FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Here's some pics of a ceph I got in mid May that didn't arrive in the best condition but is now making a recovery. I got it from a reputable seller but I guess it may have been too hot outside for shipping.

I've had a lot of cps in the past but this was my first ceph so I didn't really know what to expect, although my goto approach is usually just leave them alone and let them do their own thing.

It arrived in May with a mature pitcher but it slowly withered away, probably due to shock from the change in environment. Here's how it looked like in June, you can see the pitcher kind of looking sad already. The crown didn't look too good, it was basically all brown and no growth happened at all between May and June: But then in July I saw some new growth peeking out through the sand: By the end of July it was looking pretty good: And now at the end of August/Early September the pitchers have opened up and started to get some color At this point even the original brown growth point seems to be sprouting again too. I guess it's good that it was a "dry brown" and not a "wet rotting brown" which would have been a more deadlier issue.

Nice! Did you get that from Rainbow Carnivorous Plants? I recently ordered a Hummer's Giant from them and it looked a lot like the plant in your photo upon arrival. It wasn't hardened well at all, so I had to keep it inside under lights for the first couple of weeks to avoid it from shedding the two flimsy pitchers it had.

I think I've had it about a month now and it is starting to shed the smaller of the two pitchers and still isn't putting out new growth yet. But the larger pitcher looks good and the pitcher that was inflating when it was delivered still is healthy, though not growing yet either.

Hoping it will start growing soon, but I've got it in the greenhouse through this heatwave (100F or so every day for the forseeable future) so it might stall the new growth a bit longer. But it will be hardier in the end!!

It was actually from Cook's. Other than the growth point the plant arrived in pretty robust condition, and while repotting I noticed the roots were large and healthy.

I did also get cephs from rainbowcarnivorousplants later on. Two were fine but a third I made a bit of a mistake and it wasn't looking too hot. It was my fault since I placed to too close to a fan for one night after unboxing. It didn't dry out or anything, but the moving air caused all the leaves to basically become mushy and wilted. Although the leaves more or less came a bit "soft" already instead of stiff and waxy like a more mature specimen.

In comparison, these cephs were a bit smaller than Cook's plant, and I was afraid to disturb them with a repotting, so I let them be in what they came in.

Here's the pic of it. All the brown leaves were alive originally but have died since that wilting. However, I do see new dark green growth from the center so I think it will pull through. The other two I got look fine, although only the larger one seems to be putting out new mature pitchers. The smaller one has just sat and done nothing for a month. Unfortunately I recently noticed the larger one has a red mite infestation along with some of my vfts. I've ordered some pesticide and also Bayer 3 in 1, which should arrive maybe next week.

I had two potted CPs from the same seller that didn't travel well, a combination of poor handling in shipping and heat. Sundew was completely demolished with dirt everywhere, and the VFT looked like it melted lol. I reached out to let him know of the shipping issues, but never heard back... glad yours is recovering nicely though! Very promising

Z_Y wrote:It was actually from Cook's. Other than the growth point the plant arrived in pretty robust condition, and while repotting I noticed the roots were large and healthy.

Oh, that's good news! The plant I got from Rainbow Carnivorous Plants didn't have much in the way of roots at all.

Z_Y wrote:All the brown leaves were alive originally but have died since that wilting. However, I do see new dark green growth from the center so I think it will pull through.

Yeah, the new growth shows that it should be good to go!

Z_Y wrote:The smaller one has just sat and done nothing for a month.

That's about how long I've had mine now (a month) and it hasn't done much. But then again I put it outside in the 100F heat so I didn't expect it to love that kind of heat!!

My hummer's giants took quite a while to settle in before they showed any progress. Once it finally "woke up" I saw about 10 new growth points and all the sudden my single pitcher was surrounded by a host of juveniles. It recently put out a couple adult pitchers as well. I was pretty nervous about them but they're doing ok now. I tried to minimize disturbance by upsizing them in their original media recently because I wanted taller pots and a sand top layer. I turned the original media into a "hill" lol. I may have set it back back anyway, though I believe I saw some new growth and a pitcher opened. Interesting plants. I'm hoping they'll eventually be something to look at.

Yes, Hummer's is very vigorous. This isn't my first go-around with the clone and the last one I had filled a very large pot before I killed it by top watering it before leaving for a vacation

Apollyon wrote:Interesting plants. I'm hoping they'll eventually be something to look at.

