It's a warm, sunny, seventy degree day today, and it is time to finally get to the plants that need, at a minimum, more top soil to protect roots that have been exposed by winter rain and wind.
We will be giving a new, taller pot to one of the larger Drosera plants. We have the moss that they need, no regular soil for these. We have perlite, and a slightly larger pot. This is my first of many repotting projects as the springtime weather starts to really activate these hungry plants.
Mid-winter, this plant had no green. It just looked like a dead plant, as you see it but without the upper green part. Right now, many of my plants look that way and I will repot them as green reappears.
I was setting up the new pot with perlite and moss at the bottom.
But before we pull the larger plant out and repot it, we have another small issue to deal with.
We take a minute and set up a little pot for the new baby plant.
We simply dip the tip of our long nose pliers into the dirt and gently squeeze where the root is...
...and lift out some moss with the entire plant,
...then we move it over to the small pot. This will be its home for the next year or two.
Then Move the Adult Plant
Because this plant is well established for the last few years, I don't have to worry so much about disturbing the roots. When I have a rare or sensitive plant, I cut up the old pot and move it gently. You either have seen that method here or will see it again later in spring.
This one takes two hands. (no pictures of it happening). I just put one hand on the left and one hand on the right, and plunge my fingers down between the pot and the moss, and lift the plant, briefly inspect the roots, and then put it in the new pot.
Here is the aftermath.
As you can see when I get this plant filled back to the top in order to cover all the roots slash branches that should be covered, it will already be at the top of the pot.
If this plant does well by the end of the season or maybe even mid-summer, I may put it into a larger pot.
So let's fill up this pot and then get it back with the others and a pan full of distilled water.
As I was refilling the moss up to the tops of the roots, I noticed that one of the leaves is a mutation, which is kind of strange. You don't usually get those on these plants. I don't think it makes the plant rare or worth more. It is kind of like a two headed sheep. The wool still works for making blankets. And this plant will still catch bugs using this deformity.
And this is the first repot of the summer., I would like to remind you that carnivorous plants in general can only grow in mineral-free, nutrition-free soil. In other words, moss, specifically this kind.
You probably also know that every plant has N or S marked on it so that if I relocate it, I can keep the same compass orientation. Some plants are sensitive to that sort of thing, and I lose fewer by doing that.
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