FlyTrapCare Forums

Hey all,

I've been growing a Cape Sundew I bought online for the past month and it was doing really well at first. It was very tiny when I received it bare root, so I planted it in some peat moss perlite mix, put it on a water tray, and put it outside. It took a few days to acclimate, but then started to grow like crazy, some of the older leaves dying off and new ones sprouting like mad. The new leaves that came out started developing a lot of healthy looking dew, and everything looked good!

However, for the past two weeks its just been overcast and raining almost every day, and the plant isn't really growing as much any more. The "new" leaves it grew that became big have stopped producing sundew and are starting to turn reddish. The newest big leaf it grew was producing a lot of dew and looked nice and healthy, but now has two small holes in it!

I just leave it in a tray of like an inch of distilled water (rainwater nowadays since it rains everyday), and I empty the tray out of water since it keeps on raining nonstop.

Am I doing anything wrong, or do I just need for the sun to come out again? Should I stick it indoors or something when its raining, is it getting overwatered?

Hi @Nikson,
Sundews HATE rain(excluding the Queensland sisters), it washes all the dew and prey off the leaves which is why they are better off grown indoors(windowsill works fine, as they don't need as much light as VFTs)or under a shelf outside to protect them from the rain. They are also Tropical plants, so they can't really be grown outdoors because they don't have a dormancy.

Here's what I suggest:
Bring it inside under a windowsill or grow light. It should recover and get its dew back. You should keep it there if you don't want it to undergo an artificial dormancy.
Hope this helps
Max

MaxVft wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 1:04 am Hi @Nikson,
Sundews HATE rain(excluding the Queensland sisters), it washes all the dew and prey off the leaves which is why they are better off grown indoors(windowsill works fine, as they don't need as much light as VFTs)or under a shelf outside to protect them from the rain. They are also Tropical plants, so they can't really be grown outdoors because they don't have a dormancy.

Here's what I suggest:
Bring it inside under a windowsill or grow light. It should recover and get its dew back. You should keep it there if you don't want it to undergo an artificial dormancy.
Hope this helps
Max

Thanks for the advice about the rain!

I put the plant under my glass table on the patio when it was raining, and now that it's stopped and the sun has come back out, I put it back on the table with plenty of sun, and the half grown leaves are now sprouting tendrils and growing again, and they have dew on them again!

Heat over 85f + full sun will have a negative effect on capes. It will not kill them just they will slow down and look ratty, when things cool off or in a cloudy rainy week they will perk back up. I keep my capes inside for the really hot and really cold months.

They are high elevation plants.

My capes look like they have been through the war. They will be lovely when I bring them inside this fall.

Thanks for the help, guys! I kept the plant outside, but moved it to somewhere with a cover above it whenever it rains so it doesn't get annihilated, and it's looking good so far!

Here is one of mine grown indoors, with artificial light. Same plant, 2nd one is a week ago, first one is just now.

Oh wow, that's incredible! It's so healthy and green looking! These sundews are honestly so amazing, I'm glad I got into them. Just picked up another one online and it finally arrived today. Can't wait to see it start to get red! I finally have cheap LED grow lights now too, so I'm thinking about maybe sticking them under there instead of outdoors, I'll think about it.

I fed my first plant a tinnnnny bit of bloodworm dust today, and it curled around it. So cool!

Wow! That sundew recovered well. Keep up the good work!

I had a pest issue on my alba, i did not want it to spread so i took the nuclear option, cut off all leaves and then treated the nub.

Man, people really weren't kidding when they say these things grow like weeds. It's barely been two days since I last posted and it's already opened up another leaf!

Since it's already producing dew, I sprinkled a littttle bit of powdered bloodworm on the new leaf as well.