Question
I ordered a Drosera dichotoma from you guys last summer and I thought I would let it stay outside over winter as a temperate plant. It had been growing well and looked healthy and when the first frost happened it died back to the soil, which I guessed was normal, although now the crown is black. I live in Oklahoma so our winters aren't very harsh and this year we had a really warm one. The plant is growing in full sun in a one part peat to one part perlite soil with  a sphagnum top dressing and is standing in a few inches of distilled water. What worries me is that it hasn't come back yet although all the other plants have emerged from dormancy already. Do you think it will come back this year?

Answer
Hi Jonathan,

It's hard to say at this point.  What will often happen with these plants is the crown will die, but they come back from their roots, and this takes a little longer.  D. binata's don't form hibernacula the way North American sundews will.  Also, this plant is hardy to about zone 8; they won't take much below 25F unless they are in a large container.  I've definitely lost plants in small pots.

What you can do to know if you have any living material or not is to take the plant out of the pot and examine the roots.  Start at the crown(s) and begin cutting a little away until you see white in the center of the roots.  If they are black and mushy, the root is dead.  If you see black exterior and white center with it being firm, that root is alive.  If you have live roots you can repot them with about 1/4" exposed and maybe a little live sphagnum moss around the exposed root.  That area will develop a new shoot.  You can also take root cuttings which would give you many new plants.  We show how to do this in our volume #2 DVD.

Good Growing!

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