Dangers of Drying Sarrs?

[lizasaur]

As previously posted, I have terrible, annoying, black bugs that are disgusting and overcoming every pot in my collection.
It was suggested that I flood them out, unfortunately, I don't have the water resources to do that.
Upon further contemplation, I recalled how they died instantaneously upon leaving the protection of the wet soil and hitting the hot deck.
Would allowing the Sarrs soil to go dry for a few days put them at risk any? Flooding can cause rot, afterall...I don't want to risk rot, or anything else truly bad. Just didn't know, as letting the soil dry out would be easier than repotting every last plant with the hope there won't be a re-infestation because I didn't get the last speck of dirt out from a pot, or because they hocus-pocus their way back in there. And again, the amount of water that'd take is insane.
Then again, maybe I should repot everything since the overuse of Neem between the mites and trying to kill the beetles could be toxifying the soil and eventually killing everything.

Thoughts? Thank you!
(ps. I'm sorry for flooding the forums lately. While I'm not exactly a newb, these are problems I haven't experienced before and aren't on the standard care page)

 

[Clint]

Flooding bog plants isn't an unhealthy practice Flooding your plants for a couple of days isn't going to cause rotting.

I'm confused about exactly what you want to do with the plants.

If you let the soil dry out completely, the plants *probably* wont die if they have strong and healthy rhizomes if they are rehydrated quickly enough, but all of the pitchers will wilt and die. The bugs will probably be unaffected or come back. The only time I let my plants dry out is in their winter dormancy, and even then they aren't really "dry" but damp. If you mean damp when you say "dry" then that won't get rid of the bugs, either.

In case you mean you want to sit the plants on the deck (not in water) for a few days and let the water drain out, and not water them or let it rain on them, then your media may dry out completely or remain safely damp after two or three days. That depends totally on the size of your pot, the media, and the environmental conditions.

Neem isn't going to toxify the soil and kill everything, especially with a good flush now and then. I don't know what your bugs are but they are probably harmless to the plants. You said that they are infesting your pots but you didn't actually say they are hurting anything

 

[Chris_Himself]

Neem is pretty harmless. My typical media cleanse routine is to douse the media with neem, but it got too expensive, so I switched to Bayer concentrate and just watered my plants with that. Got rid of all the springtails, fungus gnats, tiny beetles, and ant nests in my LFS.

 

[Woodnative]

If it is moist enough to keep the plants alive, some of those bugs will find enough moisture to survive. YOu can flood them with tap water......unless your water is ridiculously hard it won't hurt for that one time. It certainly will not rot the plants to be submerged above the soil line for a day or two in a shallow container. I have not had trouble using insecticides, according to instructions, on Sarrs either.

 

[scottychaos]

ALWAYS safer to go "too wet" than "too dry" with CP's..
as others have said, totally flooding your sarrs for a few days, even a week, will do them no harm..
and is likely to kill the bugs..

letting your media dry out is very risky for the sarrs, and is unlikely to totally wipe out the bugs..

flooding is the way to go..
submerge them in pots so the water is *above* the media..
I would leave them that way for 2 days at least..then see how your bugs are doing..

Scot

 

[lizasaur]

Thanks guys =) I guess I'm stuck waiting for the rains to come then, lol.

(I haven't tested our tap water, but we have a Kinetico watering system, and considering that ADDS salt, I don't see it being a good thing)