What's new
TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

anyone notice a differnce?

I was just wondering what people like best for their V.F.T.s and Dews. Is one easier to use over another? What are the + & - of each?
 
They both ahve their advantages and disadvantages:

Peat and Sand:
Advantages: cheap, easy to find, holds moisture.
Disadvantages: Can be messy, may "clogg up" traps, get stuck to sundew leaves, slow draining.

LFS:
Advantages: very fast draining, holds lots of moisture, raises humidity, is not messy, looks nice when live.

Disadvantages: hard to find sometimes,thats pretty much it...

I prefer 100% LFS
biggrin.gif
 
I put the pft medium in a big pot of lfs with the plant in that
 
Different things work for different growers. This is my experience.

Peat-Perlight:
Works best for VFT (they like very loose airy soil, cheap and easy to find. Moderiet to high water levels required. Look out of algea, I sugest a top layer of live sphagnum to prevent this. Bad for sundews, not sure why, just is, probubly because perlight chunks are too big and most sundew like heavier wetter soils.

Peat-sand: Best for most sundew, if for VFT, get really corse sand, I don't get very good root growth out of this in VFTs, but the tops get bigger insted which some people prefer.

Pure LFS:
Works best with water ubsessed sundews. Usually causes issues in VFT, for vft keep water levels low to moderiet. Prone to thick goopy algea in higher water levels and light, put a layer of sand over to to reduce this. Same issue with mixes, it's just too darn wet for most VFT and promote algea, but mixing in sand and or perlight helps if you need to use it. People in aired and hot regions tend to like this.

Pure Peat:
Depends on the individual VFT, some prefer the dencer mix, but it's the same issue as when sand is used, the root growth is minimized while top growth in increased. Better for drier regions. Wet loveing sundew sometime like this, but it can still get too packed down for them. I don't usually recomend pure anything.

Peat-sand-perlight-LFS:
Seem to like this okay, but the algea issues are still there.
 
and make sure you sand is clean...otherwise you wind up killing your plant.....always test the sand too...just because its in a store does not mean it is devoid minerals........
 
Advantages of mixes with peat : plants tend to have more deeper coloration such as dark red , drains well , easy to use and find
Disadvantages : messy , hard to wet and sand is nto easy to come by

Advantages of LFS : Drains well , easy to work with , can be used purely , better looking , tends to grow to beautiful live sphagnum
Disadvantages : hard to find , most of the time what is found is not LFS , the live sphagnum can grow over plants and you might contact diseases if you use it when you have an opening in your flesh .
 
Back
Top