Resourceful species.... like a dandelion! Bigger pots and 12 year old kids with a sadistic bent as well!

how meny weeks exactly did it take from the time u first planted the root cutting . Did it take to sprout ? And my D.Capensis ..Red Typical and D. Capensis Albino are 5 months old . How long should I wait befor trying the root cutting method ? And doesn't up-rooting weaken the plant?

My new D. Capensis is just sending up some flower buds. Does that species self pollinate? Or do I just get to enjoy the flowers.

Cape sundews are masters at self pollination and when the flower buds are ripe you will have thousands of extremley tiny spindle-shaped seeds!But if you don't collect the seed the will get into the other's pots and grow like weeds!If you don't want the seeds cut off the flower stalk and that will save the plant some energy.The flowers are purpulish-pink and only last one day then shrivel up to pollinate themselves.Each day one flower opens then closes.By the time the upper buds open, the bottom buds will have mature seeds.If you get seeds, then just plant them on moist peat moss.But don't bury the seeds!Keep the pot in bright light and in a few weeks you will have hundreds of tiny, round-leaved seedlings!Since cape sundews are tropical, then the seeds will not need stratificaton.
Good luck,
Adrian

They self-pollinate and easily spread to other pots. They are the dandelion of the sundew world! They really don't need any extra assistance!

Doowop 6116,

It usually takes about a month after taking root cuttings to see new sprouts, however; it could be longer.. mine took about 3-4 weeks before I noticed anything growing. I have had the plant for about 8 months in a 5 inch pot and it was only a young pre-adult plant when I got it... It matured in one month and flowered. I just repotted it a month ago and saw that it had a mass of roots, literally a clumped interwoven layer of roots in the bottom of the pot, so I just broke them off and repotted them in one connected mass. The adult plant slowed down in growth for about a week, but is now growing and producing dew like normal.

Here are some more pictures five days later of several sprouts coming up:

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This is an exposed root showing a new sprout beginning:

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Daveyjones,

Yeah as Carnivorousplants and Petiolaris provided, they are one of the most self-pollinating sundews out there. You can get thousands of seeds, take root cuttings, and take leaf cuttings from them... You can even cut the entire plant off at the ground, plant it, and let it regrow its roots while the roots regrow new plantlets as stated by cobraplant.com.

I believe I speak for everyone when I say; Awwwwwwww.

That is impressive regeneration. How many plantlets do you have now in that 4" pot?
-Don

Don555,

Each day I keep seeing new plantlets growing. Last time I counted 16+.

And another 10 days later.

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And by next year - thousands!

I'm really wanting to begin the process of growing alot of these at once. and of course the burying of the excess roots as seen above will produce adult plants faster, and so thats what I'm interested in. I noticed you said there were 16+ plants just from that one clump? wouldnt they crowd? would be a better idea to kind of divide up the roots and bury them sporadically around the pot to encourage more plants to grow and less crowding? or is that not the case..?

I would grow a few seedlings in several small pots and wait before doing further repotting.

Crowding can occur eventually, however; I intend to let them grow a bit, then cut the root mass apart and separate them into several pots later. In any event, these plants grow in crowds in nature, so they know what they are doing. It simply is more convenient for us humans to have them separated out to cut back on mold and for aesthetic reasons. If they were plants that rely more on nitrogen in the soil, like vegetable plants, then I would want them separated more to reduce nitrogen impoverishment. Since that is not the case, they will be fine for a while this way.

And at about one and a half months of growth.

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There are now over 50 growing in this one pot of roots.

The first year from seed D.Capensis makes little hair-like roots and is a very slow grower. Then it drops a thick tap root and really takes off.

The thick tap root is the best for root cutting. Cut it off and Lay it horizontally covered by a very small amount of growing media. It needs to be very sunny and warm to sprout. If they're too deep or shaded or planted at the wrong time of year (spring is the right time), it won't work that well.

I've gotten flowering plants from root cutting of D.Binata in 3 months.

take care,

summer seedlings:
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