This is a nice shot of an fine example of the Red Dragon cultivar.

An awesome demonstration of how many traps you can jam in one small spot. It’s interesting to see how little colouring there is in the leaves. This is posssibly an example of the ‘Justina Davis’ cultivar but it is hard to tell from here.

Chomp! Nice action shot of a trap in full-digestion mode. You can see how tight the trap is clenched around the perimeter of the trap entrance to stop all digestive fluids from leaking out.

Terrific photo of  an example of the ‘fused-traps’ cultivar. These cultivar is very easy to recognise due to the prominent fusing of the traps teeth.

The best way to fix the problem is to simply remedy the situation which causes the mould in the first place. Usually moving the plant to a warmer, sunnier environment will rapidly cure the problem. My mold problems have been fixed within about two weeks after placing my plants into a better environment.

It’s possible that you may be able to remove the mould with some mould removing chemicals, but this will likely kill the plant in the process. If you have tried this approach I’d love to hear about the results in the comments below. I suspect it is a recipe for disaster, but without having tried I’m not sure how well (or unwell) it would work.

It is not uncommon for Venus flytraps to grow mould. I’ve often had this problem growing plants in my own house as the temperature tends to be too low which causes the formation of mould. I have never had any problems with the mould and it doesn’t seem to have caused my plants any issues, however it is rather gross to look at if there is too much mould then the plant could potentially be receiving less light onto it’s leaves than it ought to and even worse, the mould could start feasting on your healthy plant tissue and kill it. To get around this situation I have tried removing the mould with tweezers, but this tends to be a bit of nightmare to maintain as the mould quickly grows back. It is also imperative that you don’t accidentally poke your plant and damage it whilst removing the mould. Manually removing the mould is also only fixing the obvious symptom of weird looking white fuzz stuck to your plant. The underlying cause and infection with mould will not be removed.

The best way to fix the problem is to simply remedy the situation which causes the mould in the first place. Usually moving the plant to a warmer, sunnier environment will rapidly cure the problem. My mold problems have been fixed within about two weeks after placing my plants into a better environment.

It’s possible that you may be able to remove the mould with some mould removing chemicals, but this will likely kill the plant in the process. If you have tried this approach I’d love to hear about the results in the comments below. I suspect it is a recipe for disaster, but without having tried I’m not sure how well (or unwell) it would work.

The truth is that this is in fact a regular Iceland Poppy. This bizaare looking photo was taken by Harold Davis in his backyard.

Specimen A: low light, distilled water

The maximum trap size for specimen A, our distilled water fed plant, is now up to a whopping 35 mm, this is an 8 mm increase on the size when purchased. The strength of the leaf base of the traps seems to have improved, as they are now at approximately the same angle (30 deg. from vertical) that they were when new. There are now 17 traps, in comparison to the mere five present when the plant was purchased. So not only has the size of the traps increased, but their numbers have shot up too! This plant is coping very well in it’s dimly lit environment and the inside of it’s traps are looking a very nice red colour.

This plant has been manually fed one fly since the last report, it has not captured any prey on it’s own.

Specimen B: low light, tap water

Our low light tap water fed plant specimen B is also growing very strongly. The largest trap is now 37 mm across which is an 8 mm increase from the original 29 mm maximum at purchase which was still the largest sized trap after the six week mark. The traps are now back to the 30 deg. angle from vertical that it had when first purchased too (this indicates strong structure).

The plant now has a total of 17 traps in comparison to only 4 when purchased. The plant has captured two flies since the last report, one on it’s own and another was fed manually with tweezers.

So despite the constant feed of inferior tap water, this plant seems to be thriving! It’s traps are larger than Specimen A which was expected to grow stronger and faster than it’s tap water fed counterpart.

Specimen C: Control Plant, medium light, distilled water

Our control plant is the sickliest looking plant of our three test subjects. It is not looking healthy and has lost much of it’s red colouring from it’s traps. Another plant which is growing in exactly the same conditions is strong and healthy, but this particular specimen is suffering for some unknown reason.

As a control specimen this has been a failure. We will work to get this plant back on track, but it is slowly but steadily looking less healthy than the surrounding plants. The traps are drooping over the edge of the pot and after catching it’s last two flies, the traps died and turned black.

Advantages

• Ideal for situations in which your flytrap will be growing in a low humidity environment. Low humidity environments are harmful to Venus flytraps.
• Your flytrap will not need watered as often due to less loss of water from evaporation.
• Bugs can be placed inside the terrium where they can be caught ‘naturally’ rather than being placed directly into the trap.

Disadvantages

• Your plant will usually struggle to catch it’s own prey and need to be fed bugs.
• The terrarium can overheat if in strong sunlight.
• The enclosed environment can result in a lower concentration of carbon dioxide leading to reduced plant growth.

Make your own

You don’t need to purchase a terrarium, you can easily make one for free. All you need is a large soda pop/fizzy drink bottle! Cut the bottle in two and place it on top of your plant and voila, you have a mini terrarium  If your plant is already in a mildy humid environment, you may wish to leave a small air hole, this will not increase the humidity as greatly as with a fully covered terrarium but will improve air circulation. 

Image of egg terrarium borrowed from bitsandpieces.com.

When Venus flytraps flower, they are often left in a poor state for a considerable time afterwards (often up to a year). They usually do not grow as quickly during this time and are likely to look sickly, limp and are more susceptible to dying.

To avoid this, most growers remove the flower stalks before the flowering process takes place. The flower stalks look different from regular trap growth as they are not as flat as the trap stalks. If you are unsure if your stalk is from a trap or a flower, then you can let it grow out a centimetre or so and if it doesn’t look like a trap by then you can safely chop it off. Don’t let it grow any further though as your plant may suffer for it.

If you don’t pay much attention to your plant or haven’t read this till you’ve discovered a 20+ cm long stalk with a small bud at the end growing out of the center of your Venus flytrap, then you may as well just let it flower as it’s too late. Enjoy the beauty of the flower in all it’s glory as chopping it off now is unlikely to help. Your plants energy was wasted growing that stalk.

Photos on this page are courtesy of Torgrim Johansen