FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey all,

I was just wondering, how often should I refresh the medium on my VFTs? Does it have an impact on how fast the VFTs will grow, in your experience?

I have them mostly potted in a 50/50 mix of peat moss and perlite that's about 1-2 years old at this point. I squished the sides of my pots and the medium "feels" like its squished up inside.

I feel like in comparison to other people's growths, mine haven't really been growing all that quickly. I always see people with Wal-Mart deathcube VFTs that after one year are enormous, meanwhile mine are growing decently and are healthy, but aren't nearly as big, and was wondering if that's because my medium is too dense at this point.

Mine are grown outside on a south facing deck in Georgia, so they definitely get plenty of sun and eat tons of bugs on their own. Currently all in dormancy outside.

With a peat moss & perlite mix, I have to change my flytraps' soil every 2 years. After that, the soil goes "sour", and the plants' growth slows way down.

Panman wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 8:07 pm IMO, if you want to see fast growth, go with 100% straight sphagnum. I find my flytraps and sarrs really boom with growth in that. The downside is that it is a bear to clean the moss off of the roots for repotting.

Yeah I think you're onto something with that. I know I watched a youtuber who was experimenting as well and also had the same results with LFSM, where it definitely was growing faster.

I bought a B52 online and it came extremely tiny, barely the size of my pinky, and I potted it in pure LFSM and in just one year it grew to double its size easy, even though I got it super late in the growing season.

How often do you find yourself replacing LFSM? Is it supposed to be a yearly thing, or do you really just replace it when the LFSM starts to look all mushy and messed up?

MikeB wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 4:13 am With a peat moss & perlite mix, I have to change my flytraps' soil every 2 years. After that, the soil goes "sour", and the plants' growth slows way down.

Ahhh, that makes sense. I also wonder if I messed up my mix, in the past I felt like I had too much perlite in my mix and went more towards like 70/30 sort of. I went with a pure 50/50 on my repotted Judith Hindle, and it's wayyyyy lighter feeling even when fully hydrated compared to the other mixes. Is going more airy on the mix better?

I generally concur with the advice here.

In my 6th season growing on a south-facing deck in the woods of Georgia, I have a near-perfect combo of SUN and BUGS to support a geometric increase in my number of plants. I use pure, expensive LFSM from that island country off the coast of that other island country in the southern hemisphere (the brand "Besgrow").

For the first few years, I would repot EVERY YEAR in about mid-February. Each rosette would yield about ten (10) new plants, as I would carefully separate each viable growth center (NB: some would be TINY).

This became too labor-intensive and expensive, so now I repot half each year (ie: a two year cycle per planter) and I notice that the newly repotted ones do better that season. However, I'm not so sure it's because of the fresh LFSM, rather than just from the decompression of the medium and the separation of the crowded daughter plants.

The 2-year-old LFSM turns to porridge, so 2 years seems to be the feasible limit to its lifecycle.

Nikson wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 2:37 am Is going more airy on the mix better?

Peat moss provides water retention, and perlite provides aeration. Based on my past growing setups, I can definitely say that Sarracenia grow bigger, healthier root systems in pots with drainage. Oxygen flow through the soil makes a huge difference.

The guys at Sarracenia Northwest tested the effects of drainage with different amounts of perlite in the soil mix. Check out the video:

ApgarTraps wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 7:29 pm I generally concur with the advice here.

In my 6th season growing on a south-facing deck in the woods of Georgia, I have a near-perfect combo of SUN and BUGS to support a geometric increase in my number of plants. I use pure, expensive LFSM from that island country off the coast of that other island country in the southern hemisphere (the brand "Besgrow").

For the first few years, I would repot EVERY YEAR in about mid-February. Each rosette would yield about ten (10) new plants, as I would carefully separate each viable growth center (NB: some would be TINY).

This became too labor-intensive and expensive, so now I repot half each year (ie: a two year cycle per planter) and I notice that the newly repotted ones do better that season. However, I'm not so sure it's because of the fresh LFSM, rather than just from the decompression of the medium and the separation of the crowded daughter plants.

The 2-year-old LFSM turns to porridge, so 2 years seems to be the feasible limit to its lifecycle.

Eyyy, another person from Georgia here! That's awesome, thanks for the advice about your experience with LFSM. I guess I need to start investing in some high quality LFSM at some point then!

MikeB wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2023 1:51 am

Nikson wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 2:37 am Is going more airy on the mix better?

Peat moss provides water retention, and perlite provides aeration. Based on my past growing setups, I can definitely say that Sarracenia grow bigger, healthier root systems in pots with drainage. Oxygen flow though the soil makes a huge difference.

The guys at Sarracenia Northwest tested the effects of drainage with different amounts of perlite in the soil mix. Check out the video:

That's an incredible video, thanks for providing it. I honestly think I stunted the growth of one of my sarracenia when I didn't repot it last year. Disappointing growth when it didn't really get any bigger than when it originally came in the mail. I've since repotted it into a 50/50 mix of peat moss and perlite in a much taller pot, so I hope this spring and summer it goes nuts.

Also here's some pics of my VFTs, just repotted most of them. Was super surprised to see how big the rhizomes got! I remember when I got them at Lowes they literally looked like they were on death's door, so I'm so pleased to see how massive their rhizomes are getting, and in some cases, dividing into more plants!