Venus Flytrap growing

There are a wide range of opinions on what the best potting mixture to use for a Venus flytrap is. However the one thing everyone agrees on is that the soil must be low quality. You can’t use rich, nitrogen filled soils as your plant will not like it at all. Venus flytraps evolved to catch bugs as a response to low soil quality and they don’t cope well when they’re out of their usual environment. And whatever you do, don’t add any fertilizer as you will likely kill your plant.

If you purchased your plant from a garden store and aren’t sure of what soil to use for repotting, it is often a good idea to keep using the soil your plant came in. Garden store workers are often uneducated in Venus flytrap maintenance, so be wary of any store assistants recommending you to use a particular potting mix. Some store assistants do know about Venus flytraps, but most assume that they are like any other plant and recommend incorrect soil mixes which can kill your plant.

Using the wrong potting mix, tap water or worst of all adding fertlizer to your plant is sure fire way to eventually kill it. However, if you have done one of these then don’t panic, there are solutions!

If you’ve been watering your plant with tap water for many months and your plant is looking a little unhealthy, then it is advisable to flush the plant 4-5 times with clean water to get rid of those horrible inorganic residues which are killing your plant. Your plant should still live and re-potting shouldn’t be necessary.

If you’ve used the wrong potting mix or even used fertilizer and it’s late winter or early spring, then just repot and your plant should be fine. If it’s not late winter or early spring you will still need to repot your plant, but make sure you give your plant lots of light, keep it watered well and make sure you follow the advice here on flytrapgrowing.info as repotting at the wrong time of year is very hard on your plant. If you used a water soluble fertilizer such as potassium nitrate then you should be able to rinse it out with a good rinsing of water; fill your pot up with water and let it drain 20x or so to remove all of the fertilizer.