FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I have had a small pot of Venus Flytraps for a week now, i've been watering them properly and giving them a good amount of natural sunlight. But they're not growing long stalks unlike most flytraps i see online, am i doing something wrong? Or does it take longer for them to grow?

Sorry, i meant the heads are not growing stalks. They're still on the ground.

Without a picture, we won't be able to tell you anything.

A single week seems an awfully short time to me. IMHO it takes several weeks for a single specific leaf/trap to grow from start to maturity, with several of different ages growing, and existing leaves/traps won't change their form once they've grown (or maybe even once they've started growing). The Lowe's rescue I got about 2 months ago started with several long skinny limp leaves that didn't stand up at all and they stayed like that (other than turning fully red in the sun, which new leaves didn't). New leaves it's produced are tall and upright and have gradually gotten much wider.

The "before" here is about 1 week after rescue/repot/direct into full sun. The "after" is about 5 or 6 weeks later. A different brand from a different store I got about 2 weeks ago and potted in peat+perlite instead has yet to show any evidence of growth so I'm not sure if it's going to be happy or not. It may be very unhappy that I split it while it wasn't dormant.

Vickers wrote:I have had a small pot of Venus Flytraps for a week now, i've been watering them properly and giving them a good amount of natural sunlight. But they're not growing long stalks unlike most flytraps i see online, am i doing something wrong? Or does it take longer for them to grow?

Patience young Grasshopper. These plants take weeks and weeks for a leaf to start, grow, mature, and a new trap to open. And that's for a plant that's acclimated to the conditions you can provide.
You've had it a week, it's in a little bit of shock due to having changed environments and conditions, and you should expect it to actually decline and look worse before it gets better.
Keep it in the sun, keep the media moist, and wait. It'll take time, but, as long as you provide for its needs, it'll come around.

That being said, define "watering them properly" and "natural sunlight".
Are we talking tap water filling a tray, sitting in a windowsill? Or a half inch of rain/distilled water added to a tray after the tray dries up, sitting outside in the sun?

Thank you for responding. I leave them on my windowsill where it gets the most sunlight in my house, and i water the dirt carefully when it's slightly moist, not leaving it soggy but not leaving it dry.

You are doing something right. I see 2 new starts there.

Vickers wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 5:16 pm Thank you for responding. I leave them on my windowsill where it gets the most sunlight in my house, and i water the dirt carefully when it's slightly moist, not leaving it soggy but not leaving it dry.

Well, not to be mean, but expect it to slowly decline over the next several months until it eventually dies. A sunny windowsill is insufficient for the lighting needs of this plant. It needs direct sunlight or very strong artificial lighting. In fact, a cloudy day is more beneficial in terms of lighting than a sunny windowsill.
Good luck.

You can get a desk lamp and a ceiling-strength LED bulb of compatible wattages and use those to light a flytrap. The desk lamp has to be pretty close, so you have to stop the flytrap growing its leaves into the bulb and getting scorched, but it works.

As to the shape of it, it needs more time to be sure, but there are some flytrap varieties that have short stems and keep the traps right up against the ground. You may simply have a squat flytrap. Give it a couple months under appropriate light and see what it does.