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I'd like to see some shots of how you guys grow your plants. I'm just getting into Dews and am interested to see all your various actual setups (diff for pygmies?), pots in tubs, lights so far from plants, how many lights, etc. If you can tell (or show) temp and humidity of your areas that would be great too. Do you always have plants sitting in water? What sort of growing media is good for that since peat becomes just mud when you do that.

I of course have all my CP books and their theories but I'd like to see what you guys are actually doing in practice. I never did well with dews when I tried to grow them in the past. My best grower was the D. adelae which popped up in my N. hamata moss and lived / bloomed / made a pest of itself in a net pot of LFS & orchid bark in highland conditions. But the standard advice of "setting pots of peat in an inch of water" only lead to slowly rotting plants for me.

So I'd like to do better if I intend to get more interesting species than the D. spathulata and D. capensis I have and I'd like to keep these nice too of course! :D
 
once i finish up with finals this week and go home, i will post pics of my whole setup. I will be having a big seed giveaway soon, so I'd love to get you started with some more unique dews.

For now, I'll post 2 pics of one of my tubs, and just fill you in on my "techniques", which I've learned/stolen from books and a ton of people on this forum:
I use the tray method, and let the water level drop considerably before adding any again.
The key is intense light (with the dews nearly touching them, to only a few inches away).
Another key is getting an appropriate media (which has been pre-rinsed well) for the plants, which best suit your conditions. Some swear by a peat:perlite mix for all sundews, while I've found that I need to use a peat:sand mix to avoid algae development and bug issues. In some conditions, peat:sand will be too dry and it may cause the plants to wither up. I also tend to use live sphagnum for temperates and "water-lovers".
Once you give your sundews these key ingredients, they should dew up nicely and turn bright red. Then you can feed them and make them grow fast/flower like crazy. Every 2 or 3 months, you may have to do a "maintenance check" to clean algae out of the trays and top water your sundew pots to avoid mineral/salt buildup. If you do all of this, your dews can pretty much live forever!

Here are the pics: DISCLAIMER- I don't recommend using a setup like this! It will make much more hassle for you than is needed.
First planted in the tub, around Dec. 1st, 2008 (dews had been neglected prior to repotting)



3/13/09


I will post another pic of this tub once I get a new pic. Last time I checked, everything was flowering except a few D. aliciae.
 
Alright mate. The light fixture in this picture is a professional 4 bulb T8 high bay fixture
complete with reflector. I adjusted how it hangs on the rack so that shorter plants dont miss
out on light. (click to see to see a bigger picture)

As I learned in my physics classes, light intensity, along with gravity, does not act linearly with
respect to distance. So every inch closer you can get your plants. the better it is. Almost all
dews love lots of light.

Here's a shot of some dews on the tray system.

For the average dew, I use peat/perlite, or peat/sand, or a mixture of all 3. It just depends
on what's in my mixing tray. I haven't noticed much of a difference between any of the
mixes.

Here are some pygmies. They're on the far end of the lights, as they will never get very tall
and they love light. I used to grow these out in full sunlight and they loved it, but I'm moving
to an apartment in the fall, so I needed to bring them indoors.

I also grow these on the tray system. For media, I use a sandier peat/sand mixture. I
wouldn't use perlite since their root system pretty much consists of a single root that dives
down into the pot. This root likes to go deep, so I use 4 inch pots and fill them up to near
the top with media.

When growing under lights, height is an important consideration. This pot of D. multifida var.
extrema is really pushing the limits.

So is this madagascariensis pot

And this graminifolia


All those dews coexists happily with my highland nepenthes which also grow well in these
conditions. When the lights are on, they get pretty warm. I leave the window in my room
open all day and night to give some temperature fluctuation and airflow. I live in Los Angeles
so it rarely gets too hot or too cold.

I have also started feeding my dews betta bites. This really accelerates their growth.

I think that's about it.

Jason
 
These aren't wow factor pictures but here are the racks and sill:

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Thanks guys. What keeps your peat from becoming a muddy mess that starts to become anoxic (stinky) in the warmer months sitting in water like that? That's what happened to my dews in the past. Can you use straight LFS to keep the soil from becoming poisonous?

That rubber maid tub of dews is awesome! A great looking setup for starting seeds - an idea I might steal lol! How do you have it lit? Do you keep the lid on it (until they flower obviously)?
 
That could work quite well for seeds, but I'd recommend the smaller shoebox variety. The one pictured is actually 8 or 9 inches tall, which uses a TON of sand and peat. You can actually grow most sundews with little or no humidity, so I never have the lid on. One of the pics I post will show my normal growing setup. When I start my pygmy gemmae, I place a sheet of saran across the top of the tub, and then I took it off after a month, when they grew to a decent size. T

I have the top of the tub almost touching my T-8 bulbs. I have 4 tubs total across and 2 two-bulb T-8 fixtures going the horizontal way across them. As of now, most of the dews are 3 -5 inches away from my lights. However, I wish they could be much closer. My other sundews are less than a 1/2 inch from the lights, and they color up much faster.

I normally only use a peat:sand mix with my African sundews, and I've found that if you rinse the media really well, and use a mix that favors the sandier side, there is little to no anoxic activity, even if you never let your tray dry out.
To keep the soil from becoming "poisonous", all you have to do, is rinse the peat & sand really well before potting your dews up. Then make sure to thoroughly top-water your plants at least every 2 months to wash away mineral and salt buildup that develop from using the tray method.
I use dead or living LFS for all my "water-lovers", which I grow in small 3-inch or less pots. Examples are D. intermedia, D. rotundifolia, etc.
 
