Question
Allexperts,

I have a question about the soil mix for a Regia Sundew.  Would the Corse Soil mix on your website be a good pick for this plant?  The reason why I asked is that it seems  you keep changing soil mixes for particular plants.  Thank you for you help.  

Sincerely,

Weylin

Answer
Hi Weylin,

The course mix should work just fine for D. regia.  However, it is heavy in sand, and D. regia should be in as large a pot as you can handle for your growing space, so it can make the pot very heavy.  D. regia likes a mix that remains somewhat open and drains well.  Cool roots are the name of the game for them.

The reason we keep changing media is that there is no one perfect media for any particular plant.  The best media is what works for a person in their particular growing situation.  For us the perfect example is Cephalotus.  Most literature says to plant them in a very sandy mix, and that is what their soil in like in nature.  However, that requires you to be very careful in how you water them to not keep them waterlogged.  It's easiest to just top-water the plants and not have them in water trays to achieve this.  However, in a sandy mix they dry quickly, and the media is hard to re-wet if it gets too dry.  We switched to using Nepenthes mix with them, which is just New Zealand LFS and perlite.  We were able to just keep them in trays with holes and only top water them.  We saw a 180 degree turn around in their health.  This media would not work if you were going to try and tray water them.  It would break down quickly and you would certainly get rotten roots.

Good Growing!

Jeff Dallas
Sarracenia Northwest
http://www.growcarnivorousplants.com