Dionaea vs moss

[coline]

Hi, I wondered this since recently some friend came here asking about this

he said he had read somewhere that the moss is detrimental to VFTs, of course not the sphagnum, but the other types of moss that sprout normally over the peaty pots.

I wanted to know if it was true, since moss grows here in just 2 months, and in a period of 6 months a pot is fully covered almost completely. But also I have not seen if it really is bad. Dosera and sarracenia do not complain about it, utrics really not like it, but dionaea I have not seen what they think

[stevebooth]

hi coline

Barry rice in his FAQs states that sheet moss or moss other than sphagnum is detrimental to carnivorous plants and can kill them. However I suspect that he is referring to its use as a growing medium rather than as a growth on the top of the soil. It is however unusual to get mosses other than sphagnum growing on top of peat at least while it is new and fresh, I have seen it on old spent mediums.
I also found this on Barry Rices site:
www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq3260.html

[coline]

I see, and indeed that is true because that thing is really dry and since the very begining I have read about the moss fraud that exists, even so, here they even rarely sell sphagnum. Good to know someone else also suspects what I'm stating. I really think that as the one who told me that is even younger than me and here we speak spanish he may have read about the horticultural moss and thought it reffered to the one that grows on peat.
Tropical climate has millions of spores of everything on the air, in just a couple of months moss grows even on new peat

[marsintenn93]

Over the years of growing vfts outside, i've seen a lot of moss varities pop up in the plants. The only trouble i ever experienced was with the moss occasionally crowding out the vfts. A bit of moss pruning (carefully pulling it out from around the plants) is all i ever did as i rather liked the natural look of the mosses and they never seemed to bother the other plants.

[Yaron]

I have VFTs and Nepenthes growing with the typical variety moss that grows on sidewalks, and it didn't bother them.
In the summer the moss dies back from the VFTs, as it gets too hot out here for moss, but returns, together with Sphagnum, in the fall.