FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I've kind of adopted this way of watering after tinkering with these plants for about a year now and it seems to show healthier growth. This really only works with plastic pots and any other form that is flexible. First thing you do is squeeze inward around the pot a few times so the media had risen an inch or so. Second you water the plant and then pack down the media back to however dense you had it maybe just a little bit more to help drive those nutrients into those roots. This works with peat moss and lfm. Here's a few pictures showing the process. Does anyone else water this way?

Waisting your time imo.

Roots do not take in nutrients, only water.

Actually the air we breath is made up of almost 80% nitrogen and by allowing pockets of air to work through the media I don't believe it's a waste of time. It's time consuming yes, I don't do it everytime I water either because of this.

Their roots don't have lungs or a capillary system so it really doesn't matter what our atmosphere consists of.

It is true that the roots need some air flow but it has nothing to do with nutrients. It has more to do with stopping the compaction of the soil that would stop the roots from growing during the growing season and also to aid in the soil being able to drain quickly enough that the roots aren't constantly wet.

Do you know why carnivorous plants trap bugs?

Doublebass1985 wrote:I've kind of adopted this way of watering after tinkering with these plants for about a year now and it seems to show healthier growth.

How did you come about this conclusion? Did you water with different techniques and eventually select this one because it showed good results? Or did you just start doing that while they were growing well and assumed that this technique was the reason? While I don't think this does anything, if you showed evidence through a simple experiment with a control group and variable then you might be onto something.

I don't have any proof or scientific results of this way boosting the plant, but I wanted to share with you guys a different way of watering and you don't have to listen to me or believe me. I see nothing but a benefit to your plants from doing this. I could swear I thought I saw one of my plants smoking a Cuban cigar the other day.

Doublebass1985 wrote:I see nothing but a benefit to your plants from doing this

Do you know why carnivorous plants trap and digest insects?

As mentioned this is a waste of time. Proper high quality sphag or a good mix of peat with perlite should bring air down into the roots every time you water since it has empty pockets of space it in. This mostly just helps prevent anaerobic bacteria from growing though, and from keeping the soil too wet for too long, thats the entire reason why perlite is used in the first place.

The air we breathe may be high in nitrogen but this form is unusable to plants. In order for plants to use it it has to be "fixed" by nitrifying bacteria in the soil (which I don't expect to really be found in the substrates we used, especially after they are packaged dry for a long time). But anyways, the roots on a VFT have lost almost all their nutrient uptake capabilities, so feeding a bug or fish pellet one time would give it more nitrogen than doing this method for months...

your posts kill me sometimes. I'm glad you have a sense of humor about it at least.

I like to do what you from time to time but i don't pack it down. I figure its good if soil is compacted. Also if it rained alot and the soils too wet.

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