Pygmy Sundew Cultivation
General Info:
Pygmy sundews are beautiful, miniature carnivorous plants that are easy to grow and propagate. Most species come from Australia and live in a Mediterranean-type climate. This means they have hot summers with cool and wet winters. They will grow great outdoors in any climate that stays above freezing, though extreme heat can cause them to stop growth until temperatures decrease.
Most species can be growth together in similar conditions, however some are more tolerant of heat or soggy conditions than others. In general, these prefer better drainage and less moisture than subtropical sundews. If well fed and given strong light, they will grow vigorously and be more resilient to different conditions.
Here are the important basics:
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” 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. In general, they like well-draining soils with 30-40% peat moss and 60-70% sand/perlite/turface/pumice. Make sure to rinse the media before potting to remove excess salts. Pygmy sundews have delicate roots which are very hard to transplant — it is best to simply plant fresh gemmae each year for new plants.
Notes:
These are pygmy sundews! They will generally grow to 0.5”-2” 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 powder every few weeks for optimal growth if grown indoors. Only feed fully developed leaves, and feed around 25%-50% of the total leaves each time. I used to feed them a fish food slurry, but have now started applying fish food powder directly to the tentacles. This doesn’t feed as heavily each time but is less messy and prevents overfeeding.
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. Pots over 4” tall are good, while 6-8” depth is ideal for most species (but not essential).
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.