Venus Flytrap growing

Many Venus flytraps are sold in mini terraria. These are usually small plastic domes which ensure a high humidity around your plant.

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.

Here’s a novel way to grow your own flytrap! Purchase a crappy plastic kit, complete with swamp rocks, peat, terrarium, bog buddies and decals! Or just make your own for half the price, whichever floats your boat. The kits are available from Carnivorous Creations.

If you are growing your plant outside, make sure it is watered regularly during dry spells. Venus flytraps do not like being dry. Don’t panic if your plant is saturated with water as they are used to this happening in the wild and cope with being submerged in water for weeks on end. However if they dry up they will rapidly die so make sure you keep it wel watered in dry environments.

If your plant is inside a terrarium it is advisable to keep a constant level of water in the base to ensure a high humidity and to keep the soil moist. Terrarium’s are the easiest way to maintain your plant as they have a high humidity which prevents the plant and soil from drying out.

If you have your plant inside, but not in a terrarium then you will have to be very careful about preventing your plant from drying up. The easiest approach is to keep a constant supply of water in the base of the pot so that the bottom of the roots are touching a constant supply of water. If you live in an air conditioned or other very dry environment then you will need to keep topping up with water on a constant basis.

In general you don’t want the soil soaking wet, but it must be slightly moist at all time. So in a nutshell … moist good, soggy bad!