How Do You Plant A Bare Root Rhizome?

Step 1. Prepare The rhizome

When Planting from a bare root rhizome, flytraps tend to fold their leaves backwards upon themselves in an attempt to eject the plant from the soil. Simply straighten the plant in one hand and gently fold the leaves upward and ensure that the roots are pointing downwards, between your fingers.

Some divisions will have long mature roots (3″ +) and some will come with much smaller root systems (1″). These are not indicators of the plants health, more indicators of the moisture level of it’s previous soil mix. Either way providing that the main rhizome is healthy, the plant will survive.

Step 2. Preparing The Soil

First ensure you have the right soil mix. There are lots of differences in opinion here but I think that the best mix is peat : perlite : sand at a 70 : 15 : 15 ratio. A lot of people will disagree or have their own perfect recipe. Older versions of Adrian Slack’s cult book “Insect Eating Plants and How to Grow Them” state not to use perlite at all, however this has been resolved in the newer revisions. The perlite helps the peat store more water and allows for better drainage. The truth is, if you are passionate enough and want the best results, try different mediums and ratios for the best results in your growing environment.

Make a hole in your soil roughly one inch deeper than the longest root and around one and a half inches wide. Place the rhizome into the hole and collapse the soil from around the edges so that the rhizome is firmly held in place.

Release the rhizome and ensure that all leaves are above the soil and the pink area of the rhizome is below the soil.

Don’t worry too much if there are any younger leaves buried beneath the surface of the peat mix. Once the plant has settled into it’s new environment these young leaves will soon push through the fluffy peat.

There is also a chance that while trying to place the plant you remove or damage a leaf. Again do not worry, if the leaf is badly damaged simply remove it from the plant, another will grow to replace it.

Step 3. After Care

Water Thoroughly after planting and allow the plant pot to sit in one inch of rain water. You should only ever use rain water and never tap water as tap water contains far too many minerals and additives which will kill your plant.

If your division is from a smaller donor plant, often it will have only leaves on one side. This is due to the division being split from one side of the donor rhizome. Do not worry, give the plant enough light and plenty of water and new leaves will grow from the crown of the rhizome in the void.