Question
Greetings from Roseburg.  I purchased a drosera adelae from you several months ago and it did famously for awhile in a west window.  Munched happily on fruit flies and seemed to be quite content.  But now it has no dew and I am wondering what I did wrong.  I have kept it in plenty of distilled water and haven't repotted it, so its soil conditions haven't changed.  I keep it indoors.  Could it have gotten too hot in one of our recent heat spells?  Can I do something to help it back to health?  We have lots more fruit flies that we need to get rid of.
Thanks,
Lana

Answer
Hi Lana,

Any chance you could send a picture?  

Sometimes when Lance-leaf sundews get older they get such as collection of old leaves on them that they start not looking good.  The hot spell could have had and effect, but indoors it usually doesn't pose as much of a problem unless your west window is exceptionally hot.  Did it every have an unintended dry spell?  If it did that will definitely make them stop producing dew on older leaves.

My recommendation would be to transplant it to a larger pot using standard 50/50 peat moss/perlite mix.  After you transplant it cut all of the leaves off right to the ground.  This sounds drastic, but after a couple of weeks new growth will begin from the stems and the plant will recover dramatically.  This is a great time of year to do it since we are having plenty of sun.  We've done this many times, and folks are often very afraid they will kill they're plant by cutting the leaves off.  It similar to pruning a rose however, and the end result is a much nicer looking plant.

Good Growing!

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