Well I would suggest one of two things. 1) Cut the head off and leave the stalk so there is more folige for photosynthesis. 2) Cut the leaf off at the base of the stalk. I would not suggest tugging off the leaves from the bulb, sooner or later you may damage the plant, cutting carefully with sharp scissors is best I think. I personally take the entire leaf and stalk off and the base. Cheers Sheldon

N. ventricosa: If this were a sundew, and had aphids, like D. capsnsis, adelae, or spatulata, I would immerse the plant in water for a couple days. But I'm not sure that a Nep, even a so-called bombproof one, would be able to handle it. Nor am I positive that drowning would work for gnats. Are they the dreaded fungus gnat larvae that do damage to roots or adult fungus gnats that are relatively harmless? Or are they some other kind of gnat altogether. Are all leaves infected? Could you snip affected ones? You may need to apply an insecticide, but again, I am out of my league in this one. I did purchase a Bayer product that killes all sorts of critters, but haven't as yet used it on my CP's. Pings: You are having trouble finding pings? I have 30 species / hybrids of mostly Mexican butterworts. If interested, feel free to message me. I'd have even more to share next spring, but have some that I can spare now. Sleeping VFT's can take mild frosts, but I like to keep them in the 35-40 degree range. There are very large, adukt Neps whose pitchers can engulph smphibians. There is one famous story of one that had a baby monkey, supposedly. But for mice, a Havahart humane trap works well, as do sticky glue traps. The 'Akai Ryu' is one of the red cultivars on the market. So it is really a play on the genetics of the common VFT, which hails from North Carolina, which also means that it is intended to go dormant. I'm not certain as to what the last paragraph is conveying, other than concern as to whether it is struggling or going dormant. Looking at the leaves, it appears to have so-called summer leaves, which are thinner, longer, and off the ground. Winter leaves are shorter, wider, and resting on the soil media. Sure wish I could help you with the ventricosa, but it's beyond my experience.

Hi That's a CP that i was wise enough to stay away from lol. Trying to grow VFT introduced me to the folly of trying to grow temperates in s. florida. It can be done but you always end up with "Is this really worth it.lol Cobra lily would be more difficult than VFT,another is Heliamphora grow at high altitude in S Am Averaging 52/65 year around. try duplicating that in florida lol. Of course the lowland tropical Nepenthes are a snap to grow here so why struggle with the temperates.?? Because they are a REAL challenge.!!! Thanks gary

Barbara suggested I post my response to her rather than paraphrasing. Sorry if it's a tad long. ----------------------------- Hi Barbara Jo, Thanks for the opportunity to respond. I would agree with you that �Venus� is looking "weird". As others mentioned, without any testing it really is impossible to say much with any certainty. But before I say anything why don�t you simply mail the plant back to me. I can credit your account, send you a refund, or replace the plant next spring since I ran a batch of �Venus� through my own TC lab. Life is too short for you to worry about this and you will likely second guess yourself if you simply destroy the plant. We routinely run hosta samples thru Agdia for the entire battery of hosta virus testing. We do this as a normal matter of course with our TC lab. The Agdia testing includes: Arabis Mosaic Virus, Cucumber Mosaic Virus, Hosta Virus X, Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus, Tomato Ringspot Virus, Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus and Tobacco Rattle Virus. These represent the full spectrum of viruses known to infect hosta. Of these 7 viruses, only HVX is hosta specific (as far as we know) and is only spread by mechanical means. HVX is not spread by insect vectors (again as far as we know). The other viruses are non hosta specific and spread by insect vectors (thrips, nematodes, etc). I can isolate your plant and have it tested next time we send some samples to Agdia. So why would I bother? A couple of reasons. We put our reputation on the line with every hosta we sell. We take all customer feedback seriously. No grower is perfect, but we work very hard to ensure our plants are virus and nematode free. We only offer plants that have come thru tissue culture and have been virus indexed. For older plants that are no longer available at the wholesale level we started our own TC lab. If we ever do have a problem I want to know about it and proactively deal with it. The second reason is based on knowing the actual history of the batch of �Venus� that you obtained. Every grower should be able to explain to their customers in some detail where their hosta stock comes from. We preach this to all of our American Hosta Growers Association members. The reason why �Venus� is hard to find is that it has only been available to growers as bare root stock from Holland. We stopped dealing with the Dutch growers about 10 years ago when the HVX thing hit the fan. As a result we had not offered �Venus� in a number of years. However we had been growing a TC liner batch of plantaginea �Aphrodite� from Q&Z Nursery. They are one of the few TC labs that we deal with since Mark Zilis is adamant about virus indexing anything that goes into his lab. In any event we noticed that one plant that had sported to �Venus� as we counted over 30 petals when it bloomed one year. We continued to grow that plant in the greenhouse, divided it late last year, and offered a few for sale this spring. The parent plant was virus indexed and never showed any symptoms that would have concerned us (and we do watch them carefully). The other thing that caught my attention was that you moved the plant to a full sun situation during the middle of the summer. Even with a heat tolerant fragrant flowering cultivar, that would tend to burn the older foliage that had already been set in shadier conditions. Maybe it was a coincidence that this was about the same time that you noticed the "weird" foliage, or maybe it wasn�t a coincidence. We also see a lot of foliage that is "weird" looking this time of year as the plant is shutting down in response to shorter days and cooler temps. This time of year it is very difficult to visually analyze much of anything with hostas given everything else that is going on in the plant. This has been further reinforced in working closely with Dr. Ben Lockhart at the University of Minnesota on the current AHS sponsored HHX research. Sorry for the long winded answer, but I have a hunch this could be a good teachable moment for both hosta gardeners and hosta growers alike. When I test the plant I will also test the plants we produced from TC since they came from the same mother plant. If they both come back clean, the answer will be clear. If they are both virused the answer will also be clear. If your plant has a virus and the TC plants are clean, we will know that the viral infection took place in your garden sometime this year. Hosta'ly, Rob Mortko Made in the Shade Gardens 16370 W. 138th Terr Olathe, KS 66062 913-206-6939 www.HostaGuy.com