FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi all!

I'm new to VFT, i wanted to ask which is a better growing medium, just using the long fiber sphagnum moss only or the soil mix of the sphagnum moss, perlite and silica?
I got one randomly at a store before and I fell in love with them.
I can water them for most days, when i get home from work at night.
But there will be some weekends where I will not be home, but I understand that a tray of water can be put under them in those circumstances.
And I plan to put them outside in the sun during the day.
Any help is appreciated, I want to keep my VFTs happy and healthy as I plan to start a collection of them.

Thank you!

Different growers have various opinions on ideal growing media mixes, but the general consensus is that quality LFSM is the best choice.

Also, VFTs do best if they are left outside constantly. Moving them indoors and outdoors frequently puts a lot of stress on the plants and can harm them over time.
This is a great start, and there is a lot of other useful information in the accompanying links.

Nick wrote:Different growers have various opinions on ideal growing media mixes, but the general consensus is that quality LFSM is the best choice.

Also, VFTs do best if they are left outside constantly. Moving them indoors and outdoors frequently puts a lot of stress on the plants and can harm them over time.
This is a great start, and there is a lot of other useful information in the accompanying links.

Unfortunately, I cannot leave her outside when I am not home, as the last time I did it I came home to her all dug out and laying on the ground her traps mauled and I witnessed a squirrel hanging out around her before I came home to her dug out, and the next time I noticed a squirrel hanging around her again.
since then I have been paranoid and keeping an eye on her whenever I have her outside. Before that I left her outside all the time

Toothpicks are your best freind. Split some of them in two and place a whole bunch sticking up around the pot at varying levels.
I once watched a bird fly off with a huge chunk of spgagnum right near the base of my plant. Ever since I placed the toothpicks my plant hasn't been touched once.....by animals.

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other people will make a small cage for them or over them outdoors if animals are a concern i will be building a giant box for ours once we get our deck built either this fall or spring as we have a lot of critters outdoors here living out of the city!

you might hear 20 different opinions on growing medium seems the two big common ones are:

pure long fiber spaghnum moss (like besgro or better-gro brands) 100%

or a blend of 50% peat / 50% perlite (or a combination of perlite/silica(quartz) sand for that 50%) (no fertilizers/additives though!)

some implore all the above to different combinations, I personally decided to use 100% LFSM this year after seeing lots of folks sing its praises, potting/repotting its a bit harder to work roots/materials in and out of not as easy as a peat moss blend to just simple fill, make a hole, and fill around it - but it wasn't terrible for a complete 100% amateur in growing anything

Rammplins wrote:Toothpicks are your best freind. Split some of them in two and place a whole bunch sticking up around the pot at varying levels.
I once watched a bird fly off with a huge chunk of spgagnum right near the base of my plant. Ever since I placed the toothpicks my plant hasn't been touched once.....by animals.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

I heard of the toothpick trick and I thought about it, but I like to sit and admire them so I dont know if I can do so with the toothpicks sticking out as I am a bit of a perfectionist :p

riveraXVX wrote:other people will make a small cage for them or over them outdoors if animals are a concern i will be building a giant box for ours once we get our deck built either this fall or spring as we have a lot of critters outdoors here living out of the city!

you might hear 20 different opinions on growing medium seems the two big common ones are:

pure long fiber spaghnum moss (like besgro or better-gro brands) 100%

or a blend of 50% peat / 50% perlite (or a combination of perlite/silica(quartz) sand for that 50%) (no fertilizers/additives though!)

some implore all the above to different combinations, I personally decided to use 100% LFSM this year after seeing lots of folks sing its praises, potting/repotting its a bit harder to work roots/materials in and out of not as easy as a peat moss blend to just simple fill, make a hole, and fill around it - but it wasn't terrible for a complete 100% amateur in growing anything

I was toying with the idea of building a cage so i can keep them outside, at first it was my boyfriend who wanted it more, turns out .. Im the one whose more into them and going to start a collection, I haven't stopped thinking about how to start my collection since then

Do you have them inside or outside? Will having them in 100% LFSM dry out too quickly in the sun and hot weather outside?

this is our first growing season with flytraps, we purchased most of ours back in April and since the first day they got potted up they were outdoors in the hot NC sun, (just acclimated to full sun over the course of approx a week) a couple plants were in net pots with 100% LFSM which I quickly realized I wanted to move them to stryofoam for now got all but two plants replanted...of course the two in the net pot ended up drying out too quickly and got slightly burnt during the extra day they were in it after running errands took too long! with the smaller net pots they were in they definitely dried out very quickly, but in styrofoam no issues thusfar

the cups have lots of holes in the bottom and bottom side rim, and they sit in an old plastic bin. during the hottest part of summer they had approximately 1/2-1" of water in their trays (which dried up daily usually) and kind of watched the weather to see if / when to add more water I usually let it deplete completely and not much longer than that since we had a nice stretch of summer - but a lot of rain too to help keep things moist.

they were / are full on 100% sunlight as long as the sun is out in their spot outdoors and have grown fantastically - on the photos section I have a little thread there showing month by month progress.

some of the other growers here do some pretty cool stuff simple box out of wood strips with chicken wire or something similar to cage it all in, it will be a requirement for us once we build our deck and they are behind the house since there are armies of animals roving around out there 24/7

Thank you for the info!
Ill probably put her in 100% LFSM too but keep her in a white plastic plant pot.