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Quick Tips for your Venus flytrap
The Venus Fly trap likes as much light as it can get.
A south-facing windowsill is ideal. The traps can grow red
on their inner traps if they are getting sufficient light,
although completely green traps work just are fine. Venus flytraps
respond well to artificial lighting such as fluorescent grow
light. A photoperiod of 16 18 hours is recommended
during the active growing season.
Grow the plant in live or shredded sphagnum moss or in
specially prepared carnivorous plant mix. Never use ordinary compost, as this
is most likely to contain extra nutrients in the soil, which could be enough
to kill off your plant!
NEVER give it fertilizer of any kind. This will do the
plant untold damage since it should get its nutrients from the insects it catches,
not the soil.
Stand the pot in a saucer of water, rainwater or distilled
water you van purchase very cheaply. You should aim to keep about 1/4 to 1/2
inch in the saucer at all times, so the soil stays evenly damp.
Note: During the winter, reduce the watering
to a minimum, only once per week or even once every two weeks, just so the
soil doesn't dry out completely.
Also, there is no need to water the top of the
plant at all, just let the plant soak up the water from a tray or saucer.
Avoid low humidity. Keep well above 50%. If you live in a
dry climate, you will not be able to grow these without a terrarium
or humid enclosure.
Resist the temptation to trigger the traps; each closing
of the traps will lose the plant some more energy. Obviously, if the plant
isn't catching food with these closures, it will slowly get weaker.
Snip off the rotten, brown leaves as they die away. It
wont harm the plant to leave them lying around but they sure look unsightly
after a while.
If you do feed it DON'T use dead insects. This is
because the traps need their hairs to be continually triggered for a time to
allow the digestive enzymes to be released. The trap will then reopen
in a few days, without dissolving the food.
If your plant hasn't caught anything recently and you're
getting worried, see if you can catch an alive or semi-alive insect that's
still moving about. Drop it into a trap and is should perform the required
movement to get itself eaten!
If you do get a flower stem growing out of the middle of
your flytrap and the plant is still small (under 4 inches diameter)
its a good idea to cut it off because the plant looses
too much energy producing the stem.
These plants can be grown outdoors, especially if you
live in warmer climates of the world. However, if you live in a part of the
world where your winters are cold, you will need to bring you plants in before
the first frost sets in.
Any seeds produced can be planted onto shredded sphagnum
moss or pure perlite. It helps to keep the temperature relatively
warm - 70 to 80 °F (21-26 °C) |
