Drosophyllum lusitanicum "Cerro de la mua, Portagul" Potted
These dewy pines are beautiful, seed-grown plants from Cerro de la Mua, Portagul. We love site location seeds because these plants are ideally suited to their specific climate in Portugal and could have any number of slight genetic nuances!
The dewy pine is a fascinating and beautiful plant. Even in the middle of the hot, dry Spanish summers, this plant can be found in full sun covered with glistening droplets of mucilage. How it manages to stay dripping with dew even without an obvious water source is a complete mystery! They form lovely, glistening, bushy plants with delightful sunny yellow flowers. Better still, they smell faintly of honey!
Drosophyllum have a reputation for being tricky to grow, and their care has some nuance. They are very different than all other carnivorous plants! They are Mediterranean plants and do best in similar climates. They do not like high humidity combined with high heat and cannot tolerate extreme cold. Dewy Pines are more challenging to grow because they do not like to sit in water and require careful watering as they do not like to be overwatered. We’ve made several videos on our YouTube channel and included detailed instructions below to help you! While they can be slightly harder to grow, they are so beautiful, aromatic, and delightful that it’s absolutely worth it! Read up on their care or watch our Ultimate Dewy Pine Care Guide!
They should be potted immediately into an 8" clay pot; watch our video guide to potting them! After removing the packaging, gently pull the peat pot out of the plastic pot it was shipped in. Plant the peat pot directly into the mix; it will break down quickly. This allows you to avoid disturbing the roots.
You can order our pre-made dewy pine mix or make your own. An ideal mix is 1 part peat, 1 part perlite, 1 part pumice, 1 part sand, maybe some lava if you have it.
Care Instructions:
Growth Habit: Dewy pines are grown as bushy annuals or short-lived perennials. In the wild, they can grow 3 feet across, but they usually grow to 12-18” tall in cultivation. Lower leaves will die back as the plant ages, and new leaves will grow in as the plant grows outward. You can trim these old leaves back, but you do not need to, and the old leaves can provide some protection for seedlings growing from seeds dropped by flowers. The leaves will often grow shorter and broader in winter. These plants readily flower, sometimes as early as a year old, and can die after flowering if not adequately dried out between watering. They will make seeds from their sunny, bright yellow flowers and do not need to be pollinated. These are short-lived perennials, but they often produce young plants from the mother plant as it dies. Older, larger plants can flump over as they become more top-heavy. The stems are usually darkly colored and woody.
Sun: Full sun. These plants do best outdoors in most areas. If you live somewhere very hot like Arizona, you will want to grow them in the morning sun only with protection from the afternoon sun. These are hard plants to grow indoors and should be grown under lights on a 10-12 hour day length if grown indoors. Grow lights should be 6-12” above the plants, depending on the strength of the light.
Water: Use the tray method to water young plants. For the first 6-8 months, they should be kept damp during the warmest parts of spring, summer, and fall. As they approach maturity, they should no longer sit in water for long periods. In the spring and summer, large plants should be allowed to dry slightly before you water again. Do not allow them to dry out so much that wilting occurs, but the soil can get surprisingly dry before this happens. Wilting will damage roots and set the plant back. Remove the trays and hand water during the winter and early spring, when it is both cool and the photo periods are shorter. When your plant is experiencing rain in winter, be sure to dry your plant out well between watering. Flowering plants should be kept a bit drier; when you plant flowers, they will die if kept too wet. Dewy pines do not like high humidity combined with heat and will have increased chances of rot in those conditions.
Temperature and Dormancy: Dewy Pines are Mediterranean natives. Their ideal range is 30-100F, but they can tolerate brief freezes if not sitting in water and brief heat waves up to 115 if well watered. These plants do not need or experience a winter dormancy. They can be grown easily outdoors year-round in California and the Southwest or anywhere else with hot, dry summers and rainy winters. You will want to protect them from the afternoon sun in the hottest parts of the Southwest. They can take light frost and brief freezes. They should be brought in or protected during long freezes below 20 F. Ours plants take night time temps of 20 F without damage, as long as it warms back up during the day, over 40 F. Dewy pines do not like high humidity combined with heat and will have increased chances of rot in those conditions, if you live somewhere BOTH very hot AND humid you may struggle to grow Dewy Pines successfully.
Soil and Repotting: You can order our pre-made dewy pine mix or make your own. An ideal mix is 1 part peat, 1 part perlite, 1 part pumice, 1 part sand, and optionally, 1 part small-sized, rinsed lava rock. Dewy pines are susceptible to having their roots disturbed and will likely die if their large, long tap root is damaged or disturbed. Because of this, we ship seedlings at a small size when they are easiest to transplant. They are shipped in a peat pot inside a plastic pot. Remove the peat pot from the plastic pot and plant the peat pot into your 8-12” terracotta pot. Do not try to remove the plant from the peat pot. Dewy pines prefer to be potted into an oversized terracotta pot. Do not repot your plant ever.
Feeding and Fertilizer: Drosophyllum catch small insects in their sticky mucilage. Over time, their leaves will produce enzymes to digest the nutrients from the bug, absorbing them through their leaves, leaving only the exoskeleton on their sticky leaves. There’s no need to remove these as they often serve as a lure to other insects looking for an easy meal. These plants will appreciate a foliar feed. Apply MaxSea fertilizer once per month to the foliage only. Dilute 1/4 teaspoon of MaxSea into one gallon of water with a mister bottle or a watering can.
More Information: For further information on dormancy, repotting, growing from seed, and more, check out our website or our YouTube channel.