Musa_Cavandish

Yay i'll soon send a picture of my little meat-eater!! anyone else have one!!.. if so send pictures!.

MediaHound

Congrats!
Check out www.carnivorousplants.org

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momoese

Those are pretty fun. I used to have one in the kitchen window. I can't remember how I killed it but it lasted for quite a while. Most of the chain nurseries around here sell them at the counter as a last thought impulse buy kind of a thing like TV guide or chocolate bars at the grocery store check out stand where you can't help but look at them. I remember feeding mine some flies.

mikevan

At one time I had over 600 of them. Had a lot of nice mature ones a couple years ago but a freak flood washed them away! I'll have to restart my collection from scratch again. They get a little bigger every year - but you must allow them to chill down some and go dormant every winter or they'll fade on you and die after a year or two.

Be well,
Mike

Musa_Cavandish

ok my venus flytrap came from a hardware store called "kents" and anyways the soil that came with it has moss (sphagum) ontop and im wondering if this is the right stuff or should i change it..?

Taylor

Just to pitch in....whatever they had....I would keep. LOL They probably know much better than I would.

wim

I've just started growing bananas, but I've been growing carnivorous plants for over 23 years. A Venus Flytrap is an easy grower.

Just a few rules
- only give it rain water. Tap water or water comming from a (drilled) well may contain chalc and other salts, and even the smallest amount of nutrients (salts) at its roots may kill it.
- if you want to transplant it only use peat, perlite and coarse sand. Rinse the sand several times to remove any salts present. 4 peat/ 1 perlite /1 sand
- that is, a carnivorous plant will dy as soon as there are fertilisers (any salt, chalc) that reach its roots. So you must not fertilise it.
- put it during the growing season in full sun
- it's a swamp plant, keep its soil always wet
- during winter, allow it to go dormant and don't try to feed it during that period or the traps will rot
- if you want a big plant, you can feed it living insects, spiders, ... Only living insects will provoke the plant to digest the captured prey, otherwse the plant will think i'ts a leaf or twig and it will reopen its trap without even trying to digest whatever is captured.
- don't close the traps on purpose with your finger, twig, ... Each trap can't close more often than 5 to 6 times. It takes a lot of energy from the plant to close a trap, you'd only weaken your plant without giving anything in return

So in a nutshell, only give it things that cost nothing, but give plenty of it
- water, use the cheapest (rain water), it's a swamp plant give it lots of water
- licht, sunlight is free, put it in your sunniest window

Happy growing

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With kind regards
Wim

mikevan

VFT's grow in straight peat or spagnum naturally. Peat/Perlite in 50:50 is a common mix. Live spagnum moss is ideal but very difficult to find. Do NOT fertilize them at all! And if you feed the leaves, only feed them live insects. The leaves are only good for one to three feedings and they'll blacken - don't become alarmed when this happens - new leaves are already on the way. The best way to feed these plants is to leave them outside. They should be allowed to go dormant over the winter - leave them on a cool porch and keep only moderately moist. They'll die back to their bulbs. In the Spring they'll wake back up and go back to growing and you can water them more. They prefer rain water - collect and store lots of it. They prefer very wet conditions while growing too - never let them dry out in the least. These are bog plants. Grown this way, you can keep a VFT going for over a decade. Sadly, most sold in stores only last a few months because people are not informed of how to care for them.

Be well,
Mike

Zac in NC

Well I am going to chime in as I live in NC and have seen VFTs in the wild in several localities( including one new place found by myself and another guy). They do not grow in as wet areas as mentioned. They grow in sandy, moist savannahs that burn frequently. I found several last summer while doing research with a graduate student in botany. He is studying fire ecology and we were working on a tract of land that had been cut over 7 years back. The result was a huge growth of understory shrubs into a pocosin type area. In one of our plots, we had a VFT and we were shocked that it was still there. This was in one of our drier plots and it had had Long Leaf pines within the total area and the fact that it had brushy growth which could choke it out. We also found a population in one of the bush-hog road cuts for the hunters to get around in with their ATVs. I am not saying they don't grow in sphagnum in other localities but I have not personally seen them growing in that.

Zac

mikevan

My bad. It grows very well in straight peat or live spagnum. Peaty sandy wet savannahs, often bordering slow streams, ponds and into bogs and whatnot are it's natural habitat and grass-fires are VFT's friend as well as various sarracenias. Tho, I think starting grass-fires in ones pot of VFT's would be... problematic. I know of at least a few people who did that for their inground artificial bogs tho. The pocosin bog appears to be about as ideal as one can get for VFT's. I find it amazing that it's persisting under the brush tho - VFT's like lotsa light. I wonder if the ash also has some beneficial qualities for VFT. Also, under the pines, the pine-peat no doubt was a benefit too.

Cheers,
Mike

Zac in NC

No need to say your bad. I am not disputing how they grow in cultivation. I just wanted to add in some of my information from seeing them in the wild. They are an amazing plant and have some wild adaptations. Hmm, burning in the pot....that could be problematic but if the pot was big enouh, say a community pot with Pitcher Plants and Drosera, it could be beneficial, maybe throw some straw on it and set it on fire. I bet they bloom after that.


Zac

MediaHound

yay lets burn some plants

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Apologies in advance if I am slow to reply to your PM. I suggest posting in the forums for support if you need something urgent.

D_&_T

We just bought a fly trap and found this doing some research, very interesting.

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