Basics of Growing Venus Flytraps

Series Summary

A Venus Flytrap is a carnivorous plant that catches insects for food by snapping it's leaves shut. It does this through a combination of elasticity, turgor and growth. The leaves naturally bend outward but when they are closed the are bend inwards and create the trap. It is still difficult to know how this exactly happens but when small hairs are triggered on the leaves they snap shut catching the prey. It will typically take about 10 days to fully digest this food then reopen. They typically reside in boggy, swampy areas low in nitrogen.

In this free video series you will learn from Wes Major, our expert, about Venus Flytraps and how to raise and maintain them. These traps require a specific environment and are in need of very specific necessities to live. You will learn tips and techniques on how to grow a Flytrap from a seedling to an adult as well as the soil and lighting they will need. Wes will also show you methods of propagation and transplanting Flytraps correctly.

This series is an Equilibrio Films production.

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Wes on behalf of Expert Village.com, and in this video segment I am going to show you how to grow the Venus fly trap. If you want to know more about carnivorous plants and Venus fly traps, you can visit us at equilibriocarnivorousplants.com. In this video segment, I am going to talk to you about basic growing tips for the Venus fly trap. Now a commonly held misconception is that the Venus fly trap is a very difficult plant to grow. This isn’t true necessarily but most people shy away from growing this plant because they are afraid that they are going to kill it as soon as they receive the plant. It is important to know that you really want to replicate the conditions that this plant grows in nature. You want to always think about what the conditions would be like in the Carolina’s. These plants tend to grow in bogged areas, so you need to think very wet. For example, we have these plants growing here in lots and lots of water; soaking in water constantly. They also need poor soil conditions. We are going to talk about that in another later segment. They need absolutely no fertilizer under any circumstances. Also since they grow in the Carolina’s, they need very humid conditions and a lot of light all the time. You want to think 14 or more hours of direct sunlight every day. Another aspect to growing Venus fly traps is that they need a period of winter dormancy. This period is few months where they need to be in conditions of about 30 to 40 degrees. Again this is replicating the conditions that they have in nature, which is the type of conditions that would be happening in the Carolina’s in the January, February and December months. Another thing also that you want to do is, if you want to grow healthy fly traps, is to feed them insects or other types of food, just like things they would get in the wild. "