FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Sooooo I just recently acquired 2 D. capensis plants. My first sundews, yay! They are indoors, grown about 4-6 inches under a grow lamp and kept moist with distilled water.
I was curious about feeding though. I was wondering how dewy is dewy enough to be fed. And crushed beta pellets are adequate? My other question was in regards to clipping dead leaves. Should I bother or just leave it alone?

Any other tips and suggestions for a newbie noob would be much appreciated! Also recommendations for other sundew varieties for beginners are welcome too!

Pictures! Some are from the day I unwrapped them and others are from 5 days later. http://www.flickr.com/photos/46169588@N ... 2170322787

I feed my capensis crickets, its sweet to watch them roll them up and snack! These plants as really hard to kill lol so you shouldnt have a problem growing them. I would say they're dewy enough to eat when food will stick to them! As far as other beginner species get a spatulata, those are also hard to kill haha

if the leaf isnt very dewy it probably wont do much good
crushed beta pellets are fine, and you can clip dead leaves, but it doesnt do much other then make the plant look nicer
you could wait a little longer for them to get more dewy, but if you fed them a small amount now im sure it would be fine. atleast for the alba. id only do like have of a crushed beta pelt though to be safe, no permanent damage will happen from over feeding though, but the leaf that got over fed might die earlier then it should
capensis tend to do fine in really low humidity, so dewiness is going to depend alot on light and keeping the soil moist, with enough light they will produce dew in more amounts, but too much light and they can dry out. 4-6 inches sounds pretty good depending on what kind of bulb you use
if the typical cape starts getting white hairs with no dew, or even leaves that lack hairs completely it means it isnt getting enough light, if the typical gets darker and darker red streaks and stops getting dew its probably getting burnt
alba goes through less dramatic stages, in low light it will lose dew and hairs like the typical, buts its hairs are always white, unless in strong light they get a pinkish hue which is good, but when they start losing dew or getting burnt tips you might want to try decreasing the light little by little to see how it reacts

good luck

Hey, I am a big sundew fan, I suggest associating yourself with the website Growsundews.com made by Aaron May, it's really informative, it's helped me all 2 or so years of my hobby, and I still learn a lot every time I visit.

Clipping the leaves is optional... And beta pellets do work as sundew food, and are especcially useful in feeding hound sundews. The key to obtaining dew on a sundew is light. The more light, the more dew. An increase in humidity makes the dew drops bigger, but the bigger drops of dew have more water than normal so they won't be as sticky. Drosera capensis are very easy sundews to grow, and are often considered weeds because of how easily they grow and spread.

I'd advise the following, who can cope with generally the same enviroment:
Aliciae
Indica

Good luck growing:)

Everything they said up there!

Just make sure you don't leave too much betta pellets unattended, there may be instances if the humidity is too high, they'll start to get moldy before the plant and finish them off. I tend to crush them and sprinkle them over a leaf or two. Usually a feeding will help them boost some growth. I find it more fun not feeding them for a month or two then give them a helping of fish food and watch it send shoots.

Leaves clip if you think they look unruly, but I keep mine on, they just decay into the sphagnum moss anyway.

Have fun! Lots of light and plenty of water.

And if you're a real fan, you can try propagating some of the leaves in water. There's a few threads about water propagation for sundews in just distilled water.