Hello Lilcoldinak, Right now the Venus Flytrap should have gone dormant. The pitcher plant, if it is a Sarracenia, a bunch of tube shaped or horn shaped leaves growing out of the ground, it should also go dormant in winter. During winter, such plants slow down in growth and basically go to sleep, needing little light. Without such dormant periods, they tend to die back in a year. They would actually like the high levels of light there in summer, but need very little in winter. The sundew is another problem as it might be Drosera adelae, a tropical, or Drosera rotundifolia, another temperate like the Venus Flytrap and Sarracenia. Best bet is to look at some pictures of plants on cobraplant.com or californiacarnivores.com to find out what species you have of sundew and pitcher plant so you can give them proper care in winter. Tropicals can be left under the grow light and kept warm. Temperates will need that winter dormancy for about 3-4 months. In spring they will resume growth with the lengthening of days and warming of temperatures. Once you find out what kinds of plants you specifically have we can help you with more specific information about their needs. The Flytrap is just that, no need to get more specific. Lots of light in the growing season, 1/4 pot depth of mineral free water (no salt softening either) in a tray under its pot, warm temperatures of around 70-90 degrees in the growing season, and winter drops to about 40-50 degrees and less light in day length in winter for 3 months. Step down artificial light length by 1 hour a day per week in November until it is at or less than 8 hours a day or just place the plant in a window to time its dormancy. In February-March, begin stepping the light back up by 1 hour per day each week until it is over 12 hours a day or simply keep it in the window to wake up with longer day lengths. No need to fertilize any of them as too much can kill them deader than a doorknob. Repotting them should no be a problem. Press in slightly on the sides of the pot with your hands and then turn it upside down with one hand over the plants. They should fall out in your hand after a bit of loosening. Gently tease away old moss until the roots are exposed. Work the roots apart with your fingers until you get the plants apart... some roots might snap even if you are gentle, particularly on the sundew, no worries, if it is Drosera adelae it will make more plants from broken roots. I would suggest placing them in seperate pots with large water trays... about 4-6 inch pots would be good. Use only sphagnum peat moss that come unfertilized in bales in nurseries and unfertilized perlite. Mix them 1:1 and pot the plants in that after moistening the mix first. Leave the mix spongy in consistency, do not press it down too tightly, carnivorous plants like a lot of drainage and air holes in their soil. Never add regular potting soil as it always has fertilizer and is not the right Ph in acidity. Carnivorous plants most often live in bogs or fens, so they do like high humidity, but can often adapt to low humidity without difficulty. When opening a dome or terrarium cover for plants it is a good idea to open it a little every three days until it is completely open after two weeks, then you can remove the plants and they will be adapted to your home humidity. Most carnivorous plants, like Sarracenias and Venus Flytraps, can adapt to humidity as low as 15-30 percent and are often grown open pot... I grow all mine open pot, but I have 50 percent humidity here. Anyways, look for what kind of plants you have and get back with us...

Thanks for the welcoming messages! I think I'm in the right place. Angelclub, I recognized your name and remember your kitchen, too - one of my favorites. MeMo, a neighbor told me we were in Zone 4 - zoned a little cooler than the map would indicate because of strong lake winds, she said. Now that I've determined I'm in the right forum, I'll get pictures this weekend of the yard area I want to work on to post. There is a link to my current Photobucket pics that show the house and its setting in the Finished Kitchens Blog under "amck kitchen" if anyone cares to take a look. I'm so happy to be done with building, and am looking forward to trying my hand at gardening. I've been yearning to do this for years!

You might use the rocks around the foundation or on one side of the house to create an area for rain gutter run off. We have done that on one side of our house. We have small island beds of plants among the rock ground cover. Or use it over weed barrier cloth to separate garden areas. In our area we have seen small shrubs with red foliage mixed in with evergreens which is very pretty but I don't know the ID of the red shrubs. We also see day lilies planted among shrubs in public landscaping. I would suggest disturbing the earth as little as possible to prevent exposing domant weed seeds. We mulch out areas before planting. Now is a good time to do that. Decide where and how large you want your planting area, cover with newspapers and leaves and leave it alone until spring. In spring put top soil over it or remove the mulch and plant in the bare area. We started out using fast growing annuals such as zinnias and petunias until the perennials became established. Now we can divide the perennials but we still save some space for annuals. The annuals self sow if we don't remove them before they set seed. EP

It looks like everything isn't getting enough water. The amount of water a plant needs is highly dependent on the soil that it's in, and how much heat/sunlight it gets. That soil looks like it's very fast draining so you may have to water more than 1 time a day, and for longer periods of time (try to keep the flow low). The perlite mixed into the soil makes it drain really fast and the roots dry out shortly after the soil does. I have a lot of plants in containers and I use an automatic watering system for them. They get 10 minutes of water every morning from 1/2 gph emitters for 1 gal containers, and 1 gallon emitters for the 2-3 gallon containers. Anything larger than that and I use variable emitters. In summer, I change it to 8 mins, 2 times a day. You can get one of those timers for your hose and just leave it on real low for a few mins each day for these. As far as if everything is savable, everything except maybe the first picture has a really good chance of being saved, and that first plant might be savable but I'd give it a lot of shade for a few days and definitely give it regular and long watering.