>>When you say "dryier" (sic) do you mean keeping them just barely moist?
>What growing media do you use?
>What is your humidity like? Many homes are near deserts, %RH wise, during
the
>winter.
>What temperature? Steady or does it drop at night (when lights are off)?
>What kind of lights do you use? How far from the foliage?
>How many years have you kept a plant using your techniques?<
By drier, I mean I let the pans empty between waterings but I don't the soil
in the pots dry out.
All my VFT and Drosera are in a mix of ( aprox. ) 50% white silica sand :
spagnum peat by volume.
I haven't found keeping humidity high to be beneficial for Drosera and so in
winter it bounces around 55% relative as measured by a cheap spring-type
guage ( probably inaccurate by many significant digits ).
The nighttime temps are in the 60 degree F. range and the days rise to high
seventies.
In my growing areas there are two four foot tubes over every eight inches (
19 cm. ) of growing area width, and over an area 27" wide I have eight four
foot tubes; five are Vita-lites (by Duro-test) and three are Gro-Lux WS ( by
Sylvania). The plants are as close as possible to the light source, their
tops are about 4 - 6 " under the tubes. All surfaces that can be, are painted
with white paint to reflect light or coated with reflective mylar.
My plants are now only a year old - I didn't bring any live plants to
California. In previous years under the same set-up, my VFT lived at least
three years but I couldn't swear to just how long a bulb lived undisturbed -
every so often I unpotted some and propagated a new batch with the scales (
or leaf-bases ). I have no doubts that they didn't die or "burn-out" from
this growing regime.
Regards,
David