- Thu Mar 21, 2013 3:04 pm
#169776
Hello all,
New to the board (but not to the site - been gleaning information from here for a while now). I wanted to share a helpful tip that allowed me to put my indoor VFT (actually on my desk at work) into dormancy this past winter.
Cold Water.
I had issues with finding a cold enough ambient temperature to put the plant into dormancy. It is a 'little' colder by my office window (I live in Maine), but that in itself was not enough to trigger dormancy. What ended up working was:
Allow the medium to dry out a bit (not completely dry, but close).
Stick your distilled water in the fridge - get it nice and cold.
Water directly onto the rhizome every day for about a week using your now very cold distilled water - be careful not to over-water. We're trying to simulate a 'cold, continuous rain' - i.e. North Carolina winter style.
The Flytrap went dormant shortly after the cold watering, and remained that way sitting in my office window until I brought it out of dormancy just recently (with a bit more warmth and longer light - I use a fluorescent on a desk-lamp). From November to March the plant had no new growth, and most of the leaves died with the exception of a few. I watered it sparingly, continuing to use cold water until it was time to bring it out of dormancy, at which point I switched to room-temp water.
Not sure if this will work for everyone (and it may have even been mentioned before - though I didn't see a topic that covered it), but I figured it might help for those who have an indoor plant (or live in warmer climes) and can't get their plant to go dormant.
Enjoy,
New to the board (but not to the site - been gleaning information from here for a while now). I wanted to share a helpful tip that allowed me to put my indoor VFT (actually on my desk at work) into dormancy this past winter.
Cold Water.
I had issues with finding a cold enough ambient temperature to put the plant into dormancy. It is a 'little' colder by my office window (I live in Maine), but that in itself was not enough to trigger dormancy. What ended up working was:
Allow the medium to dry out a bit (not completely dry, but close).
Stick your distilled water in the fridge - get it nice and cold.
Water directly onto the rhizome every day for about a week using your now very cold distilled water - be careful not to over-water. We're trying to simulate a 'cold, continuous rain' - i.e. North Carolina winter style.
The Flytrap went dormant shortly after the cold watering, and remained that way sitting in my office window until I brought it out of dormancy just recently (with a bit more warmth and longer light - I use a fluorescent on a desk-lamp). From November to March the plant had no new growth, and most of the leaves died with the exception of a few. I watered it sparingly, continuing to use cold water until it was time to bring it out of dormancy, at which point I switched to room-temp water.
Not sure if this will work for everyone (and it may have even been mentioned before - though I didn't see a topic that covered it), but I figured it might help for those who have an indoor plant (or live in warmer climes) and can't get their plant to go dormant.
Enjoy,
rwalls1978 liked this