Question
I'm sorry about asking so many questions, but hopefully this is the last one. My drosera adelae does not seem to be doing real well. Most of the leaves are dead, but the new ones have not seemed to unroll much and have almost no dew on them. It is in a north facing window that receives about 5 hours of morning sunlight. It is inside a terrarium and has 2-3 small plants coming off of the base. I've heard that the sundew will die after it has made a couple of smaller plants out of its base. It is sitting in about 1/2 inch of water. I was wondering if this was normal. It has been 2 weeks since I received the plant from petflytrap.com. What am I doing wrong that has made my plant look so sickly and not have any dew. The pictures were taken about a week and a half before I sent this question and they were only out of the terrarium for about 5 minutes. Please help, thank you!

Answer
Hi Matthew,

It sounds like your plant is going through some shock from the transition from where it was grown (probably a humid, shady greenhouse) to your home.  The simplest thing to do now is just cut all of the main plant off.  Just decapitate it.  This will force formation from the roots, and then the new growth will be better adapted to the new conditions.  I've done this hundreds of times with D. adelae and your plant will be an entirely new plant in about a month.  The new little shoots will grow out more.  This is the same advice I give when someone buys an Adelae in one of those store cubes.  Just make sure the plant always has water to sit in.  Never let it dry out even a little.  Once an Adelae loses the mucilage on it's leaves, it doesn't make it again on those leaves.  They have to grow new ones.

I'm curious about your window.  It really gets 5 hours of sun?  If a window faces due North, they usually only get a little sun in the morning and late evening, and that's just during the summer.  Usually East or West windows get around 5 hours sun.  In any case, if that window is that sunny, try to position your plant so it is a bit dappled with the light.  Putting other plants around it is a good idea.  Drosera adelae likes it bright, but can burn in hot sun.

Good Growing!

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