Oh, they will. Looks like they've settled in and are growing now. That means they'll get to be something to look at eventually with good care

Matt wrote:Yes, Hummer's is very vigorous. This isn't my first go-around with the clone and the last one I had filled a very large pot before I killed it by top watering it before leaving for a vacation

Oh man that's sad, I'm sorry. Vacations are sketchy like that. What I did with mine was I put them in a 1020 tray with a humidity dome and filled the tray about 1/8th up the pot. It didn't even notice me being gone. It's been pretty safe so far (been about 5 months now since I've had it trayed). Something to consider if you find yourself in a tough spot like that again.

I'm still working out the nuances with cephalotus. Recently it's been higher humidity, that's where it showed the most response. After it went above the relative 60, it started growing almost immediately, so I've kept it in those conditions. I feel it is stagnating now. Though I have more open pitchers to work with so I'm feeding it bloodworms. I actually burned out the growth point with maxsea a while back, though surprisingly it grew out in multiple places in response and the original growth point recovered. It'll be a beast lol. These days it's just bloodworms and *maybe* the lightest spritz of Maxsea occasionally. I'd love to have a large pot like you're talking about. It'll be a while

Apollyon wrote:Oh man that's sad, I'm sorry. Vacations are sketchy like that. What I did with mine was I put them in a 1020 tray with a humidity dome and filled the tray about 1/8th up the pot. It didn't even notice me being gone. It's been pretty safe so far (been about 5 months now since I've had it trayed). Something to consider if you find yourself in a tough spot like that again.

Yeah, definitely. Thanks for the information! I have noticed that if Cephs are stressed, they either need their pitchers full of water or need very, very high humidity. The pot I had mine in was a 12-inch pot, I think, so I don't know if I could find a humidity dome for it at that size but I could probably figure out something to boost humidity!

Apollyon wrote:I'm still working out the nuances with cephalotus. Recently it's been higher humidity, that's where it showed the most response.

Absolutely agree. But just recently noticed that if you top off their pitchers with nutrient-enriched water (I use high-nitrogen, pH adjusted water), they respond very similarly. And I'm hoping that the stress makes them eager to grow their roots faster which will enable faster and more robust growth above ground.

Apollyon wrote:After it went above the relative 60, it started growing almost immediately, so I've kept it in those conditions.

Unfortunately, our growing conditions here in southern Oregon rarely have relative humidity that high during the growing season. We're lucking to be above 30% RH in the summer here and lately, the temps have been up near or over 100F every day. So I typically fill up the Ceph pitchers a couple of times a day to keep them happy when it's that hot and dry. I am hoping that they are using that water and the nutrients to put down better roots and be able to deal with the heat and low humidity better. It seemed to work years ago when I had my first Hummer's Giant! Also, I know the challenges of growing indoors and don't want to tackle that, so outside will have to do. The good news is that our Cephalotus are very hardy!

Apollyon wrote:Though I have more open pitchers to work with so I'm feeding it bloodworms. I actually burned out the growth point with maxsea a while back, though surprisingly it grew out in multiple places in response and the original growth point recovered. It'll be a beast lol.

Interesting! I've not burned out a growth point yet (or didn't recognize it!) and I've been feeding both of my adult Cephs a lot and using bloodworms in addition to the high-nitrogen, pH balanced water. One has shed a couple of smaller pitchers but they had started wilting before I began the feeding regimen. Maybe I should back off? In the past, I never fed my Cephs much other than an Osmocote pellet or two here and there. I've always been pretty cautious about fertilizing or feeding most of my carnivorous plants.

Apollyon wrote:I'd love to have a large pot like you're talking about. It'll be a while

From what I remember, Cephalotus is very slow to start but once they get established, they grow very quickly! They spend a lot of their time working underground and then will all of a sudden burst into growth. So it might be sooner than you think!

@Matt, I'm genuinely curious about the pH balanced water you're using. I think that it would be beneficial. How are you going about that if you don't mind me asking? You said you're adding nitrogen in the form of something as well? I would experiment with the juvenile pitchers since they're becoming obsolete lol. It's interesting, they're throwing out both. Juveniles after adults even; it doesn't know what it wants lol. I do keep changing it's environment though so I can see why it's acting out some. I have a tendency to take of the lid for too long.

I don't know how it relates to cephalotus, though I can say that where root development is concerned, phosphorus is the key component to root development. I don't know if there are orchid fertilizers higher in phosphorus than maxsea because those kinds of things are more applicable to trees/shrubs/crops. I've been interested in experimenting with different things. I have two HGs, once I see divisions I'm probably going to go mad scientist.

