Hello fellow members, Being that I am not a seasoned botanist or train in horticulture I am here to ask for help. I had won a Venus flytrap in a raffle. Being that I disdain insects, anything that contains and eliminates them is more than welcome. The problem is that my flytrap, well, does not trap. Despite being in the presence of fireflies (Coleoptera: Lampyridae), having half a firefly (split at the thorax) inserted by tweezers onto the “trigger hairs” and having said insects legs stroke the “trigger hairs” the leaves did not close. Perhaps this is due to the plant’s condition? I have noticed on dead talk (black in color) and all but one pair of leaves closed shut. Being that it is of vested interest to me that my plant survives, how do I appropriately feed it? I currently understand the following: only distilled water is to be used, it came in a humid plastic cup henceforth it required humid conditions and individual traps open and close four times before dying. I am assuming that a diet possible consisting of wasps, fireflies, spiders, silverfish (Lepisma saccharina) I have to I thank anyone who can provide assistance. I will try to help other with what limited knowledge I can muster or research.
I have killed many a VFT from "force" feeding it. In the wild it grows in low/nil nutrient bogs, so to supplement their diet, they have evolved to feeding off insects. If you plant is in some good soil, it will be getting all the nutrients it needs. If this is the case do not feed it insects... Ed
Silly me, how could I have forgotten about nutrient saturation with in the soil. I am assuming that ‘soil’, which is not mostly composed of gravel or pebbles, is to be considered “good soil.” On a side note, I am curious to why my PGP signature was removed from my post. Out of unaggressive curiosity I wish to know why. Being that such a signature is used to determine unseen editing of one’s posts
What is the compelling reason for it to be there? From my point of view, as a forum admin, I only see disadvantages: 1) A long string of human-unreadable text is not going to compel responses from a fairly nontechnical crowd, so you're doing yourself a disservice. 2) I receive plenty of emails from people wondering about spam / viruses. Anything that looks odd to them can be cause for concern, and rightly so. I'm not going to try and explain PGP-signed messages to everybody who asks.
Upon consideration, you do have a number of proven points. Perhaps it is possible to become too accustomed to non-mainstream methods.
