How to grow venus fly traps
How to grow venus fly trapsTo many people's surprise, the Venus flytrap is not native to some tropical, exotic country or steamy rainforest. The Venus flytrap is native only to the coast of North and South Carolina, in a radius roughly 100 miles around Wilmington.
It is a small rosette plant, generally six to eight inches in diameter. The leaves consist of leaf stems, or petrels, that may be heart-shaped and flat on the ground, or thin and upright. The trap is the actual true leaf, and sits at the end of the petrel. The traps lure insects by nectar, secreted by glands at the base of the spinney celia, or "teeth". Inside of the trap are 6 to 8 tiny trigger hairs. An insect needs to touch two hairs once or one hair twice in order to spring the trap. The trap will close in less than a second, in ideal conditions, and if an insect is caught, the trap will seal shut and start secreting digestive juices. If the trap closes empty, it will slowly open in about a day. It may take a week to digest a housefly, and when the trap reopens, the shriveled shell of the insect is left behind. A trap may catch and digest up to three insects, after which the leaf turns black. Older leaves blacken and die regardless of how many insects are caught and the plant continually sends out new leaves during the growing season.
Venus flytraps usually grow along the dampish edges of sandy, wet bogs or fens. The plant begins its growth each spring, sending out a resette of small leaves. Usually the plant flowers around April or May. Summer arrives and the plant produces its larger leaves, often on upright petrels. Some plants remain rosetted all season. With the approach of autumn, flytraps get small. In winter they are dormant, with tiny leaves or no leaves at all. In their native habitat, Venus flytraps enjoy a warm and humid summer, and winters are chilly, with occasional extreme lows down to near 10 degrees F and sometimes lower. From seed, it may take a flytrap 4 to 6 years to reach maturity. They may live several decades.
Venus flytraps grow best in plastic pots. A 4 inch pot is fine for one flytrap. Five to ten plants will grow well in 6 to 8 inch pots. Cover the holes at the bottom of the pot with plastic screen or some long-fibered sphagnum moss, to hold in the soil. The soil itself should be a well-mixed recipe of 1/2 sphagnum peat moss and 1/2 horticultural sand.
Set the pot in a large saucer. To water the plant, it is easiest to simply add water into the saucer than watering the plant overhead. Try to maintain at least an inch or so of water in the saucer all of the time. When the water has just about evaporated, add more. The soil must be kept...
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