Who me?? About the time I think of myself as a pro I do something stupid and kill some plants. For instance, I can't even guess at how many of my VFTs were killed because I didn't get them inside or mulched heavy enough to keep them from becoming icicles during the winter. Now if being pro means I have had more experience at killing VFTs than you have, I'll probably have to plead guilty.[b said:Quote[/b] (Flytrap455 @ July 08 2006,3:55)]Any info from a pro like your self ...
Sounds good. Flushing the soil occaionally with distilled water is a good idea. It will help remove salts and minerals that build up in the soil over time and as you say it also aerates the soil some as the water drains through. After a hard rain washes the dirt off the roof, I like to set my plants under the down spout as the rain lightly drizzles so that a trickle of the water runs into the pot. I let that drain through until the water looks clear coming out the bottom of the pot. You need to be careful when doing this though, in case it starts raining hard again as it will "Jimscott" your plants. It also will help if you just place your plants out in a light rain. Also avoid setting the pots directly on the ground where earth worms can get into them through the drain holes. I made the mistake of setting several pots of Utricularia on my sidewalk without water trays under them last year to drain after flushing them. I did this several different times. This last winter my Utricularia started to slowly die away for no apparent reason. I finally decided to repot them in fresh peat and discovered small worms had gotten into all my Utric pots. They had been slowly poisoning my plants by enriching the soil all winter.[b said:Quote[/b] ]I tray water them, and let them eat on their own, they are in a 12 in. plastic bog, with long fiber sponge moss /perlite, once a month I take the planter out of the tray and poor a gallon of desteeled water in the planter and let it drain, to aggregate the soil.