Question
Hello. About 3 weeks ago I bought a Sundew Plant, and it was in a healthy and good condition. It's leaves were strong and were not wilted. Earlier today, I decided to put the sundew outside for about an hour, to see if it would lure any insects. I watered it thoroughly before I set it outside. After the hour I came back to find it very badly wilted. The leaves were all floppy and weak, and had no dew on them. Some of the bottom leaves are still fine, but the majority of the plant is floppy, wilted and weak looking.

After discovering this mess I put myself into, I quickly watered the sundew and sealed it back in it's terrarium. I'm not sure if this will save it or not. Are there any tips out there I could use to prevent my sundew from dieing?

Answer
Hi Jonathan,

You have experienced a very common problem with growing plants in terrariums.  Terrariums keep humidity unnaturally high.  When plants grow in constant high humidity, they lose the ability to adapt quickly to sudden changes in humidity.  Plants in terrariums also lose the ability to deal with strong sunlight.

Your plant went from a high humidity and low light environment to low humidity and strong sunlight environment.  The change was too sudden.  Ideally, it takes several weeks for plants to adapt to this type of change.

Unfortunately, the sudden drop in humidity and the burning of the leaves may have caused severe leaf damage that is irreversible.  All you can do is wait.  Within a couple days, you will know if parts of the plant is viable.  If parts of the plant is still viable, trim off the dead portions.  Your plant will recover, but it'll take about 6 months for it to look like it did before.  Otherwise, if the damage was too severe, the plant might die altogether.  In a case like this, the most you can do is chalk it up to experience.

For this reason, we are strong advocates against using terrariums.  Terrariums create weak, lazy plants that lack the ability to adapt to sudden changes.  It's a myth that sundews need constant high humidity.  Sundews have the ability to adapt to low humidity and still produce tons of dew.  We grow hundreds of sundews at our nursery outdoors without terrariums.

For more information about humidity, visit our photo gallery on humidity:
http://www.cobraplant.com/humidity

I also suggest reading our care sheets and watching our video podcasts:
http://www.cobraplant.com/caresheets
http://www.cobraplant.com/videos

Good growing!
Jacob Farin