FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I've started growing all of my plants in about 60-40 silica-peat. I'm hoping it turns out well since I just did the repot as everything was going dormant. I'm oddly interested in a coffee ground mixture, haha

95slvrZ28, so far the coffee seems the least able to wick the water to the top of the pot, so I suspect drying out will be a problem with it, unless I do lots of top watering. The coffee/silica blend might be OK, though.

Nice experiment!

Do you have any pictures updates??, nice experiment by the way!

No pictures yet, since nothing has sprouted. Although I noticed that a few tiny green things were starting to grow in my seed bed the other day. They were too small to tell if they were VFTs or not. I'll check them again soon and see how they're coming.

If I end up getting enough seeds to sprout, I'll use those for the experiment. If not, I'll have to transplant similar sized clones into the various soils and see how they do over time. The problem is, I only have so many plants total, having gotten rid of most of my plants to hike a long trail a little over a year ago. So I'll have to see whether I have enough to transplant them in the spring, or if I have to wait and let them multiply until the fall. Unless, of course, someone has some seeds or clones they want to contribute to the cause . . .

I'd need something that was pretty consistent genetically, so I could be reasonably sure that any differences in growth would be from the soil and not the plants themselves. Probably best to go with transplanting clones, I think.

I'm also planning to add another mixture of each of the different organic materials that's at least 75% silica, so I'll need more plants than I had originally counted on.

Good luck! But i wouldn't get to crazy with the experiments, plants want to live to.

February 28 Update:
I now have several seedlings in the tray of peat moss that I spread the rest of my seeds onto when they failed to sprout in the experimental pots. I've been keeping it watered and covered for humidity all winter, but I guess they were just waiting for warmer temperatures to sprout? Anyway, that tray is sitting on a heat pad, so I'm thinking that as temperatures continue to rise, I may eventually see some sprouts in the experimental pots. If not, maybe I'll end up with enough seedlings to transplant.