Growing Venus fly traps

Hi, I've tried to grow some Venus fly traps with mixed success, out of the 5 seeds I've planted in compost only 2 have grown, I planted them in compost in a sunny window coveted with a clear plastic bag, I watered them often, why have only 2 grown?

The 2 that have grown will need putting in bigger pots, so what size pots will I need, how big will the grow, how do I look after them going forward and how many will be needed to become a fly free house, I live in a 3 bedroom semi.

I have about another 12 seeds and what to make sure I have more success with these, what help and advice can anyone give me to help this a successful mission.

Regards Keith

 

You better buy some insecticide in the meantime...they are not the easiest plants to grow.

 

Venus fly traps aren't going to keep your house insect free.

As fascinating as they are for a few days until the novelty wears off, they are not that effective really. I've had a few over the years.

They are only a small plant. The biggest mouth on one will manage a blue bottle, but nothing bigger than that. Flies aren't that attracted to the mouths, so they don't catch much. When a mouth does snap shut on a fly, that mouth is out of action for a couple of weeks, and even when it does reopen, often they are no good after a meal. If a mouth snaps shut and misses (rare, but it does happen), then quite often that mouth will die. Sometimes a mouth snaps shut on a fly that is half in and half out. When that happens, quite often that mouth becomes infected and dies.

Ironically, one of the biggest threats to venus fly traps is aphids, which make short work of them if you don't watch out.

The thing is with venus fly traps as a house plant, is that we can't realistically create an environment for them that is anything like their natural home. The live in marshes in the sunnier parts of America. We can give them the wet peaty soil that they'd get in the marsh, but the sunshine is going to be a struggle, and I guess their natural hunting success probably comes from the fact that marshes in hot locations tend to be teaming with flies.

 

Great idea Keith but as far as a fly free home goes, forget it. They are fun plants to grow and watch and you've done very well to grow from seed but they ain't domestic fly killers.

 

If you really are interested in them then I suggest buying an established plant.
As they do not make much in the way of roots they are best kept in a small pot.
By the way I presume you were using rain water.

 

I read somewhere once you can cheat and feed them frozen magets or dead insects from pet shop. Mite help it grow faster but to be honest I have never tried it myself

 

Doesn't work very well in my experience. It is possible to overfeed a venus fly trap, and then they just seem to die. I think the ideal balance is to have no more than half the mouthes on the plant in action at any given time.

The trouble with manually feeding them is the risk of injury to the delicate mouth parts of the plant. They are quite sophisticated (amazing really) in that inside each mouth there are a total of six trigger hairs (3 on each half of the mouth). The plants have evolved a clever trick to reduce the risk of a false trigger such as a breeze sweeping over them. At least two of these delicate trigger hairs has to be knocked in fairly quick succession, but not too quick, about half a second apart. Too quick and the plant dismisses it as a false alarm, too long a gap between signals and nothing happens, it has to be just right, like a fly walking about in there.

So to feed them manually, you need to use a pair of tweezers to hold the victim, and rub him against the trigger hairs (which are delicate), taking care not to bust the trigger hairs or scratch the delicate lining on the inside of the mouth. Also, because once they do snap shut, they do so faster than you or I can react, so you'd have a job getting the tweezers out of the way before the mouth shuts on them, and the 'teeth' (the interlocking hairs that prevent any escape) get bent.

 

Wow that's quite interesting clueless. I had tried to feed my fly trap with some dead flies from around the house using tweezers, and was sometimes frustrated the plant did not take the dead fly right away! (thought I had a dud plant) lol but now I know why.

 

I had loads of these at one point, a mate said if I propagated them he would sell them at local fairs.
Well I propagated, and ................. he's not a mate anymore. :D

I used to feed them on cheese, just a very small piece of course in the traps, the trap would die afterwards but that's how they grow, a trap rarely catches more than one fly.
It relies on producing more traps and crowns all the time.

One thing I did notice, after getting the trap to close, you need to agitate the trap for a while, maybe 30 seconds or so, otherwise it just reopens and never digests the food.

 

They are completely unable to digest fat, so cheese wouldn't be the best thing to give them. As far as I know, the only bit they take from the insect prey is the protein.

 

I did it and they grew, didn't do it all the time though, just as a kind of treat:D
So how do they extract the protein, I'm thinking they use digestive juices.
A bit like we do.
And maybe, like us they just use the part they want.

Does cheese contain protein?

 

Yes it does, whey protein.

 

Thanks Ziggy just looked it up.

Casein appears to be the substance but other than using it for glue I dont know much about it.

 

I eat a casein protein bar sometimes from Holland and barret It's really nice, maybe you could feed that to the plant

 

Dont see why not H