FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

What I mean is I know that to grow your CP's correctly, you have to either grow them in:
long fibred sphagnum moss
peat and perlite mixed

But where I have a few questions is here:
1. Is there any difference in the growth rate of CP's that were grown in a medium with the peat/perlite mix, in comparison to a CP that was grown in just long fibred sphagnum moss? I was just curious, because it seems so much easier to just plant them in pure long fibred sphagnum moss, than taking the time to get a pretty much even mixture of peat and perlite. (sorry if I sound lazy or unmotivated, but im a college student, so my spare time is precious. lol :/ )

2. Would anything (bad or good) happen if one was to plant a cp in a medium combining all 3 materials (peat, perlite, and lfs moss)? Just for curiosity's sake.

3. Is it possible to purchase a peat/perlite mix anywhere, like in a store (not online) where it is already mixed for you, or would you have to buy both and mix them manually? The reason i'm asking, is because I am the worst at measuring stuff out, and I wouldn't want to accidently put too much of one or the other in the mixture, and end up damaging my plants.

...and then I realized I probably posted this in the wrong section of the forums... oops

Lfsm, in my opinion, promotes better root growth and health because it's so airy. It does, however, dry out much quicker, and I recently repotted my Drosera capensis because it wasn't doing as well in the lfsm: smaller pot than my other plants, thus harder to keep wet enough for its preferences. It didn't suffer any growth problems, just stopped producing much dew. So it went back to the peat/sand mix as of Tuesday. Otherwise I much prefer the lfsm, but others prefer the peat mix. Last year I had a few sarracenia purpureas in the peat mix and some in lfsm. The ones in the moss had MUCH stronger, longer root systems.

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trooperkris wrote:1. Is there any difference in the growth rate of CP's that were grown in a medium with the peat/perlite mix, in comparison to a CP that was grown in just long fibred sphagnum moss? ...taking the time to get a pretty much even mixture of peat and perlite.

Depends on your growing conditions. I always feel like my flytraps in LFS divide more quickly but other wise I haven't noticed too much difference. Though my LFS plants are treated the same as my "dirt" plants. Also, no need to worry about an even mix, it only needs to be pretty well mixed, don't stress perfection. But it is certainly more time consuming than just using moss.

trooperkris wrote:2. Would anything (bad or good) happen if one was to plant a cp in a medium combining all 3 materials (peat, perlite, and lfs moss)? Just for curiosity's sake.

No, it would just be an airy mix like using peat and sand/perlite.

trooperkris wrote:3. Is it possible to purchase a peat/perlite mix anywhere, like in a store (not online) where it is already mixed for you, or would you have to buy both and mix them manually? The reason i'm asking, is because I am the worst at measuring stuff out, and I wouldn't want to accidently put too much of one or the other in the mixture, and end up damaging my plants.

Not that I know of. Pretty much all mixed soils will have nutrients added. Even if they don't they're likely made of more that just peat and perlite. Don't worry about measuring, there is no need to be exact. If you use a scoop just use an equal number of scoops for each ingredient. Your scoop can be a bowl, a cup, a shovel. And don't worry about taking level scoops, it's not that big of a deal. You can even just dump some peat in a mixing container and dump what looks like an equal volume of sand/perlite and you'd be fine. I stopped tying to be exact long ago.