FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

The leaves are a sickly yellow and black, instead of green and glistening red.

Hi there! It looks like the crown of the plant is buried -- there is a central stem off which all those leaves you see are coming from, and it shouldn't be under the medium like that. Probably just got shifted around in shipping. I'd make sure to expose it so it doesn't start to decompose.

The sundew leaves often look a real mess after shipping, so they'll need some time to recover. Moderate light, and distilled water will help. But your most urgent issue is that some of the plant is buried.

Thanks.

I have brushed off some soil to expose the crown. The problem is that the plat has flowers (must have flowered before it arrived).

Should I cut all the existing leaves off as they are all dying, the green ones are black and dead where the tentacles were, or will this make it worse?

Hello again.

Just a quick update.

Upon further investigation, I dug out some of the media that was burying the crown and I noticed that the main woody stem had snapped in half with the blackened roots still in the soil.

My question is will the top half of the stem (that has the leaves and flower stalk attached) produce new roots because I planted the bottom half into another pot. I also read somewhere that you can propagate cape sundews by decapitation (not sure if that is true ). The flower stalk is still green and solid albeit the whithered flowers?

Many thanks. I hope to get 2 sundews for the price of 1 if my accidental experiment works.

I have heard about the decapitation propagation method too, I believe a member was experimenting with it with a few Capes. I'll try to find the post and send a link.
Capes will reproduce by many methods, so this should work. Heck, I bet if you even think about one hard enough it will reproduce.
Can't hurt to try, good luck.

post357962.html#p357962

Found the link quicker than I thought I would.

Heres a bit more information to clarify.

I think the stem had rotted (hence a few yellow leaves and blackened/whithered tentacles).
The breakage was actually approximately 3cm below ground level so it might be too late to save the original plant.

Anyway the plant arrived in a sorry state to begin with so is it still possible to save the plant?