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Come help a new grower out real quick ;).

Hello everybody,

Every since i've gotten my first Home Depot VFT i have fallen in love with them and i was thinkin of gettin a big wide and long pot for alot of VFT's. Like it wont be tall it will be short but really wide and really long and i plan on puttin alot of different various of VFT's like it was grass. So when i got my first VFT it came in its own lil pot with its dirt already and so i dont know exactly wat dirt or soil to buy to put on the big pot and i would like to have the s. moss with it too but yea can any1 explain like if i went to walmart what brand and name of a certain bag of soil i need so i could go pick it up

Also i would like to know wat other CP use the same soil type as VFT's so i can grow them 2gether

cheers
 
Just go to Lowes and get the rectangular bag of dried LFS for 4 bucks. One bag should be enough for the long pot and VFT's love it.
 
This is what you'll be looking for.

LFS.jpg
 
so i should look for long fibered s. moss? a bag like that

and the plants can live alone in just that? how would i plant them i jus treat the s. moss like regular dirt? should i mix it with a little bit a dirt? and wat was the dirt that came with my VFT frome home depot?? incase i need more
 
Pure canadian Peat moss is the medium I use for all my CP. That and that alone is also sufficient. LFS WILL grow when it settles in, and can cover up a VFT with its constant growth. Peat would be better IMO.
 
You can get a bag like in the pic or you can buy a bag of canadian peat like Bugweed mensioned. The peat is more "dirt like" but I hate hydrating the stuff. It's like trying to mix oil and water, just a pain IMO.

If you choose LFS then all you have to do is treat it like dirt. Spread it out in your pot, water it down, add more if needed, then add plants.

Bugweed loves peat and I love strait LFS, both will work fine so just choose one.
 
VFTs are happy in

100% sphagnum moss peat
100% live sphagnum moss
50% sphagnum peat / 50% perlite
50% live sphagnum moss / 50% sphagnum peat
75% sphagnum peat / 25% washed horticultural grade lime free sharp sand

...as well as varients on these 'recipes'.

Take your pick!
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]
should i mix it with a little bit a dirt?

--> No regular dirt from your yard or elsewhere
--> No water from your house or garden (no city nor well water, use only rainwater, distilled water, reverse osmosis water)

The minerals and nutrients in the dirt/soil in your area (wherever that might be) are likely to kill your VFT (and other carnivorous plants). The same is true of the water from your house or well.

For planting medium ("soil") use a mixture from the ingredients that have already been suggested: sphagnum moss (long-fiber and/or sphagnum peat), perlite, sand (that is almost pure silica, not riverbed or ocean sand), etc. Don't use any bagged "potting soil," seed-starting mix, etc., because these frequently have ingredients added that will damage or kill Venus Flytraps and other carnivorous plants.

For water, use only collected rainwater, distilled water or water from reverse osmosis. When buying distilled water, be careful to avoid "drinking water" or any other kind of bottled water. Get only pure distilled water with nothing else added.

Enjoy your plants--
smile.gif
 
by dirt i meant the dirt that my VFT alreday came in and wat other CP's and thrive in the same pot as a VFt if it were big enough cuz i wanna combine CP's but i dont wanna worry bout Cps that need different compost u know too much work and money so i rather stick to the same cp's that use the same thing as VFT's
 
  • #10
I use 50/50 spaghnum peat/sand. I rinse the sand thoroughly, first in tap water, then in distilled water. I let the peat soak in a large bowl for about a week and then I squeeze the water out. If I don't need it immediately I repeat the process. After mixing up the soil recipe, it gets covered and stuffed in the oven, where I cook it between 180 and 200 degrees.

Basically, the medium should be as close to pure, clean, and sterile as possible.

When repotting, if you're going to do a bare root transfer, I reccomend soaking the roots in a solution of Superthrive and distilled water for half an hour or so (1/4 tsp superthrive to 3 1/3 cups water). It consistently gives the plant a boost after repotting.

Lest you think I actually know what I'm doing, I should add that I'm really just blindly doing what the Savage Garden tells me, with a couple of bits of sound advice from these forums thrown in. But I've had my VFTs for over a year and I haven't killed one yet.
 
  • #11
Plonk the whole lot in

SPHAGNUM MOSS PEAT

Simple, easy and no messing.
 
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