FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

[ilikewhatido]

Red Dragon never really strikes me as a vigorous grower. I've had the plant below for about 3 years now, for the first 2 years it neither produced any impressive traps nor grew particularly fast. However this year it's just beasting and keeps putting out good sized traps at a fast pace. The plant has been growing at the same spot since I got it. The only difference is that I started to fertilize it more aggressively with 15-5-5 orchid food. I guess the extra nutrient does help the plant in a huge way! Also from what I have read, red flytraps all seem to divide a lot. However, if I recall correctly this particular plant never divided all these years I have it which I find interesting.

2013-01-26, starting to wake up from dormancy. It almost completely died back during dormancy with nothing left above soil...

DSCN3446.JPG (678.01 KiB) Viewed 2712 times

Today

DSCN3622.JPG (427.64 KiB) Viewed 2712 times

[Snap Traps]

Amazing changes there, well done . That red dragon is a plant to be proud of.

(200th post )

[dimitar]

Awesome!

What light do u use for the plant?

[LAKJP]

That dark red purple color is really amazing! (c:

[Matt]

The plant looks great!

The only difference is that I started to fertilize it more aggressively with 15-5-5 orchid food.

How are you delivering the fertilizer?

[Rmac88]

Woah that's awesome!

[Lord Death]

Surely fertilising a VFT at all should be laying down a death sentence, but there's no arguing with photographic evidence to the contrary...

[ilikewhatido]

The plant looks great!

The only difference is that I started to fertilize it more aggressively with 15-5-5 orchid food.

How are you delivering the fertilizer?

I mix liquid fertilizer with distilled water until the ppm goes from 0 to about 30. Then I mist the plant until the whole plant is wet while avoiding letting the solution drip into the soil. I normally do it in the evening or early morning so plants don't get burned. I find it works quite well for adult size plants but not so well for smaller plants as they seem to get stunned. I am still experimenting with different fertilizers and dosage. I used to fertilize my plants once a month but this year I switch to a twice a month schedule and have seem some improvement. However the more aggressive the schedule is the faster mineral builds up in the soil... so I don't know if my plants will experience any adverse effect in the long term but so far they seem to be doing OK.

[ilikewhatido]

Awesome!

What light do u use for the plant?

I use 3W LEDs with blue/red/white spectrums. I grow some of my plants using only blue lights which make even leggy cultivars grow low to the ground with fat leafs

[beckhamlim24]

Soooooo red!