FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Most of my venus flytraps are young, bought last year (just starting to buy new ones this year, but this is regarding the plants I bought during spring of last year). Anyway there are a few exceptions; I did buy three plants from Bug Biting Plants that were advertised as being between 3 and 5 years old, and one plant that was advertised to be 7-10 years old on the same site. This is mainly concerning the oldest one, because the ones labeled 3-5 years seem to be growing similarly to my younger ones.

The vast majority of my plants--the youngins--didn't really seem to die back much in the fall, and retained most of their leaves. They already ended their dormancy by the end of January or the beginning of February, and are well on their way to starting another year. But the one labeled as being 7-10 years old... for some reason, it seems very different. It has died back drastically in the fall, and most of its remaining traps have turned a nasty light brownish color. The plant, while once big, is much, much smaller than it originally was and it doesn't seem to have left dormancy yet. I currently have the timer for my light fixture set to emulate a 12-hour photoperiod, which I increase about twice a month whenever an extra half-hour of natural daylight occurs.

Anyway, is there a difference in dormancy and growth cycles in general in young vs. very mature venus flytrap plants? Do older plants die back more, and/or take longer to come out of dormancy? Does anyone know what is going on here?

I don't believe that you bought a ten-year-old flytrap. Seems like a scam to me. Some pictures would help.
About the dormancy, same rules apply to all vfts no matter the age. Except of really small plants.
Plants seem always smaller after a dormancy, don't worry, they will grow back.

A 7-10 year old plant, left alone for all those years, would most likely FILL a 12 inch pot.

IHaveNoIdea is right, plants always look smaller after dormancy. As long as the rhizome is the same size and has not rotted away, you're good.

Well, the plant *was* quite huge, and produced some of the biggest traps of all the plants I had--until I got my "large" B-52 from California Carnivores. My Low Giant also set records, but not until later on in the season.

The plant in question was pretty big, very "mature" looking in that its leaves and other parts were thick, and its leaves were pretty long too. It didn't look or "feel" fragile compared to the others I bought. It did not fill a 12" pot though; it was shipped in a pretty large pot, but nowhere near that.

Anyway, I don't know how much it will help because I did not take any shots of the plant after I got it last year when it was growing (so no before and after), but here are some brand-new pics taken just now if it in its current (dormant? dying?) state. When I bought it it already had a nice thick stump from when they cut off a flower stalk, and you can see that I recently cut off a new flower stalk not too long ago and it's sitting there in the soil.

UltraZelda64 wrote:here are some brand-new pics taken just now if it in its current (dormant? dying?) state.

It has a very severe outbreak of mites. I can see them in the high resolution photos.

And if they are on that plant to the extent they are, they're likely on all of your plants.

I'd suggest getting a miticide and treating all of your plants.

Thanks for the diagnosis--I kind of saw those tiny specs, but thought nothing of it. Never seen anything quite like it before, I thought it was dust. I've seen red spider mites on my pepper and tomato plants in the past, but these look different. Can you give any suggestions on products to use that are VFT-safe and instructions on using them while causing the least (extra) damage? Thanks. If they weren't all growing under and sharing the same light, I would quarantine this plant. But with the lows about to be reaching the 20s the next few nights, even that is not possible.

Try Avid or floramite. They both work for tomatoes, and I believe Matt sells them also.

UltraZelda64 wrote:Can you give any suggestions on products to use that are VFT-safe and instructions on using them while causing the least (extra) damage?

A dedicated miticide can be expensive. We sell small amounts of three very good miticides in the FlytrapStore:
http://www.flytrapcare.com/store/other- ... ous-plants

Each one works in a different way, which you can read about in the product descriptions, but all are very effective (I've used all three of them now).