FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I bought a VFT from Joel's Carnivorous Plants on Amazon on March 7. When my plant first arrived it looked healthy, all nice and green. Now that I have had it for about a week it is looking worse. It is getting black along the edges of the stems, a few of the smaller traps are black, and some parts are wilting. I am using only distilled water and I followed the planting directions closely. It has been getting direct morning and late afternoon sunlight everyday. The first photo is when I first got it, and the rest are photos of the black areas. Is there any thing I can do to help it?

Hey, there .

It is normal for leaves/traps to blacken and die off. Since you only recently got you flytrap it could be trying to acclimate to new conditions(sunlight, watering schedule, temperature, etc) in your area.

Do you keep water in the bowl at all times? It looks like you've got your plant in only LFSM. In my experience LFSM retains a lot of water. If you are keeping water in the bowl at all times the moss could very well be too wet.

If you cut back on the watering a bit your plant should adjust to its new conditions and grow well .

I have been keeping water in the bowl most of the time, but once it runs out I leave it for a day before I refill it. I know you are referring to the moss it is in but what exactly does LFSM stand for? Is there something better I should use?

taylerhill wrote:I know you are referring to the moss it is in but what exactly does LFSM stand for?

LFSM = Long fiber sphagnum moss

taylerhill wrote:Is there something better I should use?

Every grower has his or her preferred way of growing things. We used to use exclusively peat, sand and perlite, but now use LFSM for nearly all of our plants. It's really a matter of developing a technique that works for you. I agree with ironjaws that the moss might be a problem if you leave the plants sitting in water all the time. Best to keep the moss just moist and water only enough to moisten the moss, not leave the plants sitting in water unless you fear that it will dry out too quickly and you won't be able to water the plants before they become dehydrated.

Ah ok thank you! I will cut back on the watering then

taylerhill wrote:Ah ok thank you! I will cut back on the watering then

I would not recommend doing this. The moss loses water faster because the net pot has more of it exposed to air. It is also for this same reason that it CAN safely be grown wetter. If you look at your care sheet you will see the part that says to keep them in a pool of water is in bold print and underlined. I am Joel's Carnivorous Plants BTW. I've had way too many customers tell me their plant died only to find out they disregarded the care sheet instructions from someone's good intentioned advice online elsewhere. Basically, it comes down to this, the pot and the media you are using affects how the plants must be grown. With sphagnum moss and net pots, pools of water are a necessity not just a good idea or a rule of thumb or my misguided opinion. If you don't take my advice here Taylorhill you'll see the wisdom of it on the first warm day your plants have with no water in their dish as that is usually all it will take for them to die without a pool of water when using LFS moss + net pots.

I don't doubt that what Matt and Ironjaws are saying here generally holds true as long as the light and the heat are not too intense and standard deeper plastic pots are being used but with strong light through a window which is more intense than through a greenhouse or from artificial light AND the use of a shallower net pot and LFS moss this isn't the case. You also may want to be aware that the net pot you have is not my usual net pot. My normal net pot supplier was out and those are Poppelman net pots. The air pockets on them are even larger and that means even more evaporation takes place and thus not using a pool of water is even more risky than with my usual net pots. The blackening of the leaves will also be accelerated by drying even if the plants can survive being grown without a pool of water for a while. So expect a lot more shedding to happen in the near future if they are going without a pool of water every now and then until your first big warm day comes which can easily wipe them out if they don't have the pool of water.

Sorry if this sounds quarrelsome to anyone here but I am the one who has to deal with a customer reporting to me that their plant died through emails, go through a bunch of questions with them to figure out why their plants died, and pay for sending them a second rounds of plants, all of which consumes more time and money on my part with no additional profit. I also don't want any of my customers' plants to die even if they don't contact me about the matter. I'd like to think that people are enjoying what they bought from me rather than being disappointed with it, not knowing why they died, and possibly even blaming me for their death all because they didn't follow the care sheet instructions sometimes even on purpose. So I make it a priority to preempt this from happening whenever possible.