FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I'm an inexperienced singaporean owner of a VFT. It was originally healthy. But after a few weeks I discovered that there were no new leaves sprouting and the old leaves are dying. I went to reseach and found out that I had been taking the wrong advices and had over-watered my plant too much, and with the wrong, tap water. I'm using the potted plant watering method. Also, I heard about the dormancy period but I'm not too sure about it. Currently, it's mid feb, and I do expose it to adequate sun, about 10-12 hrs. I really wish any kind soul out there. Pls give me some good advice. I really do not want a life to just die like that in my hands. Please, please help my plant. Tell me what I should do. Thank you, I will be really grateful. Anything will do. As you can see in the picture , there's only two leaves that's alive and the others are either rotting or about to rot. Please help, I do not know what to do except for changing it to a more exposed surrounding and giving it distilled water once a week. Thank you

The middle part pf the plant are also reddish and some what a little black.

I'd suggest you repot the plant if you know you've contaminated the ground with the wrong water for a long time. It will most likely not get better in this way. Rinse off the whole VFT with clean water such as distilled water, reverse osmosis water or simply rainwater before putting it in new soil.
As you said, moving it to another place with more sun is also a good idea.
Also, the reddish color is not bad, the black is.

I will do as you told, I'm afraid to hurt the plant, it's alr so fragile. I also went to remove some of the black coloured moss around the rhizome of the vft and one of the yellow (dying) leaves. The others could still be used to photosynthesis so I didn't bother to remove it, am I right? Should I soak vft in salt solution? Saw it online, that says that it will save my vft.

boringtea225 wrote: The others could still be used to photosynthesis so I didn't bother to remove it, am I right? Should I soak vft in salt solution? Saw it online, that says that it will save my vft.

Yep, leave the good ones unharmed! I don't know anything about soaking it in salty water, AFAIK it will absorb a big deal of water from the VFT and its roots due to osmosis (means that water will flow from low concentrations of salt, in the VFT, to high concentrations with salt, outside of the VFT), so I'm not sure if that's a good technique...

Do NOT soak it in a salt solution, flush the pot with clean low TDS water and check the TDS of the waste, give it plenty of light and warmth.

boringtea225 wrote:I will do as you told, I'm afraid to hurt the plant, it's alr so fragile. I also went to remove some of the black coloured moss around the rhizome of the vft and one of the yellow (dying) leaves. The others could still be used to photosynthesis so I didn't bother to remove it, am I right? Should I soak vft in salt solution? Saw it online, that says that it will save my vft.

soaking it in salt water will most definatly kill it. soak it in RO or distilled water, and remember to never ever remove any leaf if it has some green on it. the black parts are most of the time not rot but just how the dead parts of the leaf looks. also, never ever cut into any green part of the plant. When you repot it, use a 50/50 mix of perlite and peat moss. make sure to thoroughly rinse the medium too. you can still save it if you are careful. be especially careful with the roots. it is normal for the roots to be black, but remove it if it is mushy, then it is rot.

Watering with tap water has a delayed effect, so it might be too late already, but probably not. I agree with others. If it were my plant, here's what I would do:

1. Carefully remove the flytrap from its pot and soak it in distilled water for around an hour.
2. Repot into fresh, fluffy sphagnum moss (unfertilized!) Before potting, thoroughly soak the sphagnum moss with distilled water, then squeeze out as much water as you can leaving it just damp. This is the moisture level you want to keep the moss that is around the rhizome at all times. The moss closer to the bottom of the pot may be wetter and that's ok. Plant your VFT so that the sphagnum moss is very loose and airy around the rhizome.
3. Light! Light! Light! Nothing makes a VFT happier.
4. Cover your plant with a bag or humidity dome** This will keep it happy and may encourage one of the dying leaves to strike and grow a new plant as well. You can open it for an exchange of air every few days. You would probably not need to give it any additional water while covered.
   
   **If growing it outdoors, in direct sun, you shouldn't cover it unless its very cool outside. Even if cool, it would probably need to be vented. Otherwise it can reach very high temperatures inside that will cook your plant. I would only use a cover with sphagnum moss, not with peat moss, because sphagnum seems to fight off fungal growth (which is why it's my preference for rehabilitating sick plants). If not covering the plant, then you might want to pack the moss a little tighter around the rhizome than advised in #2 above.

Be patient. A sick plant can appear dead for several weeks before it makes a comeback. Just focus on keeping the soil moisture perfect.

I agree with the above, mine looked deader than that and I cut off the rotten bits and re potted in spag moss and now it's grown back amazingly fast. I also put it in the sun ! Have a look at my post on it- it will make you feel better!!!


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