Hi everyone. I am new at gardening. I have a venus flytrap I just bought a couple days ago and was wondering what should I feed it. Thanks in advance. Mr.big
Flies!! They'll eat about 2 or 3 flies per month during the summer, less in winter when it goes dormant. If the plant is in a place where it can't get flies naturally, you can buy small baby crickets from pet stores, people buy them for their lizards. Usually the crickets are large, but you can ask them for small baby ones that will be perfect for the flytrap. NEVER FEED IT HAMBURGER! I've heard people say you can feed the plants hamburger meat, but this can easily kill them due to the fat content. Don't do it!! Make sure to keep the plant moist, they like to sit in water. They like it humid, and do well in terrariums. Don't spring the trap with your finger, because this takes the plant's energy and it can die if it's done too much. Have fun with your new plant! :)
Uhm I you could feed it small garden spiders depending on how big it is. The food should be about 1/3 of the size of the trap. I was told that you can also feed them caterpillars, crickets and slugs, again, depending on the size. I also just recently got one and it's fairly small...well! I hope I was some help.
I am trying to get it in more sunlight It has lots of babies growning so we will have to see how things are going. :-D How is your plant going?
Thanks for your reply. Hopefully I can keep it going I will have to see what pet stores have crickets. Should they be live or ones are ready dead.
Alive is best. Don't feed them more than once a month, as too much food can kill them. They also don't even need to eat flies at all to survive, and underfeeding them is always better than overfeeding. I fed mine a mosquito the other night, he seemed to enjoy that very much. I enjoyed watching him eat something that had been trying to eat me!
Since it hasn't been mentioned yet - water only with distilled water, unless your water supply is already extremely soft. Hard water full of calcium is lethal to them.
Mine is doing great given the fact that it looked quite pathetic when I recieved it. It's growing new traps now. Here is a photo... My Venus Flytrap
Yikes! I've been watering with plain tap water and we have extremely hard water. It seems to be doing okay though. I will get some distilled water just in case.
I fill a plastic cup full of water and leave it out overnight and use over the next little while and refill it when it is really low. This seems to work and I moved into a shady spot in my window where it gets partial light and it is doing really well. I have a couple new sprouts coming out as well
I've never heard of a Venus flytrap named Ashleigh before! :-) Put a flowering Stapelia (carrion-flower) next to it. That'll bring 'em in.
HI there everyone. I finally came up with a name for my venus flytrap plant. Itś name is Boris. Can anyone guess why I picked the name Boris.
mememe, you just missed one opportunity - I picked one up at the UBC Indoor Plant Sale on Thursday. I've heard rumours that some will also be available at the upcoming Alpine Garden Club Plant Sale on Sept. 25 at VanDusen. Otherwise, you can trek out to the 'burbs and visit someplace like Hawaiian Botanicals.
Mine is named Chomper I, Chomper II, Chomper III ... you get it. Actually, I never feed my VFTs. They all grow outdoors in the pacific northwest all year round, in the sun, rain and snow. If you check their native habitat, these marvels hail from North Carolina... a temperate locale, not unlike ours on the westcoast. So let your little beast find it's own food. You'll be amazed by what it will catch - flies, ants, spiders, centipedes, slugs, ... right up to small frogs! Don't believe me? Check this other thread: http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=18115 Here's a pic of my friend, Tom's VFT planter bowls, all grown outdoors in Seattle, WA. Note that they've all finished flowering and have set seed capsules. So quickly, there are over 100 VFTs with an average of two floral scapes, with average of six flower/seed heads...and each head contains ave. of 8 seeds = over 9,600 VFT seeds! Tom donates all his seeds to both the International CP Society and to the Canadian CP society.
You can buy Venus Flytraps at Wal-Mart, now. $4.95 at a Knoxville, TN Walmart. I bought one for my 9 yr old son who loves it. It comes in a plastic terranium. We moved it into a large glass terranium after about a month and it is not doing as well now.
Hi there - i am a new owner of a venus fly trap along with two of my colleagues at work. any advice will be greatly appreciated - do you have to give it rain water? also, will dead flies kill it or are they just not as good as live ones? cheers...
Hi there.. a couple of questions... I bought a fly trap back in august.. it did really well sitting in my south-west facing dorm room window. since january i have been in a northern facing room, and I moved it away from the window because of the cold. it died completely back, and I thought i had killed it!! (didnt help that i forgot to water it a few times... oops!)... i still have it and im trying to recover it, but I also bought a new one. Ive been reading up on the internet, and there is a lot of conflicting info. Some sites say a terrarium (sp?) is best, and with it fully sealed u wont have to water, but u will have to feed it. other sites say to put it in a dish of water (just covering the holes on the bottom) and leave it open. Again, some say full-light, some say no direct light. What kind of temperature should I aim for them? I just bought a stick-on thermometer from ebay, so hopefully if i can figure out what temp i can keep it there. So anyway, anyone know if my old plant is totally dead? or is there still hope? ok.. wow.. seems like the longest post on this board so far.. wow.. lol :S thanks *EQL*
You're another Canadian CP (carnivorous palnt) grower... check out our Ontario CP forum. There you'd get lots of good info on growing CPs: http://ocps.proboards78.com/index.cgi It appears to me that your VFT was trying to go into dormancy. So like all perennials, they "die" back at the end of every growing season. So you must allow it to rest over the winter. If you force it, it will rot. The other important thing is the common misconception that VFTs are tropical. They are not. So cold temperatures are normal for this plant. It's natural habitat is North Carolina, and we know how chilly and windy it can get over there. Good luck.
