My vft doesn’t look well even with new growth
- Thread starter Toodles
- Start date
Godolphin Greenhouses
Carnivore
I always repot any plants from colisantis. There's a good chance when they were being kept wherever you got them, they may have been watered incorrectly. Also, I think the vfts usually have a wrap around their roots. Usually doesn't cause an issue for a while, but eventually, I believe it starts choking the plant.
BunsenH
Plant
If by "wrap" you're referring to the plastic mesh, that's the stuff that encloses the peat pellets that are used to grow the plants. The mesh is supposed to be weak enough that the plant roots won't be choked by them, but will snap the strands. That would depend on whether the mesh was properly manufactured for this purpose, and probably on the plant type and how its roots develop. Jiffy, one of the best-known manufacturers of those pellets, say that they're working on switching from non-biodegradable plastics to a biodegradable material, PLA. But the PLA (polylactic acid) degrades under industrial composter conditions, and only very slowly "in the wild". I had a lot of trouble extracting my VFTs from that mesh when I was getting them ready for wintering in my fridge. I think it's a good idea to get rid of the mesh early, before the roots get tangled in it, and it was definitely a bad idea for me to repot my VFTs from their little pots into larger pots just by moving the mesh-wrapped peat into a hole in the soil of the larger pot.
Godolphin Greenhouses
Carnivore
Some companies still use a wrap that feels a bit like paper towel. I'm assuming it's for ease of transplanting and to avoid disturbing roots when upsizing the container. The plastic mesh type seems to allow the roots through, but for my own plants, I always remove both types. Some family that has been in the greenhouse business (non-carnivorous) for over 30 years has mentioned that regular plants often get root bound and end up dying with the paper towel style wrap (not sure on the actual material, that's just what it feels like).
Aside from that, I think most generic greenhouse operations don't have the right setup to switch between fertilized well or city water and carnivorous friendly water. So a lot of plants purchased from those operations likely have some lingering minerals in the substrate that shouldn't be there.
For my own 'best practice's protocol, remove any wrap from roots. If obtained from standard greenhouses or department stores, I always repot and change out the substrate.
Aside from that, I think most generic greenhouse operations don't have the right setup to switch between fertilized well or city water and carnivorous friendly water. So a lot of plants purchased from those operations likely have some lingering minerals in the substrate that shouldn't be there.
For my own 'best practice's protocol, remove any wrap from roots. If obtained from standard greenhouses or department stores, I always repot and change out the substrate.
BunsenH
Plant
The last VFT I bought was from Colosanti, and it looked quite different from what's in those pictures. Its leaves were much shorter and broader, and the trap's "teeth" were relatively long. I'd noticed them in the grocery store, and hadn't really intended to buy more; the three I had were enough for my purposes at the time. But on a later trip to that store, there was just the one left, and its substrate was quite dry and the plant nearly dead. I found the produce manager and explained that the VFTs needed to be kept well-watered with pure water. She let me buy it for half price. I didn't repot it, but I ran lots and lots of pure water through its substrate. It perked up a bit, but started dying slowly, putting out smaller and smaller leaves as the older ones died off. I rather expected it to not make it through the winter in the fridge, but when I repotted it in the spring, it took off better than the other three.
Toodles
Carnivore
I had it quite a bit up to the point. Now that it is repotted it’s very happy