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Venus Fly Trap Care Information
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The Venus Fly Traps - possibly more people across the world have been fascinated by this intriguing plant than any other plant. Imagine a plant with leaves as efficient as a rabbit trap, lightning fast being able to catch a fly before it can escape and then devouring the contents and spitting out the exoskeleton.
VFT or Dionaea musipula is the only member of its genus, found in Carolina in United States, the VFT is a true wonder of nature. The leaf tip has modified itself to form two halves of a trap that once shut is capable of holding a wide variety of insects often larger than the trap. The inner surface of the trap is lined with hairs. The hair is a clever trigger that must be moved at least 2 times to begin to activate the trap mechanism, this prevents the trap from closing when rubbish or rain drops falls into the leaves. Once triggered a healthy trap will shut in a fraction of a second to contain the insect, if the triggering of the hairs continues the trap will close tighter and begin the digestive process by releasing the enzymes into the insect that will slowly dissolve the internal tissue of the insect and supply the plant with food. If the hair trigger are not touched after the trap shuts it will re-open within a few hours ready for the next insect.
VFT's do not need insects for food but use them as an additional food supply to supplement the meager nutrients found in their natural soils. As commercial growers of VFT's we may have in excess of 1,000,000 plants in a house. 1,000,000 insects are hard to find each day or two so we rely on the nutrients present in the normal potting media and supplemental liquid nutrients through the watering system every 2 to 4 weeks. We take great care not to over fertilized, this does not kill the plant but makes the plant very soft and weak and also reduces the size of the trap making the plant far less commercial. In a household environment fertilizing is not recommended and if the temptation arises to use liquid fertilizers then make up your solution as per recommended dose. To be more scientific reduce your dose to less than 10% of recommended if the plant is indoor and 20% of recommended if the plant is kept outdoor. Slow release fertilizers may also be used but at very low rates.
VFT's are hardy and they are also temperamental, having a green thumb does not count when growing these plants. Often people who care very little for them succeed in growing the plants very well. A VFT's natural habitat is as a ground cover in open forest areas of Carolina, the plants rely on regular natural fires to clear undergrowth to allow plants to get sufficient sunlight to survive. Grasses and small shrubs can easily destroy the VFT's habitat so regular burnings are essential for the species survival. Today VFT's seem to be better in man made clearings like road sides, and railway sidings. In other words, full sun, complete exposure to the elements and in areas of low nutrient. As Carolina experiences quite cold winters, the VFT's also require this and hence winter temperatures below 8C are required for good growth, ideal winter minimums are 0 to 5 degrees Celsius with plants being able to tolerate severe frosts without damage. In tropical climates it is recommended to refrigerate VFT's for up to 6 weeks in the vegetable section every year to initiate dormancy.
Understanding a plant in the habitat makes caring for it a lot easier, VFT's do not grow in caves, not for long anyway so they are not ideally suited for indoors unless you have a very sunny window that you can't fry an egg in or a very well lit terrarium. Sure the plant may appear to grow fast, produce very long leaves with small traps and look good for quite some time but eventually it will weaken and die. VFT's in habitat are slow growing and it may take 5 years to reach maturity from a very small plant. Under complete exposure the plant will do well and grow and multiply each year, under protected environments (Glasshouses, Polyhouses or Cold Frames) the plant can grow very fast, up to 5 times the speed of those with full exposure. The natural growth cycle for a VFT is in late winter, the plant starts to grow new leaves, each bigger than the previous, mature plants will develop a flower spike, by the fourth week of spring the plant is in obvious rapid growth with leaves already over 3x the winter size appearing. By mid summer the plant will have reached its maximum size for the year and will grow leaves no bigger for the next 3 months. By mid-autumn the new leaves will begin to get smaller with many of the early summer leaves beginning to die. By mid-winter all large leaves have died off and the plant will now be producing small leaves as small as 10% of summer size. In extremely cold climates the traps may disappear and the plant will be totally dormant underground.
A VFT is a succulent plant producing very thick fleshy leaves with traps at the end of the leaf, the plant has the ability to create a red pigment in its tissue, this pigment may be as an attractant for insect, but its main uses is as a protection from sunburn (Authors opinion). In full sun this pigment becomes very obvious and the colour very intense, in shade this pigment will disappear on new growth. Different clones of VFT's have different degrees of colour and some have been developed that remain completely green, these varieties take on a very yellowed appearance in full sun. All photos seen of red trap VFT's have been grown in very high sunlight with the most attractive plants grown under no shade in winter and shading up to 40% in mid-summer. These plants appear very attractive and are show stoppers, but still the plants that appeal to collectors most are those that are very succulent, short and hard grown under complete exposure.
To be continued ... ...
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