I've seen the same here. (in Holland.)
VFT's have been sold here in dead sphagnum. After a (long) while
the sphagnum appeared to be less dead. I keep the plants in (closed)
aquaria on sphagnum with water about 5 mm above the bottom.
Window on East. Room temperature (winter: 5'C summer: up to 35'C).
Protection against direct sunlight by peaces of white paper.
Sphagnum grows wealthy, much faster than VFT's. Manually intervention
is needed every month to push down the sphagnum. I guess that's why
you would like to grow them om sand mixtures. (The VFT's themselves
don't mind: they won't grow better.)
The aquaria must be closed because I'm too lazy to water the plants
every day (or more in summer). Once a month for a water check must do.
I don't trust the rain water here in this highly industrialized area.
Demineralized water is too expensive. In these aquaria my water loss
is about one liter a month. (I use the condensed damp ice from the
fridge. When I leave the door open it'll produce 1L/day.)
I think the humidity is much too high this way, but I never found out
a way to control it better. No problems with anaerobe decai in the soil.
Then the miracles begin to happen after years: spontaneous appearance
of Sundew. (D.rotundifolia isn't it? round leaves 5mm, rozet 5cm max.)
This happened four or five times on different places.
Now they are 'all over the place'.
I can hardly imagine that seeds from this rare local species came
blowing in into my rather closed systems and that this happens over
and over again. They weren't already in the sphagnum because I grew
it all myself over the years. Nevertheless I have dozens of sundews
popping up everywhere, not necessairily close to any neighbour.
It must spread underground I believe.
The sundews grow faster than the sphagnum.
No worry, they'll stay on top.
I was about to ask if there wasn't a FAQ about CP, just before someone
posted it. There was only one dutch book on CP ten years ago.
It spoke about soil mixtures and perlite an so on.
Very helpful. Perlite didn't exist over here. Replacements? Nobody knew.
Addresses? All wrong. But it had some nice pictures in it.
I still have a feeding problem. There are hardly any insects willing
to be trapped in my aquaria. It's even more difficult to have them
trapped by a plant. Sometimes I kill a viper (I think that's the word)
and give it to the plants.
All sorts of human food seemes to be toxic. (meat, cheese).
Wim.
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