FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi all,

I am very new to plants of any description. My only success with plants is being able to kill them in very short order.

So, I wanted to try a Venus flytrap but the only one I could find was reduced to clear due to it being close to death anyway. I thought that this maybe something to start with, at the worst case, it would only speed up the usual outcome However, after a day with water and under a cheap LED propagator it has gone greener. I am unsure how wet the soil needs to be, and also I do not know if I need to trim the really dead bits off it. Having seen that I have given some life to my little plant, I would love to see it get really healthy again. Any suggestions?

The light you have it under is not nearly enough. Flytraps need 4 to 6 hours of unobstructed direct sunlight (no window) at a minimum. Indoors they require very strong lights for an extended period of time, often 16 hours. If you can look at the light and it is not uncomfortable, the light is not strong enough. You should only be watering with distilled, reverse osmosis, or rain water. Using tap water may kill the plant, depending on the water chemistry. That pot should sit in a plastic tray that will hold about 1/2 inch of water. Allow the tray to dry out before refilling it.

What Panman said is pretty much the sum of flytrap culture. There's really no way to skirt around the different aspects of flytrap care that he mentioned. Flytraps are truly an *outdoor* plant. Where are you located? Just a general area will help folks give you advice.

A couple of things that I notice about your setup...

1. The pot. It looks like you are using a pot that has a snap-on saucer to it. It really is better to have a separate pot and saucer/tray setup. You can better control the amount of water in the separate saucer. You definitely do not want a pot that has no drain holes!

2. Grow mix. What type of "soil" are you using. A standard mix is a 1-to-1 mixture of peat to perlite. The grow mix in the pot doesn't look like that type of mix....??? What are you using? "Potting soil" is a gigantic "NO!!!". Also, definitely no Miracle-Gro products...they all contain at least a small amount of added fertilizer which is deadly for flytraps.

3. I take it that you bought the flytrap at a local store of some type...hardware, Walmart, grocery, etc.,. It probably had been growing in poor conditions there under dim light. Taking it from that environment and throwing it in full sun would most likely burn it. So, your propagator light, though weak, is probably helping to acclimate it to brighter lighting than it had. But, it will adapt to a point where it will definitely need more light than what that lamp can provide (see Panman's remarks about lighting).

4. Regarding trimming the "really dead bits off" I don't see much to trim. If a part is green to much of any extent then it is making food/sugar through photosynthesis and the plant needs the energy that it provides in order to grow. Flytraps don't get food from their roots *or* from their traps...the bugs they may catch act as *fertilizer*. Photosynthesis is what gives the plant LIFE.

Hopefully some of the above will help you and your plant.

Okay, so that wasn't a "couple"!

The fly trap isn't too too bad like panman said it needs way more light though as there is little to no coloration and they look green which usually means they have little sunlight unless its a certain cultivar. And tray water it.