FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey all,

My drosera spatulata that I've been growing indoors under Yescom 225 lights has just been looking horrid for the past month. I honestly have no idea what's up with it at this point. No dew at all for the past month, and the bottom leaves are starting to die off.

I moved it outside in late Feburary, and it still just looks like this. There's a little bit of new growth, but other than that, the older bottom leaves are just dying off slowly. Rest of the plant just looks really beat up for some reason.

It's in the 60s-70s here in 7b Georgia, and no frosts or super cold nights. Humidity in the 40's. Gets plenty of sunlight every day on my south facing patio. Watered only with rain and distilled water.

My Cape Sundew and Binata are doing great outside in the same conditions, growing like crazy again after getting acclimated.

Should I just move it back indoors under growlights? It's not dead, is it?

In my experience, whenever I move my dews inside, they get really bad. The AC doesn't help either. Now that spring is here, it'll hopefully bounce back. You can also cut the flower stalk if you want , so the plant focuses on growth instead.

chomato wrote:In my experience, whenever I move my dews inside, they get really bad. The AC doesn't help either. Now that spring is here, it'll hopefully bounce back. You can also cut the flower stalk if you want , so the plant focuses on growth instead.

Yeah, the flower stalk is so weird, it grew like MONTHS ago and it still hasn't turned into seeds or anything. I guess I'll just cut it off now and call it a day and let it try and focus on growing again.

If a Sundew starts to decline and I can't find any pests then I look for another explanation, like temperature or lighting or photoperiod change or animals peeing on the pot.
If I can't find an explanation, I'll repot it and smell the old medium.
Does it smell sour or very bad?
It could be that the old peat has broken down.
After repotting, I bag or dome it for 2 to 4 weeks until I see fresh growth and the reappearance of dew. I leave the plant under very strong lighting conditions, probably within 6 inches of a Yescom 225.
As always, this is just my 02¢ worth.
YMMV

Shadowtski wrote:If a Sundew starts to decline and I can't find any pests then I look for another explanation, like temperature or lighting or photoperiod change or animals peeing on the pot.
If I can't find an explanation, I'll repot it and smell the old medium.
Does it smell sour or very bad?
It could be that the old peat has broken down.
After repotting, I bag or dome it for 2 to 4 weeks until I see fresh growth and the reappearance of dew. I leave the plant under very strong lighting conditions, probably within 6 inches of a Yescom 225.
As always, this is just my 02¢ worth.
YMMV

No pests that I can see. I had it indoors under my growlights all of winter, and that's when it first started to decline. It put out a flower, then after that it's just been really poopy, it grew some leaves with dew after a while, but then it stopped having dew.

I might try repotting it. This won't stress it out even more, will it? The original peat moss that came with it when I got it from the grower is definitely starting to look kind of weird, it's covered with moss of some sort and looks a bit mushy compared to other peat moss I have.

Decided to dig up the sundew and repot it in the end. Holy crap, I didn't realize just how bad the soil conditions where. I noticed a LOT of moss and its roots growing throughout the pot, and noticed just how crowded the 2 inch pot had turned into.

The roots for the spatulata were basically CRAMMED into the pot and had nowhere to go at this point. I also noticed a lot of weird, rootlike webbing "grabbing" the roots of the sundew that I had to peel off as well.

I repotted it into a 4.5 inch pot with a 50/50 mix of peat moss and perlite, nice and fresh.

Good news, looks like repotting it worked! The nubs at the center of the plant "woke up" and are starting to turn into proper leaves again. Super happy, thanks for the help!

I honestly can't believe how quickly this dang thing recovered the second I repotted it and moved it back indoors. Barely 2 days later and it looks like a completely different plant and is growing a flower lmao.

My spatulata got moldy, and I reppoted it. Now it's growing crazy.

Degraded soil can have shocking effects on carnivorous plants. Flytraps in old soil can behave a lot like this sundew (speaking from experience).

Hm, this is kind of weird, my spatulata had seemingly completely recovered and had tons of dew on its leaves, and had those bright, vibrant green leaves after repotting. It rained a little bit last night, and now the plant looks a bit....olive colored, instead of vibrant green. Is it just turning red due to all the sunlight its getting, or is there something weird going on with it?

Also the flower stalk it was growing, did the flower dry up or something? The flower bit at the tip looks kind of dry instead of the fleshy vibrant looking thing it grew last time.

I think spatulatas are supposed to turn red with bright light. Just look at how red mine got under my lights. So I'm pretty sure yours is turning redder because of the sunlight. If it keeps growing and staying healthy, I wouldn't be too concerned.

TrapsAndDews wrote: ↑Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:09 am I think spatulatas are supposed to turn red with bright light. Just look at how red mine got under my lights. So I'm pretty sure yours is turning redder because of the sunlight. If it keeps growing and staying healthy, I wouldn't be too concerned.

Sounds good, thanks man!

I just have no idea what's going on with the flower. I haven't had one bloom successfully before for some reason, and is it supposed to look kind of dried up on the flower nubs part before it grows out?

I'm honestly so confused with the progress of my sundew.

After I repotted it, it recovered quickly and was immediately growing nice, healthy, big sticky dew traps again:



However, a few weeks later, it's decided to just dry up again! It was outside for a while and then just immediately declined. I've moved it back inside under my growlights as a result.

Do I need to do anything? I picked through the leaves and didn't see any signs of pests. I keep it sitting in a tray of distilled water that only gets refilled when its completely empty. Does it just need to acclimate to the indoors again? Did it just get heat and sun stressed while outside? I didn't acclimate it very well.



It did grow a new growth point on the side, and the leaves there still seem to have dew on them: