[samuria]

has anyone grown one of these? is it best to buy a young plant
or from seed? my wife wants one as from the Christmas advert  lol

[Aunt Sally]

Best to buy a young plant. 

Sit it in a shallow tray of rain water and give it plenty of light.  No need to give fertiliser but it does need insects to eat, preferably live and not sprayed with fly killer.
They need a good root run so ensure you have it in a reasonable sized pot.  The compost for potting would be:

2 parts peat
1 part horticultural sand.

I still have a good stock of peat for my insectivorous plants so have not looked into an alternative yet.

[Aunt Sally]

I’ll be trying some of this:

[samuria]

thanks  aunt sally. will look out for a young plant.

[Subversive_plot]

I have grown these before, and also been in places where they live, naturally, in the wild (Onslow County, North Carolina, in case you want to look up climate information for growing outdoors).

Yes, buy a young plant. I am not familiar with the growing medium Aunty suggested, but it is likely to be equal parts perlite (or sand) and sphagnum peat, or similar; if you can find that mix, great, or you can replicate it. Ratio Aunty suggested is also fine. The important thing is that the soil should be devoid of nutrients, or close to it. No compost. Fertilizer will kill your flytrap. You can top dress with long-fiber sphagnum if you like. A group of them in a dish garden looks good.

Keep the pot in standing water at all times (a 6-inch plastic pot sitting in a tray 1 inch deep filled with water will do). Never allow the soil to dry out completely. The flytrap requires mineral-free water. So bottled distilled water, or collected rain water are best.

The healthiest flytraps are grown outdoors in full sun.  Plants grown indoors may be spindly and lack red coloration. Flytraps need winter dormancy of roughly 3 to 4 months.  They will need winter protection if it gets colder than  -6°C

An outdoor flytrap will catch it's own insects. No need to feed it, but if you do, use insects (hamburger is sometimes suggested, but will usually kill the leaf). Remember that each trap is only capable of opening and closing about 3 times.

Good luck!

[samuria]

thankyou for the info. will look into all you said 

[pepsi100]

I've had a few of these, okay as a novelty, I had other plants that ate flyies
They are okay for a while, but all mine eventually died, I dont know why, they just went black and that was it, maybe it was a lack of flies

[Aunt Sally]

I occasionally give my insectivorous plants a dilute feed of orchid fertiliser.

[Subversive_plot]

pepsi100, I'm curious if your carnivorous plants ever spent time outdoors, or were they strictly kept indoors?

It's unlikely they died from a lack of flies.  I have less experience with strictly tropical types, but Venus flytraps, North American pitcher plants, and sundews all are sun-loving types.  They will slowly die if kept strictly indoors (the exception being a greenhouse). Also, regular tap water, or the wrong soil, will kill them. They do need winter dormancy. See earlier posts from Aunty and myself.

[pepsi100]

My Venus flytrap was in my conservatory in the winter, then it went to my pond, there is a shelf sort of a waterfall, only filled with rainwater
Lots of flying things to eat, if they caught anything, they never opened up again, just went black
I had sundews as well, I put them on the wall of the pond, they got plenty of water, they actually caught a butterfly one, never saw bees or wasps attracted to them
Bought them into the conservatory for the winter, that is where they died, but had plenty of rainwater, just no flying bugs or flies

[Aunt Sally]

We do have to be a bit more careful in the UK, than in the hot sunny states of America, if we want to be successful with insectivorous plants, especially Venus Fly Traps.  They are more difficult to grow than pitcher plants and sundews, in my experience.

We don’t have much sun, and therefore light, for flytraps so a south facing sunny window in the summer is essential for a flytrap kept as a house plant.  A cooler but still very light window in winter so that it can have a cool but not freezing period. 

Compost, water and pot size we have already covered, but can outline again if you are not quite certain.

[Subversive_plot]

Growing in a conservatory in winter, my best guess is that light was not the problem. Possibly lack of dormancy' if it stayed too warm?  You can tell they have gone dormant if the leaves slowly die back in the autumn but beneath that, a very loose bulb of living leaf bases remains They will look like this (posting this link just for the illustration): https://www.bugbitingplants.com/venus-flytrap-bulbs-2-3-years

In my experience, North American pitcher plants (Sarracenia species) are easier than Venus flytraps. Sarracenia purpurea, especially, will grow outdoors in any climate in the British Isles, from Lands End to Scotland (they deal with much worse over here). The happiest S. purpurea I have ever seen were in a sphagnum bog on Isle Royale, growing alongside very happy Drosera rotundifolia sundews. The record low temperature there is - 43°F (-42°C).

[Aunt Sally]

Exactly so, SP.  My pitchers and sundews are in a cold greenhouse over winter and often have ice on their water trays. They are quite difficult to kill.

[pepsi100]

I had a bit of success with Pitcher plants
But to feed them I dropped ants in there to feed them,

[Subversive_plot]

As an experiment, inside the conservatory or outside, leave a pitcher plant to grow a season without intentionally feeding it. When the pitchers are done for the year and going brown, cut the pitcher open and inspect the contents, you will be amazed at the amount of insect remains in there.