FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi. My plant is in very bad shape and I'm hoping by posting a picture and answering some questions maybe I can get an answer on how to salvage the plant. I am a complete amateur and I want to learn. I feel sorry for my plant.

Conditions:
Leaves are browning, remaining trap nonfunctional, one new leaf but trap is hardly developed. Soil kept moist.

I can take the criticism. I just want this plant to live.

Fly Traps need 3 things to survive and 4 things to thrive, long term.

1) Lotsa, Lotsa, Lotsa light.
They need the closest to full sunlight you can give them.

2) They need VERY pure water with a TDS of 50 ppm or less. Dissolved minerals in city water will build up in the soil and kill them.

3) They need an acidic growing medium with little or no nutrients. Peat mixes, Sphagnum mixes, with no added fertilizer are usually used.

4) Winter Dormancy is needed to keep your Fly Traps heakthy long term.

Matt, the Forum Admin has posted sone care and feeding pages. Check out http://www.flytrapcare.com

If you follow these rules and Matt's information, your plant should recover and become healthy, getting larger every year.

Good growing,
Mike

It looks like not enough light and too much water

Shadow nailed it.

I must add that VFT's do not like their soil wet, just moist. Looking at your pics I can tell that you are keeping it extremely wet, far far too wet.

I would say that you are overwatering your VFT and try to give it more light, just let the soil dry to the point where barely damp and then water again. Also make sure your using soil that has no added minerals and only use Distilled water or Rain Water. You can also use Reverse Osmosis Water But just don’t use Tap Water, EVER!


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The leaves look like they burned, but don't worry the new ones will grow and be accustomed to the light. This happens because VFTs kept in dark conditions accustom their leaves to try and gather more sunlight in dim areas, but when exposed to the correct sunlight again they burn. It's best in the long run so just leave it outside in full sun or indoors under strong grow lights and it will start growing again. Many people take their plant back into shade when they burn but that's not going to help them, you just have to burn off some old leaves (if you don't acclimate it) and wait for the new ones to grow. There is no saving those burned leaves now anyways.

Soil also looks a bit junky, it would probably benefit from a repot into fresh higher quality sphagnum, and maybe don't keep it so wet (especially when it is not photosynthesizing as much due to lack of foliage).

Not to mention it looks like you take too long to water again thus causing plant to dry up more than it should. Try not to stretch out the watering for too long and that probably is the reason your media is so wet because you water when it is super dry and too much water at one time not enough evaporation rate going on there. Increase light tenfold and water more often but way less. Also clip those decaying leaves off the rhizome and throw away top layer of lfm and if you don't have enough lfm to replace the moldy stuff you threw away ,place plant into smaller pot with non green stained lfm so you can prevent any other fungal rot issues in the future.

I have to disagree.

I let my plants pots dry to the point that they are so light when you pick them up that they feel as though nothing is even in the pots, they literally feel empty.

The result? Massive and explosive growth.

Ya for novice growers you can advise that , but for a newcomer like him I wouldn't let it dry that much because it's easy to forget about your plant.

And why would that result in an explosion of growth? Because of allowing the roots to breath and get oxygen? Hmm didn't I mention that about how I water and you said it was lame and a waste of time?

No

By allowing the media to dry to an extreme level it forces the plant to grow its roots as deep as it possibly can to find water which in turn makes the roots bigger, longer and more efficient. With all plants the bigger and stronger its roots are the healthier and stronger the overall plant is.

It takes experience to be able to allow the pots to get as dry as I do but its not really that hard once you experience it a few times.

Im very excited for the spring repotting, I can only imagine how big and long the roots are.

They can be surprisingly drought tolerant and I have forgotten to water mine quite a few times, but with a sick plant it will probably do more harm than good.

That being said I do think at least the surface should get a bit dry before watering again, that way you know you aren't watering too frequently. From the original post though it looks like it's sitting in a plastic container of water and paired with low quality sphagnum that will lead to overly wet soil full of algae/slime molds like pictured. I would argue that going too long in between waterings is not the issue here because of that container under it, plus dried out VFTs to have leaves that are shriveled but still green, almost looking like freeze dried green leaves.

This one is just kept too wet in bad soil and suffered some sunburn.

I would repot it into a bigger/taller pot, fresh NZ sphag, full sun, and no water tray underneath.

Ya I thought maybe the seaweed ontop was drying out then when it gets watered again he pours too much water thus the algae forms. It could still dry with the green stain it's just much harder to see without moisture, but I would suspect that rhizome on the verge of turning all brown. He may be able to recycle some of the lfm a few inches down it's hard to say.