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!

need help with first CPs

i bought a large CP cube-o-death about a week ago. i chose it because it contained the best looking nepenthes of the lot. i really just want the pitcher plant but it came with a sundew and fly trap. i tried putting it under a plant lamp and it quickly developed these brown spots (too much heat or light i imagine). now i have it in a north facing window with indirect sun. how should i go about freeing it from the plastic prison and what about its roommates? they look all tangled together and im scared ill kill the pitcher. i wouldnt mind having 3 CPs in their own little habitats!

(i have a pic..... will post soon!)
 
Slowly open up the cube more and more each day to get everything acclimated to your household humidity. After about 10 days or so, you should be able to repot.

Shake the mass of plants out of the cube, then put the root mass in a bowl of distilled water and kinda work things apart gently with your fingers. Try to break as few roots as possible, but with a cube of death, you inevitably will. My stuff all recovered from it though (well I threw the sundews away lol...neps or bust)
 
thanks for the tip!! so.... then i will have naked-root plants that need homes. ive been researching growing media and see lots of opinions/options. once ive got a substrate in mind, what size pots should i use? i know some plants (ie orchids) shouldnt be oversized in repotting. could i just use a large pot/basket and not have to worry about it out growing soon (fingers crossed it even gets that big)? i dont even know what the roots will look like. i know fly traps have little hair-like root thingys. any special care in re-potting? or poke a little hole and just drop it in?
DSC02459.jpg

DSC02462.jpg
 
they look healthy but cramped. looks like you have an adelae and some x of ventricosa?
 
For the nep, I'd mix up fir bark/charcoal/perlite and pot it in that, or 5:2:2 peat/perlite/vermiculite. I just poke a hole, drop it in, and then brush soil into the hole/around the stem so it doesn't fall over. The only care is to break as little of the roots as possible.

Can't help ya with the other things. Haven't grown either in over a year.
 
haha he is a new grower don't frusterate him with complex soil mixes, listen the nepenthes like moist soil not soggy soil you can use a 50/50 mix of peat moss and perlite water overhead weekly.
the adelae is a tropical sundew I grow mine in a 50/50 mix of peat moss and perlite and they do great, I started with three adelae from a lowes cube and I have over six pots of adelae now each with like 4-6 some with like 20 plants in a pot.
and the flytraps they don't need humidity to grow nice, you can use a 50/50 mix of peat moss and perlite for them and use pots with drainage holes for all three of the cps in the cube.
the adelae and the flytraps can be set in a tray of rain or distilled water keep the water 2-3 inches from the tops of the pots. and the nepenthes don't set it in a tray of water. you can check the hardware store they should have peat moss and perlite sold in bulk. Don't get the miracle gro brand.
cp's are not hard to grow just don't make many mistakes that new growers make, and flytraps are not tropical if you live somewhere like california or Oregon and have mild winters (20F-40F) then you can grow them outdoors they also like full sun and adelae it likes diffused light and would grow fine under flourescents.
sorry about all my punctuation errors.
 
The minimum pot size you should use for the flytrap is 3 inches, 4 or 5 inches being the best. The sundew should go in a 4 to 5 inch minimum; if grown right it will send out various offshoots and quickly fill up the pot. To start out for the Nepenthes, a 4 inch pot will be sufficient.
As they all get larger you can transplant them into larger pots.

Like phissionkorps already stated, take care in not tearing up the roots too much.
When you place the plants in the new pots all you have to do is seperate the substrate and press it don't so the roots can fit comfortably. Try the best you can not to disturb the traps on the flytrap or the dew on the sundew.
good luck! Post pictures and let us know how you do!
-matt
 
Is that one of the new death cubes where everyone is in a pot, or are the plants slapped in moss in the bottom of the cube?

I just weaned a cobra plant out of one of those cubes and what worked for me was to prop the lid open with a pencil near the edge (so that it is only a pencil's width open). A few days later I slid the pencil in a little so that the lid opened a little bit more. A few days later...same thing. I did have a small humidity indicator inside to see when the inside approached the outside level and then I slid the pot out and there we go! Oh, all the while it was under fluorescent lights.
 
i bought a large CP cube-o-death about a week ago.

LOL! I'm sorry to hear that! Welcome to TF, though!

Seriously, I would make three pots, one for each. Just add orchid bark and perlite to the Nep and get it under light that will give it at least 12 hours of light.

For the VFT I would buy a $4 bag of long fibered sphagnum (LFS) and make a pot up. have it at the window sill until you see new growth. Then put it outside, in the shade, for a week, before direct sunlight.

You can use the LFS to make up a pot for the sundew (likely to be D. adelae) and keep the pot in a plastic container of distilled water, at a window sill. Fill the pot when the water evaporates.

That's really all you need for right now.
 
  • #10
Yikes, I've never seen those cubes o' death packed with 3 different species. That thing is doomed from the get go - unless someone does their research like you are doing. You might be surprised how well they pull out of it. My best colored and best growing Sarr purp was barely alive when I pulled it out of one of those cubes!
 
  • #11
Wow. They're doing three species in one cube now 'eh? I guess that's a good way to start a collection.

Nighsky: Yeah, I've rescued about ten sickly purp Sarrs from those tiny cubes. I re-pot 'em up in a standard CP mix and give 'em some light and they grow and color up nicely. I then give them out to friends and co-workers to get them hooked on CP's. ;)
 
  • #12
The 3 packs have been around for a while, but maybe not in all areas. They like to pluck 3 totally different species and shove them together. It is pretty much always a VFT and D Adelae and the third plant is either a nep, sarracenia (purp and rubra are the ones I always see) or a Cobra. They cube 'em up and plop them down on the darkest shelf that they can find in the store.
 
  • #13
Is that one of the new death cubes where everyone is in a pot, or are the plants slapped in moss in the bottom of the cube?

they are all in a little plastic pot inside the cube. ive got the top turned 45 degrees such that each corner is open. ill use the pencil trick to open it further.

haha he is a new grower don't frusterate him with complex soil mixes, listen the nepenthes like moist soil not soggy soil you can use a 50/50 mix of peat moss and perlite water overhead weekly.
the adelae is a tropical sundew I grow mine in a 50/50 mix of peat moss and perlite and they do great, I started with three adelae from a lowes cube and I have over six pots of adelae now each with like 4-6 some with like 20 plants in a pot.
and the flytraps they don't need humidity to grow nice, you can use a 50/50 mix of peat moss and perlite for them and use pots with drainage holes for all three of the cps in the cube.

so ive got stuff layin around for my orchids.... sphag moss and orchid mix (bark, charcoal, and little white chunks {perlite i guess?}). i was thinking of using pure moss for the flytraps and maybe mixing the moss and mix for the nepenthes?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top