FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello everyone!

I am looking for some help with one if my Drosera’s. My Venusta was doing so well until about 1 month ago, it started to tank. I am not sure what may have caused this, as there were no major changes to environment. The ONLY thing I can thing of is the cooler winter in Houston, therefore having the occasional heater on.

This guy is under a yescom 225 light on a small grow rack indoors. Ambient room
Humidity and temperature with tray watering distilled water. After getting the plant it took an adjustment period but it then seemed to thrive.
About a month ago I noticed the tentacles starting to curl inward as if it caught something, but nothing was on the leaf. Then slowly the dew started to stop producing. Now the plant seems to be producing new growth but none have tentacles forming. Any thoughts on this one?

Could it just be dormancy ?
Mine look similar.

Supercazzola wrote:Could it just be dormancy ?
Mine look similar.

Howdy! You know, it could be perhaps! This being my first year growing indoors with this setup, I guess I assumed that would not be the case since I am not providing any changes in photoperiod. Would it still go into dormancy regardless? Stubborn Sundew!


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I’m just not experienced enough to answer that definitively. I don’t know enough about your lights and how their spectrum is and how bright in PPFD they are. That being said, I wonder if a plant enters dormancy based on number of hours or number hours of certain intensity of photons hitting its leaves.

If your lights were not so intense, could 12 hours of them be the same thing as 6 hours of outdoor sun? I am not so certain.

Drosera venusta normally doesn't go dormant; it grows under the same conditions as D. capensis.

Has your sundew bloomed recently? I'm asking because I spotted this on the Grow Sundews web site:

I have noticed that my Drosera venusta "Coccicaulis" weakens considerably after flowering, sometimes curling horizontally to the soil. I end up cutting it down to the roots, and taking a stem cutting, producing many more sundews when the roots shoot up new plants.

http://www.growsundews.com/sundews/venusta.html

Some tropical and subtropical Drosera go dormant-ish with cooler temps and shorter daylight photoperiods. Capensis, aliciae, regia, spatulata get sulky on me every winter.

Maybe it's the amount of light? It's either too much or not enough, it could also be humidity. All my sundews are in a large plastic box with a lid. They grow under a 20w Aceple Grow light.

MikeB wrote:Drosera venusta normally doesn't go dormant; it grows under the same conditions as D. capensis.

Has your sundew bloomed recently? I'm asking because I spotted this on the Grow Sundews web site:

I have noticed that my Drosera venusta "Coccicaulis" weakens considerably after flowering, sometimes curling horizontally to the soil. I end up cutting it down to the roots, and taking a stem cutting, producing many more sundews when the roots shoot up new plants.

http://www.growsundews.com/sundews/venusta.html

It has not. It started to grow a flower stalk a few months ago but I snipped it off. I did JUST find a baby stalk forming and cut it off about 10 minutes ago.

Regarding light. It could be the case, but I am hard-pressed to think so. Everything else under the lights is growing wonderfully. I did take a TDS measurement in the tray water and it is around 40-46 PPM.


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A few of mine have done this recently. Bag it for a week or so. It should perk up.

StaatS+17+ wrote:A few of mine have done this recently. Bag it for a week or so. It should perk up.

Went ahead and bagged it up! Hoping it recovers well!


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