FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi,

The plant pictured below started declining in health several (8?) weeks ago and I think it's about to die. I'm not sure why, but this seems to keep happening. Another one did the same thing, it just sort of disintegrated. This one had been having a normal dormancy and then all of the sudden the traps turned black one by one then the leaves started to go too. Fearing sun burn, even though it's winter, I brought them inside into a sunny window sil (in an unheated room) and they've been there for about the past 3 weeks. It's been hanging on since then but now all the leaves are starting to die. I thought I saw a new leaf coming up the past couple days, but now I don't see anything. They had maybe been a little too wet for a couple weeks around the time it started because they got some rain a couple times, but I didn't see any signs of fungus. The temperatures have been above freezing, except for one night where it got down to about 32F for maybe 2 hours before I brought them inside. I had five in this pot, now 4, soon to be 3. The other 3, just inches away (2nd picture), appear to be doing perfectly fine. I have been seeing little white bugs crawling around them in the soil which I may have finally gotten rid of with a mixture of acephate and neem oil (and lots of it). I don't know what they were, too round to be thrips. They sort of looked like white flies with no wings, so maybe aphids, but aphids like to stay on leaves and usually sort of huddle up right? These seemed to like to burrow down in the soil. I most suspect those bugs were eating my plants, but not sure if it was sun burn, root rot, too cold, too much pesticide, or something else. It seems like every time I try to move my plants outdoors, they start dying.

This happened to my Sawtooth, not really sure what it is...
Will be interesting for the both of us.

With a toothpick or chopstick dig away (don't fully uproot) some of the soil around the rhyzome and check what color it is.

It looks like it is rotting. If I find a plant struggling like that, I usually will dig them up, pull off all of the dead parts of the bulb and then repot in fresh media.

I guess that fits. They stayed wet for a couple weeks while I was on vacation. Then got rain. Then I probably over reacted with the pesticide keeping it too moist. Thanks for your feedback

I'm not sure which came first, the rotting or the insects. That is, it could be that the insects were chewing on the plant under the soil which caused it to rot in the moist conditions, or it could be that it just started to rot and that attracted whatever the insects were. But I'm curious why only a couple in the pot would rot and not the others. I decided there was no harm in uprooting it at this point since it looked even worse than above last night. Here's what I found:

After repotting my plants I had a few seem to just crumble, but not in a dry way. They seemed water logged. I think it was overwatering during the repotting! Seems like maybe the overwtaring you mentioned is the cause in your case too. Matt and Steve have said that too much water during winter is no good, but we seem to be making the mistake still! Haha. But we learn by trial and error, unfortunately. So maybe do what Matt suggested and peal away what looks dead, repot in dryer media, and see how it goes. I'm gonna dig up the one that is def in trouble outside. I can try to post a pic too so we can compare!

The first of the pink venus to "collapse." I cut off the dead tips. The rhizome still looks normal, for the most part. The roots look good too, with some new growth. The parts of the leaves left


This is the second. It's a much smaller plant. This one doesn't look like it will recover.


After reading this post, I moved both plants to a new spot in the bog pot after uprooting to inspect.

That first pink venus looks ok, although it is a bad sign that it lost all its leaves. I would personally rinse that rhizome and the two remaining plants' rhizomes in distilled water, thoroughly empty and rinse out the pot, and replace what's in there with fresh media. Then keep the pot dryer than it was before, especially during the winter. The temperatures you've described are fine. If you can get a picture of the insects, we can try to see what they are, but there are many types of soil insects that won't harm your plants noticeably. I was going to direct you to this post:
http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/bug-i ... t6170.html

But all the pictures have been removed. But at least you can google names and try to figure out what you have. Symptoms of sunburn include turning red at the base of the leaves, so unless you see that (and unless the plants are suddenly getting A LOT more sun than before) you can rule that out. Put them back in the sun. A lot of mixed pesticides may be contributing. I agree with Matt that the problem is probably root rot from wet soil.

I guess I know how moist is too moist now. I was trying to get them to dry out but with the rain, cloudy days, and high humidity they just wouldn't dry out. I haven't seen any more bugs but will try to get a picture if I do they're just so small and elusive it'll be tough to catch one. Thanks.