 5 more matching pots (with holes this time) for the plants I ordered yesterday.

I'll wait until tomorrow to put the dirt in the pots. It's 50-50 ish sphagnum/peat moss and perlite. Should be good. And I've got dishes for them all to sit in since ants really really bother me when they're crawling all over the plants.