Question

King sundew   Allexperts,

This King sundew is in distress. I repotted the plant about 3 weeks ago. I took a root cutting from the plant.  I repotted the plant in the standard carnivorous plant mix with 4 Osmocote pelites.   How long does this plant take to recover from the repotting process?   Could I give the plant a Osmocote Pelite in the leaves itself?   It has been capturing insects, and I have been giving the plant dried blood worms.    If you need any other information I would be happy to give the information to you.  Thank you again.  

Sincerely,

Weylin

Answer
Hi Weylin,

Your plant was too small to be taking root cuttings.  That is probably the biggest cause of the distress.  You'll just need to give it time.  Also, since you've put Osmocote in the soil, lay off the feeding.  If it catches a few bugs on it's own that's fine, but don't be giving it both fertilizer and feeding it.  It can overwhelm the plant.  If you try to put an Osmocote pellet on the leaf it will probably kill the leaf.  D. regia is just not a fast grower, so you need to be patient with them.  To give you a comparison, we can take root cuttings from Cape Sundews and get a nice plant in 6 months.  With D. regia it is minimum a year, and then the small plants take another month or two to be sellable.  That's why they cost more.

Good Growing!

Jeff Dallas
Sarracenia Northwest
http://www.cobraplant.com