Question
QUESTION: Hello-
I have an Octopus plant that is 2yrs old. It has been really
thriving and doing very well, however, the past couple of months
a large portion of the bottom tendrils are turning brown and drying up. I haven't changed the way I care for it, so I don't know if the cooler weather has triggered dormancy, or if I may need to repot it. It is still sending up flower shoots, but it is definitely not as healthy as it was last winter. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Tami

ANSWER: Hello Tami,

When you say octopus plant, that could be any number of Sundews referred to as Drosera. You may need to go to a site like cobraplant.com or search terms like Sundew and look for pictures of plants with scientific and laymen terminology names so you can let me know the basic species as there are many dozens, actually well over a hundred, known species.

In any event, your Sundew, like any plant, will get old and die back eventually. In many cases, octopus plant refers to a Sundew called a Cape Sundew or Drosera capensis. That sundew grows like a tiny palm tree like shrub with long strap shaped leaves hanging around a central stalk. The typical form of that plant keeps growing taller and dead leaves collect under the growing crown as it rises higher and higher. In My D. capensis, this central growth crown eventually weakened and died back after a couple years as you seem to be describing. I merely clipped it off to the ground and several new growth points sprouted from the underlying roots very quickly and are almost adult size after only a couple months. If this is the species you have, you can do the same and just wait for new plants to sprout. That species is very prolific at regenerating from just clippings of root off the root system and buried in moist sphagnum moss.

Send me a followup if you find out the exact species you have so we can diagnose the problem more specifically.

Christopher

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello Christopher--
To follow up I have a D. Capensis. It is almost 2yrs old now so I suppose it
needs to be cut back. When would be the best time to cut it back?
Thanks,
Tami

Answer
Hello Tami,

You can clip off the entire growth crown of the plant, basically, just cut it off at the ground, at any time. If the plant is kept indoors, it will not be dormant. If you leave the old growth crown there, the plant may eventually grow new ones, but clipping it off will speed the process. You might also try to repot the old crown after discarding the dead leaves, leaving only the live ones, and just bury the brown lower stem as deep as you can in sphagnum peat moss and perlite in a 50/50 mix. Make sure the potting mix is unfertilized as fertilizers in the soil can harm and kill carnivorous plants of virtually any species. The old growth crown might renew and grow new roots as described by Sarracenia Northwest experts, however; if the crown is very old and weakened, it may simply die off. The roots of the plant will still be very active and alive.

You can repot the roots at any time of year, best done about once every one or two years to refresh the soil and clip back the roots anyways. The clipped roots can be saved and placed under some shallow (about 1/4 inch) peat moss to grow new plants. They are quite prolific about such root clipping cloning, however; the faster growing clippings (those that would produce fast growing new plants) would be from the larger central root system. The small outer roots will clone and grow, but produce small plantlets that will take a year or so to mature.

Soon, you may well have several new plants growing. I have experimented a bit with mine and now have about a dozen new plants from a single parent, all from root clipping. When the adult plants produce seeds, they can be sown to produce hundreds of tiny plants in just a few weeks.

Good luck with your Cape sundew.

Christopher