Question
FIF
Hello -
I live in NYC (zone 6 I believe).
Among my growing collection of Sarrecnias, VFTs and Neps, about a month ago I bought a few more VFTs and a Frasier Island form and a ping prima.
All my plants are doing well except for these little guys.
For a while I had them both out on my w facing balcony (lots of ambient light but due to other high buildings, about 4 hours direct light per day).
I had them both in bottle top terraiums but after doing some research on this site (and cooking the poor ping) I removed all "terrariums". I now have the FAF on the balcony in a dish of low height (half inch or so) distilled water and the ping is in a w facing windowsill that gets about an hour of direct light per day and am also using the tray dist water method for.
The FIF had a bunch of small clumplets but the center one turned totally brown so I cut it off. The other clumplets are stil hanging on but I can see a very slow browninf of them as well. I haven't seen any new growth on it since I got it a month ago.
I have seen new growth on the ping (including a small plantlet on one of the leaves) but leaves keep turning brown and appear to be almost rotting. It sits right next to a nep judith finn which appears to be doing fine
Any idea what I might be able to do to help them?
I have 3 placement options for each plant -
Balcony in sun, balc in shade or windowsill?
As for watering, should they all be sitting in trays w/ distilled?
Should they all remain out of the bottle terrariums?
I just bought a light that I am planning on setting up over the ping on the windowsill. Do you think that this might help? It only fits one bulb. Would you recommend the 40 watt flourescent soft light? If not, what else?
All my other plants seem to be doing great but these poor little guys keep having to struggle.
Any thoughts?
Thank you so much!
I am trying to include pics>>>I apologize that the are blurry and I hope they help!
AnswerHi Mark,
Let's start with the Fraiser Island sundew. This is a plant that is used to growing in hot equatorial sun. Simply place your plant in a tray of water in full sun. If you have a very bright sunny window, that will work, as will being outdoors for the rest of the summer. The plant should be dark red in color. You will need to bring the plant in when it starts getting cold since it's a tropical.
Supplementing with fluorescent lighting will help immensely during the winter. A two-tube fluorescent light fixture is the best, least expensive option for lighting. 48" shop-light fixtures with 40 watt cool-white tubes give the highest light output with an good spectral output.
The best advice I can give you for the P. primuliflora is to keep it in the window the way your doing, but transplant it to a larger pot. If you can put a layer of sand on top of the soil before you place it in a new pot. Use standard 50/50 peat perlite mix. It will benefit from additional lighting if you use the fluorescent light. Under the best circumstances, P. primuliflora tends to rot out and die easily. The only way I've ever kept this plant alive more than a year is to have them in big pots planted among Sarracenia and grown outside. It's hardy down to 20 degrees F.
Most of the problems you've had have been because of focusing on humidity instead of light. This is one of those classic myths of growing carnivorous plants that dies a hard death, and gets reinforced because of plants being sold in those little death cubes.
Good Growing!
Jeff Dallas
Sarracenia Northwest
http://www.cobraplant.com
