FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

So for the last few weeks I’ve been staying with a friend helping her through an emergency. I had my mom caring for my plants and I was trying to get home regularly to make sure they were good, but sometimes I wasn’t able to get here. When I was I couldn’t stay long, and now I’m noticing some things that worry me.

A lot of my indoor plants I have now have some floofy white stuff hanging around and I think it’s because my mom goes to sleep super early which threw off my lighting schedule and at least a few times I know she forgot the lights. I also think they were a bit too wet at times.

And I had my seedlings on the bar downstairs and they look like they had a lot of little white dots kinda like if you sprinkled them with baking soda or something was what I thought it looked closest to.

Upstairs look -

Downstairs look -
Plus bonus question what is this insect?

And what is the best way to fix whatever needs fixing? The indoor VFT is skipping dormancy this year to grow. Same with the seedlings. From what I understand about the Drosera (intermediate and folders) they don’t need dormancy.

If those Drosera filiformis and intermedia plants are from me, then they definitely need dormancy. When the temperature cools down enough, they'll drop their leaves and form hibernacula.

I don't see anything that concerns me. The filiformis is getting fuzzy for dormancy. The intermedia will just curl up into a ball. As far as the mold, I would just wipe it off.

Oh yeah speaking of the hibernacula I’m pretty sure that was already forming on a couple, but there was at least several days when I couldn’t get home and my mom apparently didn’t keep them in water. It’s either from that or the couple days that went to freezing I assume that screwed them up because they are now looking just dead. At least the outside ones are. The inside ones were a bit smaller so I wasn’t sure if I should keep them from dormancy this year to just let them get a bit bigger for next year. Here’s a picture of what I’m talking about with regards to thinking the hibernacula one died
I guess I’m lucky that the intermedia looks to be the only plants that got hit from this. The other outdoor ones look rough -
But the filiformis in the same pot look fine I think -
Obviously I figured I’d just wait until next spring and be sure that they don’t somehow come back, but unfortunately my guess would be that they won’t.

I didn’t realize they got fuzzy for winter. I’ll have to try and find some pictures of that thank you! And I didn’t realize I could just wipe it off. I thought I would have to fiddle with a spray or something. I wasn’t looking forward to that because I didn’t want to stress these plants right before dormancy. Thanks very much for the advice both of you

Last question is can I leave the smaller ones to grow under a light indoors til next year or should I move them outside?

And yes that makes perfect sense, Andy, thank you so much I am very hopeful that is the case. Drosera especially seem to generally be quite tenacious. At least so far.

Ooh that’s awesome! Gotta love the hitchhikers lol. That’s the only planter I actually have like that, but I do rather enjoy it. I think I’m gonna buy more when I can. I’d like to use them for some seeds maybe.

How different is Florida red from what I have out of curiosity? Honestly I wasn’t really a fan of filiformis before I got some (thanks to MikeB ) I thought the pictures looked kinda meh. I’m not sure why, but having them in person really turned me around on that opinion. I really love them now.