That relative humidity is indoors lolol, outside in the summer it's 80+. it's great for the lowland Neps I threw out to brave the elements last week Florida weather sucks though the CP hobby and bonsai changed my perspective on that. Unfortunately, the drop off is 91/79 so I think it'd put a cephalotus down. Another thing to experiment with when I have something to spare. It may survive partial sun though?

I do look forward to seeing this thing develop. Cephs are probably top 3 favorite CPs of mine. I was ridiculously excited when I saw visible growth lol. More than any other plant.

One last question, off topic. I have this alien that I'm more convinced is a seed grown typical. It's grown horribly this season compared to my other TC clones. However, when I repotted it, I had next to no experience with VFT potting and I had it in a peat based mix; not a fan. The original growth point died off over time and the division it made is lopsided. Ideally, I'd like to repot it in LFS asap and get it corrected because I think it isn't getting a lot of light how it is. I'm wondering if it is too late to do it before they get into the swing of dormancy or should I just wait? The plant will survive as it is I'm sure, it has since spring. But this thing went from the size of a quarter to about the size of a silver dollar lol. The rest of them are getting much larger. Idk if that's a media thing or how this plant has tried to acclimate itself

Apollyon wrote:@Matt, I'm genuinely curious about the pH balanced water you're using. I think that it would be beneficial. How are you going about that if you don't mind me asking? You said you're adding nitrogen in the form of something as well?

Yeah, I'm using a liquid fertilizer that is high in nitrogen. I don't think it matters much which one you use, but I like Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro:
https://dyna-gro.com/product/foliage-pro/

I have been mixing 2 teaspoons of Foliage Pro with 1 gallon of water and adding enough pH down to get the pH around 5.0. I sometimes also add a bit of the Dyna-Gro Pro-Tekt if I want to help with root growth (newly repotted plants):
https://dyna-gro.com/product/pro-tekt-0-0-3/

I decided to experiment with this after Mike Wang pointed out a thread on his Sarracenia forum here:
https://sarracenia.proboards.com/thread ... a-maxroids

And then I searched for what the typical pH of Sarracenia pitchers is and found here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 2015000909

Koopman and Carstens [30] reported a similarity between human gut flora and that of Sarracenia pitchers, which had an acidity similar to our samples (pH 5–7 [2]), based on the presence of four abundant shared bacterial phyla (Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteria).

I believe that the lower the pH, the easier it is for nutrient uptake to occur, but you don't want to go too low and burn the plant tissue. So far, a pH around 5 seems to work great for both Sarracenia and Cephalotus.

I had only planned to use it on my Sarracenia but figured, what the heck! Let's try it on the Cephalotus too. I figured that the worst that could happen is that I'd burn up a pitcher or two, as I was pretty sure the plant would sacrifice pitchers before letting itself get burned at the ground level.

Apollyon wrote:I don't know how it relates to cephalotus, though I can say that where root development is concerned, phosphorus is the key component to root development.

Ah, I didn't know that! Good to know. For some reason, I always thought it was the potassium that was most important for root growth but a quick search confirms you are correct. From here:
https://agfuse.com/article/top-4-ways-t ... oot-growth

Phosphorus helps establish healthy root systems at the beginning of growth. And promotes root growth, flowering, and fruit set.

It looks like potassium does promote root growth as well:

Potassium can thicken plants' cell walls. It will increase plants' tolerance to stress and promote root growth.

The good news is that the Foliage-Pro does have P in it as well and by adding the Pro-Tekt, it increases the K of the mix when I'm trying to get plants to get more established root systems.

Apollyon wrote:I've been interested in experimenting with different things. I have two HGs, once I see divisions I'm probably going to go mad scientist.

Haha, awesome! Please post back here with your experiment results, as I'd love to learn more about helping Cephs grow a little more quickly through supplements. They tend to grow very slowly!

Apollyon wrote:I'm wondering if it is too late to do it before they get into the swing of dormancy or should I just wait?

I always repot whenever I have the time or whenever I see a plant in need of a repot. I don't wait until any particular time of the year because, by then, it might have done more damage. Flytraps don't really do well when repotted this time of the year, but they don't die either and if they are in bad soil, it can actually save them. I have repotted many flytraps this time of the year and it works fine, though they typically won't look too good through the winter. However, they usually come out in spring with great growth.

