I grow my sundews with a few nights a week in the fridge and a few nights in the terrarium hitting down to about 48F in the front room. I grow my VFT's the same way and although the venus flytraps are not red or pink like they should be because of all the snow here lately, they get about 9 hours of light from the sun, or from the led grow lights I have above them in the terrarium. I take the plants out of the fridge every morning to get as much light as possible, and then either stay in the tank or go back in the fridge if needed. I do not think it is good to just throw any cp's in the fridge to sit for 3-4 months in total darkness and not have any daylight. I have the glow panels over my orchids and cp's about 6-8" and they get direct sun if the sun is out. They seem to do fine as light is the trigger for dormancy and I feel all plants need it. They all get 9 hours of light for now and no less, but in spring and early summer I will bump it up to 14- 16 hours to maximize growth and reproduction. I plant to get seeds from whatever puts them out and grow them in the sphagnum moss that is growing in the pots or the re-wetted sphagnum they are in. I will just sow all seeds in re-wetted sphagnum moss and see if they grow, anything that does not germinate will get stratification or germination triggers and then I will go from there. I grow cp's in sphagnum moss because it seems the venus flytraps do better in sphagnum than in anything else. I had some that were growing in vermiculite and peat but the pot fell over and some of the venus flytraps had leaves that broke off so I put them in moist sphagnum moss and repotted the plants in dead sphagnum moss. I saw the vermiculite had produced many blackened roots without growing ends and very small leaves and corms, but I repotted into sphagnum and the plants immediately started to grow vigorously and doubled in size after being in sphagnum moss instead of vermiculite. I think most cp's grow in moist sphagnum -type conditions normally although some do grow in deserts and arid areas with little rainfall. So far, all the cp's I have are doing better in moist sphagnum including the sundews. I hope this helps although things are different for everyone.

Hello dsmdan95, The usual Drosera you buy at hardware stores are the most common and easiest to grow, like D. adela, D. capenesis, and such. Some like full sunlight more than others and some simply cannot weather full sunlight as it burns their leaves. If you have D. adelae, it can only stand partial light like what it would get in an east or west window or under a shady tree. Full sun can cook it. Is this your sundew? If so, it is Drosera adelae and can be grown easily inside as a houseplant in a partial sun window or on a shady (not too shady, they still like good light) patio space. The big problem is humidity at this point since it sounds like you took off the goofy plastic dome that hardware stores often put on their carnivorous plant stock. If you took the dome off quickly, the plants are likely in humidity shock and will be sick for a couple of weeks until they adapt. To help them recover, you can replace the humnidity domes and then slowly remove them by lifting the sides and bracing them up a fraction of an inch or punching several 1/4 inch holes in the sides every 3 days until it does not hold humidity any more. After two weeks of hole punching or continuous dome raising, the plants should be adapted to low humidity and will be healthier. You can repot the plants into a larger pot with good drainage holes with the ingredients you stated. Just make sure the moss is of the Canadian premium sphagnum peat moss type in the dry bales and that the perlite is plain, no fertilizers added to either. Mix up the perlite and moss and dampen it until it is chocolate brown and then repot. It would be a good idea to place a water tray with 1-2 inches of water in it at all times under the pots to provide constant moisture as those plants are bog species that get continuous water. The plants also need to be adapted to high level light since they have been in low light in a hardware store. If the sundew is an adelae (Australian Lance Leaf Sundew), it can't stand full sun as I indicated before, so just give it more bright light, but never full sun. The Sarracenia Purpurea is the Purple Pitcher plant and it is a North American plant that actually requires full sun to develop as a healthy, vigorous plant. It would take a metal halide 400 watt lamp to provide even a close approximation of the light that plant likes if someone were to try to grow it inside. Anyway, just place the pitcher plant in a west or east window or in a shady spot under an awning or tree for the first week, then in less shade, like in a south window or further towards the edge of the shaded region, in the second week, then in full sun after that. Some leaf burn might still occur, but the plant will at least be on the way to recovery and adaptation to high light levels. The sundew needs light to produce dew, but if it is shocked by a humidity change, will loose it's dew. Give it time and the conditions I described and it should recover in a couple of weeks. Also, only water the plants with distilled, rain, or reverse osmosis water as too many minerals, like tap water usually possesses, eventually kills carnivorous plants as it alters the Ph of their acid soil mix.

It's the same peat moss that I've been using forever, Whitney Farms Sphagnum Peat Moss. All my plants are in it, usually with a eyeballed 50/50 mix of Whitney Farms Perlite, with no problems. I also have a bale of pure Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss in the shed I could switch to. I've been loathe to use it on a "real" plant -- I wanted to buy some test plants from CPN/CaliCarnivores to test it first but I just don't feel right doing that to a poor plant, heh. It looks the same although it's a slight shade browner than the Whitney Farms stuff. Water is Distilled water from WinCo. They recently changed brand names but the smaller Sundew had started having problems before they switched. I did discover a 2 year old dipping a spoon I was using to repot my Spider Plant into the water, that might be where the water got contaminated, if he had poured a bit of his apple juice or something in there -- but again, the other Sundew is about 4" off the ground, he couldn't have gotten to it to do that. Should I be leaving standing water in the tray, or should I be letting the tray dry out before watering? The former is how I've been doing it, the latter would be more akin to a standard pot/saucer setup, which seems counterproductive. I've honestly just been eyeballing it, maybe they're getting too much water? Is that even possible? I did find a little more room by moving my Pygmy Sundews and 2 Butterworts (one of the Butterworts is Temperate (Pinguicula grandiflora), the other is Tropical (Pinguicula moranensis)) into one big 8" saucer, that freed up a lot of space, as they used to each be in a different 6" saucer. Only worry now is if they're getting enough sun and if the tray watering style will harm them.

Hi tom, Yeah, all those sundews are tropical. There is great list at cobraplants.com. Go to cobraplants.com.Then, to the right of the page will be a colored box that says"Tropical Plants for your home" Click on it. It will start off with nepenthes.Scroll down till you get to the sundews. There will be a big list of them and you can buy any of them that are in stock Cobraplants is the best place to order carnivorous plants I know!!!! Good luck, Adrian