Pygmy Sundew Gemmae Cultivation
Planting Gemmae:
If you order gemmae, they will come folded in a moist paper towel in a plastic bag.
Prepare a pot with appropriate soil (a good mix is 60% perlite/sand: 40% peat, some species like a lot of sand and good drainage) and moisten. Pygmy Sundew Soil is available in the store.
Gently place the gemmae on the surface of the pot using small forceps or a toothpick.
Spritz with distilled water to ensure good contact with the soil, then cover with a plastic bag.
Put under strong light and wait 1-2 weeks for the gemmae to sprout. After they have a few leaves, you can cut off the corners of the bag to allow some airflow. Then continue to acclimate them to lower humidity over the next week or two and remove the bag.
Cultivation:
Part to Full Sun - give them several hours of sunlight per day or at least 20W per square foot of LED grow lights.
Keep them sitting in small trays of water, generally around 0.5”-1” deep. They can tolerate wetter or drier conditions well, but they prefer a shallow tray. Use distilled or reverse osmosis water.
Temperatures between 50-90F are best. They are adaptable to different humidity, but very high humidity can promote rot. Lower is safer.
Soil can be 40% peat moss to 60% perlite. Pygmy sundews have delicate roots which are very hard to transplant — it is best to simply plant fresh gemmae each year for new plants. Make sure to use media that is free of fertilizer or salts.
Notes:
These are pygmy sundews! They will generally grow to 0.5”-1” in diameter. Some species are a bit larger, and some like D. scorpioides can develop tall stems over 6” tall.
Feed them light fish food suspensions every few weeks for optimal growth if grown indoors. Only feed fully developed leaves, and feed around 25% of the total leaves each time.
If the temperature is very hot in summer, they might develop white hairs (stipules) in the center of the plant and stop growing. Just wait for temperatures to decrease and they will start growing again. It can help to give them more shade when it is extremely hot.
If the daylight shortens in fall, they will develop “gemmae” which are tiny buds that can detach from the plant and rapidly grow into another plant. Try wiggling them free and planting them on the surface of moist soil.
Pygmies have very long, thin roots so try to give them tall pots. The taller the pot, the deeper the water tray should be.
The long tentacles on pygmy sundews will responds extremely quickly to food. Some species will fully curl in less than a minute. This video is in 10x speed but you can definitely see it feed with your eyes.