@Matt, Well your experiment has certainly inspired me. Do you top off the pitchers with that fertilizer daily or are you doing something like once a week since it is fertilizer? I actually have dyna-gro. It's because I work with bonsai so CP was an easy transition. I have actually experimented some with these guys based off what I picked up through my other hobby. It's where I picked up my compulsive need to fertilize and jump these plants lol. For the most part it has worked out pretty well. I've been curious about using Osmocote. I have used it some with Drosera Regia and I'll throw them on my Sarras in the spring next season. I've heard people claim it'll kill them but it sounds more like a game of concentration. Can't fertilize them like a tree or philodendron with tsps of fertilizer but I believe a few pellets in a 4+ inch pot would probably work out well. I have these bainskloof seedlings, I think I'll drop a pellet in a couple of the 2.5inch and separate them just in case. I've seen videos where people claim their Regia runoff water actually helped spike growth in their other drosera as well so it has me leaning more towards dilution.

I can see pH being a factor too. I feel the closer the water is to creating conditions comparable to its native habitat will probably influence growth quite a bit. Doesn't seem too different than different media choices and conditions for Nepenthes pitchering or my little cephalotus. Closer it is to its ideal conditions, the larger and more vibrant the plant will become. Maybe the 5 pH interacts with the soil mix you use to create a more ideal environment. Are you talking about the hydroponics pH down? Sorry for all the questions; I intend to duplicate this experiment you're doing. I'll be able to gain some insight on indoor growing as well, since you're doing outdoors.

Yeah, the NPK ratios are weird. Dynagro is probably good for what you're doing because they tend to run a lower concentration. Mine is 7-9-5. a balanced 20 may be too much lol, though I don't know. I picked up what I know from working with the trees lol. People are focused on nitrogen because they know it's essential for plant growth but I see when it comes to CPs, the other elements take a backseat. I think if your ceph can tolerate it and grows an elaborate root system, it'll be a monster lol. HG 2.0 Sounds awesome. I have to try it.

Thanks for the advice with the VFT. It doesn't look that great as it is lol. I think its actually having its growth inhibited. That or it is a very close looking seed grown. It has started growing some though, I'll keep an eye on it for the next couple of weeks. I put it in a spot now that gets a few more hours of direct sunlight. If it doesn't seem to be responsive, I'll just repot it.

Apollyon wrote:@Matt, Well your experiment has certainly inspired me. Do you top off the pitchers with that fertilizer daily or are you doing something like once a week since it is fertilizer?

Well, I started with just filling the pitchers with water and noticed it would keep them from wilting as the plant was acclimating to my very dry conditions here in Oregon. I'd check on the little suffering dude like 5 times a day and keep the pitchers topped off with water. It seemed to keep the plant happy. That was during the time I had it indoors under lights to ease the adjustment period. Occasionally, when it would continue to wilt I'd have to dome it but keeping the pitchers topped off seemed to keep it happy. Then I realized that instead of water, I should probably adjust the pH to keep it at whatever level the pitchers prefer. Then I decided if I were going to do that, I might as well try feeding it too! This was about a month ago now that I made that decision and I've been fertilizing it every day, keeping the pitchers topped off 3 times a day since then. It seems to be doing fine so far, but it does appear that it will lose both of the adult pitchers it has right now. That likely would have happened without the fertilizing just due to the stress. But it does have some new growth coming out as well. It has mostly stalled, but there have been a couple of new leaves that formed that are thicker and darker green that the existing ones that it has been shedding.

Apollyon wrote:I've seen videos where people claim their Regia runoff water actually helped spike growth in their other drosera as well so it has me leaning more towards dilution.

That's very interesting. Yes, I think all CPs, in general, will respond well to fertilizers if done at the right concentration. Sarracenia sure do like to be fertilized both through the roots and fed in the pitchers.

Apollyon wrote:Are you talking about the hydroponics pH down?

Yes. Though I bought mine years ago in powder form and can't seem to find it now to post a link.

Apollyon wrote:Sorry for all the questions; I intend to duplicate this experiment you're doing. I'll be able to gain some insight on indoor growing as well, since you're doing outdoors.

Happy to answer the questions! And thanks for duplicating the experiment. Please post your results here or in another thread, as I'm very interested to hear how things work out for you.

Apollyon wrote:I think if your ceph can tolerate it and grows an elaborate root system, it'll be a monster lol. HG 2.0 Sounds awesome. I have to try it.

That's the plan!!

Apollyon wrote:Thanks for the advice with the VFT. It doesn't look that great as it is lol. I think its actually having its growth inhibited. That or it is a very close looking seed grown. It has started growing some though, I'll keep an eye on it for the next couple of weeks. I put it in a spot now that gets a few more hours of direct sunlight. If it doesn't seem to be responsive, I'll just repot it.

You're very welcome and that sounds like a good plan!