FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I purchased a Cape Sundew about 2 months ago, and until recently left it to grow outdoors. It was doing quite well (ie dew on tentacles, new growth, catching insects, new growth ) until Sept 29th. We had a rainstorm and it was moderately windy. Just for the record, just a few hours before the storm the plant was perfectly fine... Anyway, the next day all the leaves were gone, all that was left were 2 stumps. Some of the leaves were floating in the tray, and 1 or 2 fell onto the ground. I recovered what leaves I could and they are currently floating in distilled water in a small plastic covered container. I have this container and the original pot with the stumps under Red/Blue LED growlights. The room that it's in hovers around 70 degrees and the humidity ranges from 40-55 %. The leaves in the water still look okay (no sign of decay) and the stumps are still stumps.
As I understand it, the leaves might be able to grow back from the roots. How long do you think this will take ? Also, what do you think happened during the rainstorm ? Are the leaves so fragile that a strong wind could blow off the leaves, or was it something else ? thanks !

as long as it was healthy it should recover from roots within a month, I would try to get new plants from the leaves as well.

this is how i do leaf cuttings

I sure hope so. Everyday I'm looking for signs of life but so far nada.
I'll try to post a pic later so you can see what condition my plant is in.
thanks for your quick reply

Capes are very hardy and should come back from the roots no problem, just takes a little time and it's hard to put any sort of number on it.

Worst case scenario there are probably people here with extra capensis who would be willing to help you out.

When i do leaf cuttings it takes around 30days too see good formed leaves, 95% of that growth i can see is in the last 5 days.

so far it's been slightly over 2 weeks since the incident so it's probably still too early to see any new growth anywhere.
BTW, do you guys keep your sundews in 1 inch of water all the time or do you let the tray dry out first before adding more water ? Sometimes when I here about root rot in Sundews, I wonder how this happens. Can the potting medium be so saturated with water that the roots can rot ? During the time that I left my sundew outside the highest the water level ever got was up to about 1/2 the height of the pot. (this was after a rainstorm) and the sundew didn't look any worse for it.

My dews are pretty much always in water unless I’m away for an extended period of time. Many species are fine with being almost, if not entirely, flooded

I am a big fan of water treys just because i am lazy. but as long as the media stays damp you are good.

keep in mind minerals don't evaporate dump your treys regularly.

here's my current situation. Sorry for the duplicate pic

The root stump from a slightly different angle

those could grow
right below the stump it looks like you got a utricularia

are you referring to those slim green leaves poking out of the soil ?