I have my little rescued venus flytrap from lowe's near a southern window.I want to plant it outside,but I'm a little nervous.I live here in Goose Creek, South Carolina.
They are hardy in USDA zone 8, but growing them in nature may be a challenge because of their need for low nutients and low pH -- difficult unless you intend to simulate their natural bog environment.
No problem. It is native to your state and will thrive if you can create a sphagnum bog to grow it in. Don't be nervous, it is proven to be completely hardy outdoors as far north as New Jersey.
Venus fly traps do not grow in bogs! They grow in areas where there is water seepage through the soil, often on slopes and sometimes they have naturalized on road cuts! In South Africa they offer in sandy areas that are temporarily flooded but have excellent drainage even though rainfall is plentious. Their mix is best moist but not wet. Here is a good site for info http://www.the-venus-flytrap.com/venus-flytrap-help.html
The Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) doesn't grow in California nor South Africa. It is found native only in a few patches of boggy ground in North and South Carolina. I am using "Manual of the vascular flora of the Carolinas" as my reference. One of the localities happens to be in a golf course!!! You are confusing them with Drosera and other carnivorous plants, Terry. Not the same at all. Read again what the website in your link says.
You are right! OOOPPPSSS????? The So. African plants are sundews and my statements regarding the occurence of VFT not occuring in bogs does not apply to them as I have seen one of the native CA species growing in a bog. Here is a link that shows plants of VFT growing in their natural habitat. Wish there were more general pictures of the area as I think that they are more marginally bog related than actually growing in a bog though they can experience flooding. Anyone actually seen these in nature??? http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=DIMU4&photoID=dimu4_4h.jpg
Note that the species is now naturalized in Florida and New Jersey!!! The species is probably cold hardy even farther north. It probably could also be naturalized along the west coast in suitable habitat in northern California and the Pacific Northwest as far north as Alaska!!! Wanna try?
PLEASE DO NOT! While I can understand to protect and propagate and learn how to successfully grow plants that are endemics or rare DO NOT PLANT THEM WHERE THEY DO NOT OCCUR NATURALLY. Sure grow them at home or even in your yard but if you have more plants than you need then either give them to those interested in growing them at home or compose them! While it seems difficult to do so with all the human destruction and exploitation of natural habitats, please keep these habitats native. (I still feel like driving up to Humboldt to rip out the introduced Selaginella kraussiana!)
I have a few thousand venus flytraps growing outdoors all year round in an outdoor bog. I live in the Pacific Northwest (zone 8)... and the plants are subjected to temperatures as low as -20C totally exposed (no snow or mulch cover). Some grow totally submerged under water for weeks (months?). Generally lose a few to squirrels, slugs and birds... but they have all managed to survive for the past decade and a bit like this. Usually the worst die offs occur when there is a sudden freeze after a prolong warming trend in the spring, where the plant had broke dormancy then has it's new growth tissue exposed to the unexpected freeze. There exist approximately 30+ cultivars (cultivated varieties) of vfts... eg. red pirahna, bristle tooth, lowe's giant, B-52, red dragon, pink venus, creeping death etc. I have all these varieties, but have discovered that many of the red forms are not as hardy. Of all the varieties of venus flytraps, the hardiest ones are the "plain" forms. Here are a few photos of some vfts in my collection... a red one and some seedlings with a young frog guarding over the baby vfts.
The Venus Flytrap is an ice age relict and its present range does not represent how widespread it may have been before the last ice age. That it is much more cold hardy than its present range would suggest that it was once far more widespread and probably occurred naturally much farther north than it does now.