how to care for venus fly traps very very thorough info dump
LONG LONG LOOOONG text warning
general tips/care:
use ONLY distilled or rain water. use ONLY plastic, glazed terracotta, or glass pots. (PLEASE MAKE SURE THERE’S DRAINAGE HOLES)
PLEASE NO FERTILIZER 😢
the soil requirements are no nutrients in the soil, and make sure there’s good water retention and good drainage. Many people (including myself) use a mix of peat moss and perlite, in a ratio of 50/50. You can also use sphagnum moss.
a VFT can live in a small pot but they LOOOOVE taller, deeper pots, as they like to sink their roots down deep. This will probably help them do better as well.
as a general rule, you only have to repot every 2 years (one if you’re using sphagnum moss). Make sure to repot at the end of dormancy so that your plant suffers the smallest amount of repotting shock.
in the summer (75 degrees and up)
watering:
make sure your pot is sitting in a tray filled with water at all times. Again only use glass, plastic, or glazed terracotta for the tray as well.
They LOVE water, and are swamp plants. you should let it air out every once in a while though, to prevent root rot.
(I like to take them out of their tray once or twice a week in the evening and put them back in at around 10am. However you do it is up to your preference and judgment though. The sun kills a lot of fungus and bacteria but i like to play it safe.)
you keep it in a tray and should water the tray instead of the pot to prevent triggering the traps which suck up energy. The water level doesn’t matter all that much, though just make sure its at a level where the pot can suck uo water from the bottom, and not so much to where its getting waterlogged. sunlight: a vft should be getting 8+ hours of direct sunlight a day. if you live in an area where you can’t supply that, you can also use growlights (more talk on those later)
if your vft is a deep green, the leaves are thin, plant is small, and the traps are small, then its not getting enough sunlight. It depends on the cultivar, but most flytraps get redder in their trap with the better sunlight they get if your vft is yellow, or a really pale green, and the middle of the traps are really pale, and there’s brown or black spots on their leaves, you could be giving too much light (this is kinda hard to do though, without the help of a growlight.)
also if you live in a hot climate where you’re regularly getting 97f degrees and above, i suggest supplying a little shade mid day or growing them in a south facing windowsill with a growlight
fall (74-47 degrees F)
watering
Fill the tray with a little less water than you would in the summer. you should generally refill the tray 1-3 days after it empties completely.
if the weather is from 55-47 F though, i’d wait a week before watering and go even lower on the water level.
sunlight
they should be having around 7-4 hours of sunlight, but this just widely depends on what time of year it is for you. The beginning of fall they could still be getting full sun, but its best to start dwindling for dormancy.
winter (45 degrees f or lower)
Sunlight
Sunlight is not needed at all at this point. You could still let them get some sun but i wouldn’t mess with anything above 3 hours a day of direct light.
watering
So long as its the above posted tempersture, you really don’t have to water your vfts thst much at all. Only twice a month AT MOST and make sure thst water level is playing limbo with how low it is. root rot is probably going to be your biggest worry. Its cold so water is going to stay in soil for a LOOONG time, and your plant is dormant so it’s not going to be using much (if not any) either.
spring (same temps as fall)
Honestly do the same as fall just backwards. You might notice towards the rhizome, there is some salmon pink ish coloring, they tend to do that after dormancy as its natural sunscreen, its not a sunburn dw.
dormancy care
if you are in an area where you do not get an adequate winter, of stable temperatures of 45F or below for 2 months, i suggest putting the VFTS in the refrigerator.
I actually did this over the winter and had no issues, i just stuck the tray in the bottom of the fridge and checked on them every once in a while, but there’s videos on youtube on how to properly prep the VFTS for the fridge. if you’re in an area where you get REALLY low temperatures like in the 20s or below i suggest looking on reddit or youtube or something because i have no clue on what to do but i think they’re safe
you might notice a lot of the flytrap leaves start to die towards the end of the growing season, this is NORMAL and just part of the cycle. They will grow their traps much lower to the ground and closer together, this is just them prepping for dormancy.ALSO THEY GROW BACK WHEN THEY GO OUT OF DORMANCY YAYAYAY
A tip is to make sure you’re cutting off dead leaves with clean (small) scissors. They are decaying matter that holds a lot of water and can lead to root rot in the colder temps. (They aren’t that big of a deal in the warmer temps though, whether or not you trim them is up to you.)
