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I was in the North Carolina mountains last weekend and had to hit the Lowe's store in Boone. While I was there, I decided to cruise through the indoor garden section to check out the Christmas "abominations": dyed poinsettias, succulents goobered in paint and drizzled with glitter, tiny presents hot-glued on cacti. I spotted some Venus flytraps in surprisingly good condition (must have been a fresh shipment) and bought one that showed promise: Notice the unusual "soil". It had the consistency of wet, inch-long (25mm) fiberglass. When I unpotted the plant, I found that the top 2/3 was this stuff, the bottom 1/3 was peat moss, and the plant was in a peat plug wrapped in fabric. I'm still not sure what this stuff is. It smells very faintly of cedar. Could it be shredded branches?

I bare-rooted the plant and put it in a taller pot with some real soil: I took a page from ChefDean's playbook: I masked the bottom 1.5 inches (38mm) of the pot and painted the rest white. Now these pots stay much cooler in the summer, and none of the painted part rests in water.

My guess is its either a Coconut fiber product, or pine bark/fir bark.

If you open it the rhizome is wrapped in a plug.

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It's coir from the looks of things.

Cross wrote: ↑Sat Dec 18, 2021 9:03 pm If you open it the rhizome is wrapped in a plug.

I said that: "the plant was in a peat plug wrapped in fabric". I understand why some plant nurseries do this, but as the buyer, I hate that kind of packaging.

DragonsEye wrote: ↑Sat Dec 18, 2021 9:11 pm It's coir from the looks of things.

I thought about that possibility, but then there's the faint cedar smell. It's very strange.

Has anyone else seen this? It's the first time I've purchased a death-cube plant that was potted this way.

It's probably from AG3, I've purchased an order from them and they wrap their VFTs in peat and fabric.

Carnies wrote: ↑Sun Dec 19, 2021 3:07 am It's probably from AG3, I've purchased an order from them and they wrap their VFTs in peat and fabric.

AG3 isn't the only one. This plant was from Botanical Wonders in Virginia, in a "Bug Biting Plants" death-cube (no relationship to the nursery with that name).

Interesting. No doubt its a measure to cut costs or maybe something to do with peat harvesting/shortages. I wonder if it can grow in the stuff long-term. Does kinda look like coir to me too but when you say cedar I'm going out of the box and wondering if it could be some type of processed wood pulp or something. That could explain why there's only a small level of peat where the root tips are likely to be.

The plant itself was in a peat plug wrapped with fabric, and the roots never came in contact with the mystery stuff (the plug was sitting on the peat moss at the bottom of the pot). It held water pretty well, but I don't know if I'd want to grow my plants in it. I dumped the coir/bark/whatever on my compost pile.

An update on my Lowe's "rescue": the larger traps are starting to die off, and the rhizome went from one growth point to at least six.

MikeB wrote: ↑Sat Dec 18, 2021 8:47 pm
I took a page from ChefDean's playbook: I masked the bottom 1.5 inches (38mm) of the pot and painted the rest white. Now these pots stay much cooler in the summer, and none of the painted part rests in water.

Did you have to scuff the pot up before you painted it?

Ewreck wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 3:59 pm

MikeB wrote: ↑Sat Dec 18, 2021 8:47 pm
I took a page from ChefDean's playbook: I masked the bottom 1.5 inches (38mm) of the pot and painted the rest white. Now these pots stay much cooler in the summer, and none of the painted part rests in water.

Did you have to scuff the pot up before you painted it?

Not these pots; they already had a textured surface. Otherwise, I would have lightly sanded the pots with a fine-grit sandpaper. Also, I used a paint + primer that was formulated for plastics. Given a choice, I'd rather use brush-on versus spray-paint (I hate the fumes), but I couldn't find any in stock.

I found an answer to my question: the strange-looking stuff in the original pot is called HydraFiber. Here is an article about it.