Can you use straight LFS to keep the soil from becoming poisonous?

I'm no sundew expert, but one thing I do know for sure is that LFS turns a lot faster than peat moss.
~Joe
 
I just put all my plants onto my rack, and mostly they acclimatize. D.Peltata spp. ariculata has a leaf that's blood red. I use 2 gro-lights and 1 flourescent. I bought them from Walmart :3 It says it gives you 75W of lights but use 17Ws so I refer to it as 51Ws. Everything just grows and turn red. :3

btw.Cpplantaholic I love you site! does that mean when you click your site you get a virus? I'm scared to click it again :3 I always click it when you post!
 
How do you wash peat? I've never heard of that. What does washing it do to make it non-anoxic? Does it wash out all the water browning tannins and peat fines or something...?

Around here they sell a 1 ft x 2 ft square bale of Canadian sphagnum peat for about $4 it's rather fine stuff though, not chunky.

But I do already have a huge bale of coir, do you think that might stand up longer or be as good as chunky peat if I mix it with quartzite grit?

Yes, I wouldn't need a huge rubber maid like that one, I'm not that good with seeds other than Daturas but as an experiment it might be fun to try and see if I can get some to sprout. I've got a bunch of those 6 qt clear ones (about 7" W x 12"L x 4"D).


Really? Sundews don't need a humidity cover and lights can be right up to them? That's interesting! I could potentially have sundews and succulents on the same shelf then as long as my dews are on water trays? That would be awesome! Yes, the redder the bedder! :D
 
  • #10
@ swords- I was instructed to rinse my peat by Tamlin, and, after doing so, I haven't had any fungus, gnat or (insert problem here) any other issues so far. His method (described as best as I can remember) involves filling a 5 gallon bucket or larger with peat moss. Then fill it near to the top with rain water (or RO/DI). Let it sit for a week. Ring it out (grab a clump of it and squeeze the water out), and place it in another bucket (or re-use the same one after dumping all the gunk out). The finer stuff settles to the bottom (some of this can be saved). Then repeat the first step, and in another week, you'll have thoroughly rinsed peat.

However, I normally have to pot stuff up right away, so I use the same approach, but slightly modified.
I use tap water, and rinse 2+ times, rining the peat out each time. Then I finish off by rinsing it 2 times with rain, di, or ro water. It can be a painstaking process, but it sure beats algae growth and smelly media.
I do notice that if you use steaming hot water, it will take out a considerable amount of tannins on your first tap water rinses. If you let it sit out in the sun, using Tamlins approach, it should do the same. Just takes longer...

@Halt- Thanks for the interest in the site! With xantius' help, I've changed my password, and this will hopefully keep the hacker program at bay. I don't know how they figured it out in the first place though...
I've checked it several times now, and so far there's no sign of a return.
I will be updating a ton in the next month before summer physics and research starts this summer.
I apologize for the viruses anyone may have gotten before I was informed about this problem.
 
  • #11
it sure beats algae growth and smelly media.

I'm sure it does! I will definitely try this when I repot my plants. Thanks for the info! :)
 
  • #12
Don't use coir for sundews - when left in water, it rots a lot faster than Sphagnum-based materials. Save it for your hanging baskets.
~Joe
 
  • #13
I'd like to see some shots of how you guys grow your plants. I'm just getting into Dews and am interested to see all your various actual setups (diff for pygmies?)....
Swords,
I may have missed this someplace (because I just scanned the thread) but generalizing about dews can lead to failure with a number of plants. Like a lot of our CPs, there is a wide range of conditions in which various species find a comfort level. It sounds like you're looking for conditions for the plants in the middle of the bell curve - but also realize there are plants that need highland, others need lowland, some high humidity, some low, some winter growers, some temperate summer growers, some need a really cold dormancy & .... on & on ...
 
  • #14
I have lots of sundews germinating now, thanks to CPlantaholic. I'll post pics of my current setup, but I don't know what I'll do once flower stalks get too high. i was just reading about burmanii's tall stalks, and I'm scared.

I also have VFTs in here germinating wonderfully. Beautiful tiny pink and green traps.

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It gets to be over 100 degrees in there without the fan. I have an indoor/outdoor thermometer on the bottom of the rack there, and have the outdoor wire running up and just under the saran wrap to tell me the temp. It's usually between 82 and 85 fahrenheit when the lights are on. I keep them on from 6am to 10pm.
 
  • #15
I have lots of sundews germinating now, thanks to CPlantaholic. I'll post pics of my current setup, but I don't know what I'll do once flower stalks get too high. i was just reading about burmanii's tall stalks, and I'm scared.

If the stalk starts to get too high, what I do is take a small metal chain link or fixture hanging hook and let that dangle on the stalk. It pulls the stalk horizontal and can be moved if it begins to get too tall again.

Jason
 
  • #16
This is a small part of my set-up. Lots of water, humidity,warmth and of course, light:)
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Other sundews I grow outside for the summer.
 
  • #17
An easy dew that is an extremely well grower and rewarding is D. aliciae. For me, it opens a leaf about almost every two to three days. I love this plant since it can have a nice color, dew, and size. It also has very long roots.

My tropical tank. The D. aliciae is in the middle on the top:
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My D. aliciae stands in water, and when it dries, I add a few inches of water back. I also have it set on top of a pot to have it closer to the lights, and now it has a nice red flush. Also, some stray dews live with it.
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The D. aliciae itself. The picture doesn't do its justice:
DSC03269.jpg
 
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