FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi all, I have a number of VFTs that showed signs of breaking dormancy, so I've been giving them several hours of mild sun for about 10 days. Almost all of the leaves/traps were from last year's growth and most stayed green all winter. Now they're starting to turn a pale yellow, but I think this is ok, given that they're old leaves. I'm being careful to not overwater, just keeping the media damp. I looked up a few articles and most agreed that this is normal and the new growth will come in green. I'll get a pic tomorrow.
I'm more of a sundews kinda person. What's the opinion of the flytrap gurus here?

Hard to tell without a picture, but in a lot of locations vft will look worse after being placed outside after dormancy and then start to take off months later. My outside plants look like pure poo right now. They are alternating between freezing and burning. They typically wake up fully in May and peak in July and then go inside for dormancy in November. I’m in zone 6a/6b. Most of my plants are still inside because of unstable freezing weather.

Sounds like we're in similar hardiness zones (central AZ). I'll get a pic posted tomorrow. Thanks!

Here's a pic of the plants this morning:

So they look light starved. When they’re that pale, they will burn no matter how hard you try to acclimate them to outdoor sunlight. The good news is that you can just toss them out into full sunlight. These traps will burn, but the new traps will come in green and fully hardened off to sunlight.

I’m in Maryland, the spring weather here is really unpredictable. We’ll have a high of 80° one day and 30° the next. My outside traps are currently freezing, thawing, and burning, lol. Most likely your traps will look a lot worse before they fully come out of dormancy. If you have four full seasons (freezing winters and unbearably hot summers) like I have, your plants will look their best around July.

Just an example from last year (the worst growing season ever!): In May, my outside traps in styrofoam coolers looked as bad as they have ever looked. In July, they weren’t too shabby at all, except for some beetle and caterpillar bites.

Yeah, AZ winters here can get into blizzard conditions sometimes and the summers are typically in the 90s. These plants lived in the garage all winter and only got back into the sun about 10 days ago. They stayed really green until they got outside when they started fading, but as you said they'll get used to it. Thanks for the info!