FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I had a pot of 5 baby pink venuses that got a bad case of Thrips last fall. Only one survived. I've been monitoring it very closely during dormancy. It had 2 tiny surviving leaves until the end of last month when some new growth (4 new leaves) started to come up and the mature leaves died back. Then it got cold again and the growth of all my plants nearly stopped including this one. All of the sudden yesterday, one of the undeveloped traps was black and another was half black (the ones on the right and left). This is what several other of my other baby plants have done prior to dying. The undeveloped traps turn black, then the leaves never mature any farther and then after weeks of not growing it dies. From the way it looks now, my natural reaction is to just say well, there's still 2 leaves that look ok and it will probably grow more, but now I've seen this several times and the good ones will turn black next. The soil hasn't dried out. It's damp but not wet. I sort of aerated it around the plant last night just in case it was too wet, but it only feels moist. Any ideas?

The other plants which did not fare well probably died from root rot by looking at your other plants you have posted before.
This one should be ok since you aerated the soil around it. Try to give it an early start than others from dormancy under lights or something. The current leaves look as if its lacking light so try to give it an 'early spring' under lights as I have said.

Good luck!

I'll try that, thanks. It could've been rot for some of the others. I was being careful about watering and they were drying out much quicker then, but can't really remember the amount they had. I would be more surprised if that's the case with this one unless my moisture meter isn't working right. I gave it some water yesterday because it was on the verge of being dry most of the way down according to the meter. I only gave it water around the perimeter too so it's currently just damp near the plant. Starting to wonder if I'm cut out for growing these...

That little plant looks to be far from a lost cause, but it does probably require some attentive observation and care at this point to make sure it doesn't have another setback. Venus Flytraps can recover from all sorts of setbacks, but it's like a cat with nine lives: eventually it doesn't have enough reserves left to recover if there is one setback after another without a period of rebuilding its reserves in between. But this little guy can be saved. The medium already looks fine. Don't let it freeze, make sure it's moist but don't keep it wet, give it plenty of light, and it should be OK and just require some months to get back on its feet well again, so to speak.

Well, it was growing a new leaf the past couple days, but last night my wife knocked over the pot and uprooted it...so much for not having another setback. We'll see how determined it is....

Oh, that's got to be gutting.
I hope it recovers well!

Black tips isn't always a death sentence. I had a tiny Pink Venus develop a similar problem shortly after I repotted it and set it outdoors. After the plant acclimated to its new environment, it was fine.

Pink Venuses are slow growing so it might take some time to notice any positive changes.