FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Fuggle wrote: ↑Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:17 pm Hi guys,
I've had my VFT for about 16 months now and I have never put it into dormancy. To be honest, until I read about it on this site, I didn't know you had to. I have attached a couple of pics of my VFT's in the hopes that someone can tell me whether I need to get them prepared for dormancy and if so, what do I do?

I live in a small, 2 bedroomed flat (apartment) in the Southeast of England and have no garden. The 2nd bedroom is a spare room so I can use that. The room does get light during the day as there are only net curtains (sheers), but it does stay pretty cold as we rarely use it except for storage. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I'm fairly new to this and keen to turn it from a curiosity into a full-blown hobby!

Hello! You can do fridge dormancy. Here's what I do: In mid – October once the plants are well into the start of dormancy I drain off excess water from the pots, hit them with a SULFUR based fungicide and place in zip lock bags and pop them in the fridge for 3 - 3 1/2 months. I occasionally check them (once a month) for fungus and hit with the fungicide if needed. Late winter around February 1st I take them out and clean them up, repot any that need it, hit them with SULFUR based fungicide again and place in a south and west window and some under florescent and white 'daylight' LED lights until night time temps. regularly stay above freezing then slowly acclimate them to full outdoor Sun. I've been using this method for 13 years with no losses.

Hello,
I don’t know if my Venus fly trap is dormant, ill or not even in dormancy. My plant is outside in temperatures that are 6 and 7 degrees Celsius. I got the plant from a hardware store in April and it has been growing in open sun and is really healthy. I put it under a cover when it is raining. Some things that may indicate dormancy on my plant is that the traps are sleepy (slow to react) or don’t react. Also some of the traps seem to have weird shapes. Most of my traps haven’t turned black maybe because my plant is greener in variety.Finally the plant growth seems to have slowed down but there are still new traps coming.

Here is a pic

That sounds like dormancy to me.

That’s good

I thought it wasn’t in dormancy because all the leaves are green

Some flytraps will retain their current leaves and just slow down growth and put off smaller leaves. Other ones will lose just about every leave they have. Matt posted a good video about dormancy on YouTube but I don't have the link off hand.

Panman wrote:Some flytraps will retain their current leaves and just slow down growth and put off smaller leaves. Other ones will lose just about every leave they have. Matt posted a good video about dormancy on YouTube but I don't have the link off hand.

Found it on page 27 of this thread

Thanks for the help. One more question. Some of the traps seemed to be deformed or ugly. Is that because the plant is in dormancy, traps are old, pesticides, etc?

KPRA wrote:Thanks for the help. One more question. Some of the traps seemed to be deformed or ugly. Is that because the plant is in dormancy, traps are old, pesticides, etc?

It looks like some sort of pest damage, most likely aphid damage, that deformed the leaves.

Should I use pesticides? If I need to what pesticide should I use? Also your video on dormancy was really helpful.

KPRA wrote:Should I use pesticides? If I need to what pesticide should I use?

I just took a closer look at the photo and I can see the aphids down near the crown. Given that fact, yes, I'd recommend a spray with an insecticide.

The good news is that aphids are easy to kill and there are a lot of options out there that will all do the job. I've never had any ill effects when using insecticides on Venus flytraps at recommended dosages, so I'd recommend just picking an insecticide out at the local store (would be good if it specified aphids as one of the pests it works on) and following the instructions on the label.

Thanks

Hey,I have question

I just bought those plants and I think they are too big and many for pots thise size,I want to repot,but as I know,Its safer to repot durring dormancy. here's the question?Are these plants looking like dormant? They had flower stalks and too many leaves for dormant

First off, those are some nice-looking VFTs! Where are you, in CA right now, all my VFTs are out of Dormancy. I reppoted all my flytraps in mid-summer and they did fine. As long as it's before late spring it should be OK.

Yeah, I mean honestly the only thing that may happen is it'll get set back a bit. Ideally you'd do it right before they wake up but if they were flowering then they weren't dormant. Perhaps they've recently woken up. Very nice plants though. You'll probably have a good amount of individual plants lol. Best to get yourself a large pot and give them room to grow. Have a huge pot of them before you know it