FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Double post

I grow mine in PH 4 -5.5 but it does go higher occasionally for a few months, the ideal level quoted in wikiHow is 4.9 -5.3.
Cheers
Steve

Sorry Jonathan_, bad post placement on my part! My post wasn't directed at you at all but I understand your confusion. I was using the idea that you can grow a vft in quartz sand to help support the notion that perhaps the need for a fairly acid media is not entirely correct, as some people had already suggested in earlier posts in the thread.

This post can be deleted. The answer to ph levels was posted below.

@steve booth,

steve booth wrote:I grow mine in PH 4 -5.5 but it does go higher occasionally for a few months, the ideal level quoted in wikiHow is 4.9 -5.3.
Cheers
Steve

how do you keep your PH between 4-5.5? i just bought a soil ph meter and its reading 7 for all my plants :/ I also have a separate ph reader for the tray water and thats been reading as high unless i put fresh distilled water in it (which I seem to be doing every day now) to drop it down to 5.8ish

Hi Robbie
I grow the majority of my plants in reasonably high mass bogs outside, so it is a lot easier than in pots. I test in April and add sulphur chips at about an ounce per sq yard to lower the PH per 1 full point. I also add pine chippings and dig them in the top as a dressing, this also adds long term acidity and tannins.
Dont expect the PH to drop straight away as it needs bacteria to work on the sulphur which only work in the warmer weather and dont add too much sulphur as it can go too low!!

Cheers
Steve

Great information, Steve! Thanks for sharing

The answer, at The Green Swamp, is 2.4-2.7 ph for VFT’s. Sarracenia’s were around 3.8.

steve booth wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 1:48 pm Hi Robbie
I grow the majority of my plants in reasonably high mass bogs outside, so it is a lot easier than in pots. I test in April and add sulphur chips at about an ounce per sq yard to lower the PH per 1 full point. I also add pine chippings and dig them in the top as a dressing, this also adds long term acidity and tannins.
Dont expect the PH to drop straight away as it needs bacteria to work on the sulphur which only work in the warmer weather and dont add too much sulphur as it can go too low!!

Cheers
Steve

Thank you for your reply steve! I'm having trouble finding sulphur chips/pine chippings that explicitly say theyre safe for carnivorous plants (I've seen some with additives and it's got me nervous about buying this stuff blindly). Can you message me the sulphur chips and pine chippings you use?

Please and thank you

Hi Robbie

The suplhur chips are just 'standard elemental suphur as per this sort of purchase https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elixir-Gardens ... 0383&psc=1

Over here we have a number of products that are pure pine bark, retrieved from furniture and woodworking jobs, you can get small 100L bags for mulching that are labelled as pure pine bark or as per this https://www.cpa-horticulture.co.uk/bark ... b953e39a89

Cheers
Steve

steve booth wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 1:48 pm Hi Robbie
I grow the majority of my plants in reasonably high mass bogs outside, so it is a lot easier than in pots. I test in April and add sulphur chips at about an ounce per sq yard to lower the PH per 1 full point. I also add pine chippings and dig them in the top as a dressing, this also adds long term acidity and tannins.
Dont expect the PH to drop straight away as it needs bacteria to work on the sulphur which only work in the warmer weather and dont add too much sulphur as it can go too low!!

Cheers
Steve

does regular sulfur work? does regular sulfur also act as a fungicide?

Hi Robbie - apologies for the delay, Ive been away.
Rather than me waffling about how it works have a look at the link below which spells it out quite nicely
https://www.canr.msu.edu/uploads/files/ ... Sulfur.pdf

And yes it does work as a fungicide but fairly locally, if you want a more general attack then break it into powder and spread in problem areas.
Cheers
Steve

Dan Birch wrote:The answer, at The Green Swamp, is 2.4-2.7 ph for VFT’s. Sarracenia’s were around 3.8.

That's crazy acidic! Makes me wonder how much of this is them preferring soil that acidic and how much is them just tolerating it well enough to outcompete other plants.

Actually Adelae these carnivorous plants in their native habitats are just in a few years easily outcompeted by a large number of trees, shrubs and grasses. This is why periodic fires are so important to their ecosystem. Without fire these plants are soon doomed by the wildly diverse overstory.