| Temperature VFTs are not tropical and they are quite tough, they can tolerate temperature from below freezing with care up to about 32 celcius in my experience but should be able to withstand up to 40 celcius with steady introduction to the climate. Thats about 90-100F. |
| Light VFTs prefer strong light when not in dormancy and i've grown mine on the south-east facing windowsill, it should get at least 6 hours of sunlight a day and the ones i grown outsdoors are in excellent shape. Around here I found that growing VFTs on south, south-east, south-west, east, or west facing windowsill all works. I've moved around a lot so had a lot of chances to experiment. |
| Dionaea muscipula aka Venus Fly Trap |
| Perhaps the most famous plant in the whole world with it's moving trap that can catch flies within 1/30th second if optimum conditions are given. Lots of CP grower like myself started in the hobby with a venus fly trap but I'm amongst the lucky ones who didn't kill their first VFT. This plant comes from the North and South Carolina and contrary to common belief it is not tropical and is quite easy to keep when you know what to do. It is a perennial herbaceous carnivore with thick rhizome roots a few inches long when mature and a fully developed plant can have a rosette of leaves up to 8 inches in diameter. Each leaf consists of a narrow petiole with a clam like trap on the end and there's about 7-10 leaves per plant. During the spring season VFTs produce shorter wider and generally flatter leaves and during summer the leaves start to become narrow and more upright. |
| The trap mechanism of the VFT is one of the most facinating in CPs and the exact mechanism is still on debate. There are two halves to the trap and there are 3 sensor hairs on each side, when the insect is tasting the nectar that lines the edge of the trap it may touch the hairs depending on the size thus only insects large enough are captured. When the sensor hairs are touched, at least 2 hairs or twice on the same hair need to be touched for the trap to close. The teeth like hairs lining the border of the trap intermesh to form a cage when the trap closes and the insect is normally trapped. With further movement the sensor hairs are trigger further and the trap closes tightly so it doesn't waste time digesting inanimate objects. For the next week or so the soft parts of the insect is broken down by enzymes and absorbed through the leaves leaving only the skeleton remains of the insect this may attract more insect into the trap. A trap will die when it has digest 2-3 meals and this is replaced by new growth. |
| VFT Cultivation |
| Water The most important part of cultivation of any CP i believe has to be water quality. VFTs prefer slightly acidic water this doesn't mean you can add vinegar to the water. Rain water is the best, otherwise use pure distilled water, reverse osmosis water or deionised water. Tap water normally contains too much minerals and kills your plant in long term. Do not use commercial bottled water since most contains minerals should not be used at all. |
| Soil Most Cps live in nutrient free soil so the best and maybe the only thing to use for VFT is sphagnum moss peat and in Britain they are often labelled as Irish moss peat. Peat is low in pH and is very dense so for healthy growth of plants a soil looserner such as sand should be added. Personally i use a 1:1 ratio of peat and perlite. Perlite is heated rocks and are very light that they float in water, they trap air and water giving room for roots to develope. I prefer perlite to sand is that sand washes out as you water whilst perlite does not due to their larger grain size. Outdoors they can be annoying in which they float so i add pure peat to the top half inch of the pot to prevent them from floating up. |
| Container VFTs do well in plastic pots and i would think any pot with drainage holes would be fine as long as the water quality is good since clay pots can trap minerals from water that will eventually kill the plant. A 4-5 inch pot would be fine for 1 VFT but as they get older the plant may split into more than one inside the pot thus a bigger pot should be used or the plants should be separated as described in propagation section. |
| Watering VFTs do best on the water tray system, this is where the pot is placed in a tray with water of about an inch in height, VFTs do not like to be waterlogged constantly so let the water in the tray evaporate before adding the water level back to an inch. Water from the top is not recommended as this may trigger traps and waste the plant's energy. The soil must be damp to wet at all times. |
| diagrams soon |
| Humidity VFTs aren't as fussy about humidity as some other CPs and if kept on water tray system they should be just fine. However in full sun if the humidity get too low the leaves may burn, spraying with pure water can solve the problem easily. |
| Feeding The fun part, feeding food to your plant. Remeber they are plants with leaves to photosynthesis and they can survive without food indefinitely but for healthy plants they need bugs. If you leave your plant outdoors then there won't be any need for feeding as they can catch plenty for themselves. However if you grow your plant indoors upto 5 bugs can be fed to your plant per month, overfeeding can kill your plant. The size of the food should be 1/3 the size of the trap you're going to feed it to since any larger the trap may not close properly and the rotting food can lead to fungus or mold infection. Flies, fruitflies, small crickets, spiders, small slugs, small snails with crushed shells can all be used. Just don't feed it anything you would eat since meat has too much fat that will kill the plant. Stick to bugs and I feed my plants spiders are you can drop them into the trap when they're dangling from a silk string so they trigger the trap themselves and they're not as disgusting as flies or slugs. |
| Pests Flowering Propagation Dormancy |
| Pest Throughout my years of growing a typical Venus fly trap i have never encountered any pests, this may be due to my indoor growing conditions. Recent years I have been experimenting with outdoor cultivation |