Carnivorous Plants

[Laserbeak]

Originally Posted by Paul

That surprises me, Sub. Wouldn't expect them to survive your winters either. (Would never survive my winters outside, unfortunately -- especially since outside would be on a balcony three floors up.) Do you have it up against your house over winter?

Actually New York City is Zone 7b which is the same USDA Zone most of their natural habitat is in. They can go even a bit colder, but I don't think they can do Michigan cold.

[LostInPeru]

Yeah just leave it outside and take advantage of the natural cold weather. I gave up on venus flytraps as the winter dormancy thing can be a pain and I was trying to move away from cp's that need a dormancy. Only prob with the 'easier' CPs like sarracenia, venus flytraps and sundews is they need way too much sunlight which can be a pain to give them without frying them in the summer sun.

How big is the venus flytraps pot? If its one of those tiny ones you will need to insulate it so that the bulb does not freeze solid and die.

Listening to you all talk about Nepenthes and how they can be challenging to grow I have deiced to give up my ideas about getting a lowii. It would only struggle and die as a houseplant plus I don't have the patience to wait 10 years for it to produce uppers.

Regarding Cephs their are as many different ways to grow them as their are people. Some people use a combination of expanded clay and peat, others grow them hydroponically with success. Search the cp forums and you will find a wealth of information on them.

I saw some carnivorous plants at my local Bunnings garden centre yesterday and was thinking of saving a few as they looked healthy still. Their selling sarracenia, sundews and venus flytraps now instead of just the flytraps. I may just revert back to owning a few of these instead of struggling with kovachii or lowii as the 'easy' CPs can be very rewarding for little effort and you don't need to wait ages to see them grow vigorously and mature.

[Laserbeak]

Originally Posted by LostInPeru

How big is the venus flytraps pot? If its one of those tiny ones you will need to insulate it so that the bulb does not freeze solid and die.

It's in 3" pot, and i haven't received it yet so I don't know exactly how healthy it is. I imagine the best thing for me to do is keep it inside for now until April or so then I can leave it upstairs permanently.

edit:

Of course I can always bring it inside if gets really cold, like below 20°F or something. But this winter notwithstanding, we usually don't get too many of those days in the winter, just a few.

[Subrosa]

No need to worry about giving a VFT too much sun unless perhaps you live in the tropics. They prefer full sun in the wild, and they're native to NC, where the sun is stronger than NY.

[LostInPeru]

Yeah they need a lot of light. A lot of people find them really easy and low maintenance, I found them high maintenance myself although I guess if your used to the specific requirements of orchids the specific needs would translate over easily.

Hope you end up liking it. I used to purchase through mail order also but mine came bare with no soil and I had to buy the peat seperately and found getting the peat to absorb water was a nightware lol.

The peat/sphagnum always worries me yet I find it's something nobody else worries about lol. It is the one reason why I'd be cautious about getting back into CPs.

Just something to be aware of although I see in the orchid hobby sphagnum is widely used which also worried me lol.

[WeirdGuySeattle]

I grow Sarracenia (Flava is my favorite, and Leukophila the second), venus fly traps, darlingtonia outdoors year round. It gets in to the 20s for a few days / weeks here.

If you grow em in whiskey barrels - drill some holes halfway / 3/4 up the side - this way you don't have to siphon out water in the winters... lol - read that and laughed - I did the same thing first year. The VFTs like a deep pot, and to freeze wet. The darlingtonias like somewhat of a ferltile soil every once and a while (a repot into standard potting soil was somewhat miraculous!)

In my greenhouse I have 2 Neps, a pinguicula and a Drosera. All do pretty well, just got a ton of drosera seedlings going. My first neps didn't go well, but that was 10 years ago. This is my first year trying them again.

[Skycat]

My biggest three flytraps are in cups, and my pitchers are in little plastic pots around the same width as the cups, so it's a little worrying when they freeze. I try not to let it happen too often. Especially when two of the flytraps looked like this the first time they froze





That was not fun to wake up to. But they got better once they thawed.

(My other one, which has extremely short, ground-hugging leaves, still looked completely fine)

[Laserbeak]

I got the flytraps, sundew, and purple pitcher plant (all very small) I ordered. I got some yellow pitcher plant seeds as well.

They don't really look like they're in that great condition, but I'm not that familiar with them. Right now they're all hanging out with my Masdevallias and Draculas, and once it gets a bit warmer I'll put them outside and hopefully be able to leave them there.

[Subrosa]

It's winter, they should look like crap! If they don't start growing noticeably in the next month or so it might be time to start worrying.

[Laserbeak]

Originally Posted by Subrosa

It's winter, they should look like crap! If they don't start growing noticeably in the next month or so it might be time to start worrying.

LOL, understood. Still, I don't think I should put them outside now, it's unusually cold here and I don't think they're used to it.

If I put them out this spring and leave them all summer enjoying all the bugs that go their way then they'll have to slowly get used to the NYC cold as fall and winter comes.