FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Don't worry, not digging in the wild, just my container.

I have my vft's planted in a large container, let's say about 24 inches deep. Some of the plants are divided several times and I would like to separate them. If they were in small pots it would be as easy as removing the entire soil mass and washing it away...etc. But in this case I am going to have to dig them up and I'm concerned about not going deep enough and damaging the taproot.

Any idea on how deep I should go? Essentially I an going the insert a trowel in a circle a few inches from the center and try and remove the whole thing like a plug. I'm thinking 6-8 inches should be enough to minimize root damage but wanted some thoughts.

I've seen some pics on this board from members who seem to have plants in large containers, what do you do when you need to "pull" a plant to repot/divide?

I would say 8 inches is enough. Just take a small shovel and dig all around the plant 8 inches deep and then try to lift the soil around the flytrap (and the flytrap) out from the pot.
Good luck.

I agree with Daniel. 8 inches should be sufficient. When digging it up, you could also try to loosen the soil deeper than 8 inches and gently pull the roots from the soil if they go deeper.

Thanks guys. That's what I was thinking, sounds like a plan.

With my drosera I just use a spoon and dig them out, though they have a very shallow root system and they grow/seed like weeds so I'm not too worried about them. With the vft I am always nervous because they're more limited. With luck I'll be going from 3 bunches to 8-10 plants.

Can't wait to see some pics when they're done

dantt99 wrote:Can't wait to see some pics when they're done

Absolutely! I was planning on taking some post-dormancy pics tomorrow.

I'll do some before and after.

Well it took a while but I finally got some plants dug up and re-planted. I was only able to go down about 6 inches and even then I could feel some slight root breakage. All in all I was impressed with the outcome. Here are the pictures.

Plant 1 Before:




I didn't get a picture of it before I broke it apart but here it is separated. 8 plants.




Plant 2 Before:



Here is is after dividing. 3 plants. It was hard to get a close shot with all the traps because of how long some are.



And here they are re-planted.

Most of plant 1



More of plant 1 and all of plant 2



I stuck the two babies in my Drosera planter just to see how they do.




An overhead shot.

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!
Those are insanely massive root systems/divisions.
Excellent

Very nice!

dantt99 wrote:WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!
Those are insanely massive root systems/divisions.
Excellent

Yeah, both were planted in just long fiber sphagnum when I got them from lowes/home depot. When I planted them a few years ago I was worried about root damage so I just dug a hole and put the whole thing in, sphagnum and all. It was neat to see how not a single root grew out site of the sphagnum horizontally, it was all straight down.

Having the roots wrapped in the moss did make it a little harder to separate but I just kept dipping them in water and nudging the roots and eventually everything slid apart. Just looking at the plants in pots you get the feeling that they're pretty delicate, but after re-planting them I know how substantial they are.

Next up is going to be those two Sarr.'s, I know for sure the leucophylla is heavily divided.