To the grower of carnivorous plants- Drosera Capensis seeds!

[dionaelover]

Just a heads up, I will likely have a bunch of seeds from drosera capensis- the cape sundew, soon. I'm really new to the forum though, so I can't be sure how exactly my first trade will work out. I would like seeds from a mexican butterwort (preferably Pinguicula "Fraser Beaut" or P. agnata), or any temperate sundew. So, umm if anybody has anything they'd like to offer in exchange, let me know!

[hendi_alex]

My cape sundews are prolific little critters, filling every nearby container. Up until this year I had a couple of butterworts, but for me they were less vigorous and more delicate than my other carnivores. They were doing well for a season or two, but then started to lose vigor and decline. My venus flytraps seem to have lost some vigor as well. Their size was down last year and some of them died. I wonder if the miniature bog gets a build up of salt from the constant inflow of water followed by evaporation. I just repotted the venus flytraps yesterday, with a fresh bed of peat and an overlay of sphagum moss. Hopefully they will respond by regaining their size and vigor of a couple seasons ago.

[dionaelover]

Your flytraps may do better if you invest in an RO unit to purify your water. I live in a place with fairly hard water, so I have trouble with this as well. To be specific, it's my D. Adelae that shows the most damage. I'm thinking of decapitating it to provoke a new growing point- once an adelae goes dewless, it rarely returns. I, too, had a butterwort- a P. Moranensis, and it didn't seem to like my window very much. I don't think it got enough sun. Anyway, this summer I moved it outside with some other tropicals, deciding to wing it. My cephalotus and capensis (the one I mentioned above) exploded with growth, whereas my pinguicula died the first day, along with all offshoots. Can't win 'em all I guess. I'm going to give a terrarium a shot (an individual- pot style one) and see if I have better luck.

Oh, and it helps to cut drainage holes in the bottom and/ or sides of the bog- that way salts can be leached out by rain.