BABY FLYTRAPS YAYAYAY
This honestly depends on the cultivarfor how fast thus happens, and whether or not the plant is mature, but you might notice REALLY tiny baby fkytraps at the base of your adult fkytrap. CONGRATULATIONS 🎉 🎉🎉 YOU HAVE A BABY WOOO WOOP!!!
In all seriousness though, VFTs reproduce in 2 ways. From seed or something similar to mitosis. If a tiny fkytrao is growing at the base thats the mitosis ish thing.
basically a healthy flytrap will start to grow another flytrap at it’s rhizome. This is a separate flytrap and you could keep it there or separate it in its own pot. I suggest waiting a little to let it mature a little before separating. in the spring you might notice a stem start to grow instead of a trap. This is a flower stalk
whether or not you cut it off is up to you but be warned flowering takes a lot of energy, and if your vft is weaker or you just want to focus on growing, it s probably best to cut it off. The flower stalk is also how you get seeds. A vft flower needs to be pollinated from another vft ‘s flower, and they have to get pollinated in order for seeds to be harvested. A vft will usually make 3-10 flowers, in which they each bloom for about a day or two and then the next one opens up.
also be warned vft seeds take a LOOONG time and require a lot of humidity and patience, but possible to germinate. Vfts are VERY slow growers when they first start out so just know growing from seed might not be the best option if you’re really exited about owning a flytrap for the first time.
THE ULTIMATE QUESTION 😱😱😱
Can you stick your finger in the trap? YES
it will not hurt your finger at all. It’ll feel a little wet but it feels really nice, like your plant is holding your hand. The trap closes when you touch two trigger hairs within 20 seconds
HOWEVER
triggering a flytrap to close takes up a good amount of energy.
when you first get your flytrap you can put your finger in the traps a couole of times but i’d only do it once a month per trap afterwards because it really isn’t good for the plant.
If it is a false trigger, usually the trap will open back up throughout the course of a day.
if a flytrap is digesting a meal, it will usually open back up within a week or a coupke of weeks, this just depends.
also really cool thing: after it opens back up, it leaves the exoskeleton of the bug and they’re fun to look at.
also note: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FEED YOUR VFT 🎉🎉🎉🎉 you can if you want to but honestly i wouldnt do it more thwn twice a month because they dont need bugs *THAT* much in the first place
these are some random diagrams that gets you more familiar with flytrap anatomy (SURPRISINGLY COMPLICATED!?!?!???) i just found these at the top results of a google image search lmao
also other stuff
WHY ARE FLYTRAPS SO PARTICULAR (DO NOT DO THESE THINGS PLEASEEEE)
they HATE nutrients. the minerals in normal water burn their roots, and pots made of terracotta, wood, metal, etc will leach in nutrients which will slowly kill your plant. (Though normal water is a FAST killer.)
Also dont feed them human food. Too much salt/ some form of thing that flytrsos would get poisoned by. Just stick to them catching their own bugs and they’ll be fine.
origin story
vfts (as well as a lot of carnivorous plants) come from parts of the carolinas in the usa, where its swampy and is constantly rained out. This causes all the nutrients to be washed away from the land, so the whole reason they are carnivorous is because they get their nutrients from eating bugs instead of absorbing nutrients from their roots.
FINAL NOTE:
This is a ton of information, and yes they are quite picky.
HOWEVER
so long as you supply their basic needs, venus flytraps are incredibly hardy. Its actually surprisingly hard to kill one so long as you know how to take care of them
they’re also surprisingly low maintenance once you get everything established
you might have to do to some work at the beginning and end of the growing seaosn but its not much. For most of the year you can just have them in a spot outside (with the right amount of sun) and refill the water when it needs it. I’d say it’s difficult obtaining the water *sometimes* but once you get in a groove (and collect rain water) it gets really easy. they’re certainly the most fun plants to grow out of all the ones i have, and they’re actually the plants i started out with when j first tried gardening. i also do suggest these for beginners because THEYRE SO FUN and with how hardy they are its really nice.
as far as cultivars go, as a first time grower i suggest just the standard upright grower flytrap, but if you have a disposable income, you can buy the DC-XL flytrap. (You can buy them online here) #notsponsored. The DC-XL is the hardiest flytrap cultivar in the world and can grow really big. I actually managed to get my hands on one. Its a baby right now but uts going to get BIGG as an adult.
i think that’s enough yapping but if you’re passionate about wanting flytraps i also suggest research on youtube and also various forums on what other people have to say. Its really fun to learn about
🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛
@velvetring1