FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I've had a VFT for 1 and a half or 2 weeks now and every couple of days another trap or 2 will turn black so I have to cut it off. I'm in Southern California and the VFT lives outside getting somewhere between 4 and 6 hours of direct sunlight.

The plant has some long fiber Sphagnum moss gently wrapped around the rhizome and roots. The pot sits in 1/2 to a 3/4 inches of distilled water daily, I have to refill it once a day due to evaporation. I had read somewhere that said to let the LFSM almost dry out before giving it more water, that didn't help any so I'm sticking with the tray watering for now. The pot it's in is a square, ~2 inch plastic nursery-style pot. It is still a small plant so I don't think it's too large for the pot.

I have not used any fertilizer or tap water on this VFT. I'm not force feeding bugs to the plant so it's not over feeding.

I've read the Flytrap Care guide and numerous other pages with similar information and read up on VFTs turning black, I'm not doing anything on those lists that are causes of dying traps so I'm currently at an impasse.

Is this plant just still getting acclimated, too much water, pot too small, or something I've completely overlooked?

Hey Brims, fellow SoCal grower here. First, if possible pictures will greatly help myself, and the more experienced members, get a visual of your plants.

It's normal for some traps to die off throughout those first couple weeks as they adapt to their new environment. I don't know what part of SoCal you're located in but for me its been over 100 these past few days. That's going to take some getting used to for those little fellas. It's important to remember to acclimate them very slowly, especially in our more extreme conditions. I usually do around 1 hour the first day or two then increase it by an hour every 3 days after that. Try to let them soak up that early morning sun and shade them through the afternoon when the sun is the most intense. I have had luck leaving mine out all day throughout the week with those low 100 temps after slowly acclimating them and they seem to love it.

As far as your potting goes, in my experience, little pots are going to retain water a lot longer than larger pots and it's going to be easy to let them be overly soaked with tray watering. Like you said, the roots aren't going to be developed enough for the height to make a difference but tray watering, again with my little experience, is way easier using larger pots. It lets the lower medium soak while letting the right amount of moisture for the rhizome to rise in the pot due to capillary action. In those smaller pots you really want that top 1 inch of substrate to be slightly damp /dry before watering again. Personally, I use 10 inch tall pots and have been keeping a water tray under them with great results in this summer heat. (Here's the pots I use if interested: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005D ... UTF8&psc=1). Another issue I have with smaller pots is that they offer no insulation to keep the medium from constant temp fluctuations. This is amplified if the pot is black which can make it an oven.

Honestly though, as long as the new growth looks fine then I doubt you have anything to worry about.

With all that being said, I'm still relatively new myself so perhaps the more experienced members can offer more advice.
Look forward to seeing the pictures of your plants. Good luck and happy growing.

Killerwhale, I'm in the San Fernando Valley. Last week it got hot but didn't get much above 92 or so. Unfortunately I didn't think much about acclimating the plant until recently so after keeping it indoors for a few days it went outside full time. I was having some of the traps dying off while it was indoors too, some of the larger traps are turning black as are some of the smaller, new growth traps.

Fortunately the plant gets morning and early afternoon sun, the harsh, late afternoon sun is blocked by the house. This may have helped me with not acclimating them gently.

I will look into getting a bigger pot, the lack of insulation makes sense as does the LFSM getting too wet with so little of it in the pot.

The succulents and dew drop are the wife's.

It looks fine. It’s normal for older traps to die as new ones are put out.

Looks great to me, beautiful plant

salty wrote:It looks fine. It’s normal for older traps to die as new ones are put out.

I've had to cut off probably a dozen or more small traps along with a number of large, older traps. That's why I was so unsure as to what was going wrong. 2 days ago I had a large and a fairly small, newer trap that I had to cut off.

If that's just normal, then I will keep doing what I'm currently doing. I think I'll still upgrade the pot to something larger.

Thank both of you for your input.

Since I posted, my VFT has been doing very well. It would seem that the plant was still adjusting to the climate, I have had very few leaves turn black, 1 seems to have dried out oddly enough. I have lots and lots of new growth and I haven't even put it into a new pot. I found some pine bark fines so I can try out a bark fines/perlite/chick grit soil mix. The bark should be here by the end of the week so I'll be able to transplant the VFT and see it flourish even more.

If it's doing fine it might be worth waiting to repot till spring to prevent any set back.
Cheers
Steve