How To Replant A Venus Fly Trap

Thinking about adding Venus flytraps to your collection of indoor plants? Find out how to plant, grow and care for your Venus flytraps.

What y'all demand to know virtually a Venus flytrap

Proper name: Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula).

Institute type: small carnivorous herbaceous perennial.

Summit: less than 10cm.

Foliage: various colours, part leaf, office trap.

Climate: all except arid and semi-barren. Venus flytraps can be grown indoors where climate is unsuitable outdoors.

Soil: moisture-retaining, inclining towards an acid pH.

Position: full sun.

Flowering and fruiting: flowers appear in leap.

Feeding: should not be fed.

Watering: bottom-water merely, ideally with rainwater or demineralised water.

Appearance and characteristics of a Venus flytrap

One of nature's truthful oddities, the carnivorous Venus flytrap looks like it'south from another planet. In fact, the Venus flytrap is a native to the sub-tropical wetlands of the eastern United States.

The Venus flytrap is one of nature's cleverest plants. Most have evolved to survive in situations where the soil holds little or no nutrition, so the plant makes its own food past catching and decomposing minor insects. The Venus flytrap is peradventure one of the most fascinating of the carnivorous plants, and it's surprisingly easy to grow.

The Venus flytrap is a very low-growing herbaceous perennial. That means it dies dorsum in winter, and has unusual leaves. The leaves have 2 distinct sections – the horizontal leaf and the upright trap on the end. The plant will also produce leaves of different forms at dissimilar times of the year, then don't exist surprised to see your plant go through a range of changes as it grows.

The leaves shoot from an underground bulb-similar construction. As the weather becomes libation, the leaves will all shrivel up and turn black. Many people recollect they've actually killed their flytrap at this stage, but don't panic – it'due south just going into its winter dormancy and will reshoot come bound.

The trap is an ingenious mechanism. Tiny hairs trigger the trap to close when an insect brushes against them, trapping the insect inside. The insect is then dissolved past digestive juices emitted by the trap, reducing it to liquid fertiliser.

To trigger the trap, 2 hairs need to be touched within 20 seconds of each other. Then, when the trap closes, the hairs need to exist triggered five more times for the digestive cycle to start.

Uses for a Venus flytrap

A Venus flytrap has many uses, including:

• Very collectable.
• Keen for the kids.
• Novelty institute.

How to found and grow a Venus flytrap

A Venus flytrap must have at to the lowest degree iv hours of straight sunday daily to grow and color well. In very hot regions they may need to be watched advisedly and given some afternoon sun protection.

If growing your Venus flytrap indoors, position if on a windowsill that receives sun all day.

Your plant must be kept moist, not moisture. It will need to have a cool period during its winter dormancy.

Re-potting a Venus flytrap

A Venus flytrap usually grows in damp, slightly acid soil. When it comes time to re-pot, you'll find that experts recommend a multifariousness of complicated DIY blends, but y'all can just use directly peat moss. The most important thing is that the material you lot use does non incorporate any extra fertilisers, and that you don't add whatsoever, every bit they will kill the plant.

When selecting a pot, go for something that has expert depth to allow for downward root development.

Caring for a Venus flytrap

For best results, follow these tips to intendance for your Venus flytrap:

• Don't water your flytrap from the top – stand it in a small-scale saucer of h2o instead.
• If you're not growing the plant for seed, cut bloom stems off as presently every bit they appear. The constitute uses a lot of free energy to blossom, meaning the traps will be smaller.
• Equally tempting as information technology may exist, don't trigger the traps for fun. Closing the trap uses a lot of free energy, and each trap can only close 3–5 times.
• Practise non feed your Venus flytrap with fertiliser. It gets all the nutrition it requires from catching and digesting bugs.
• If your plant is kept indoors y'all may have to manually feed it some small insects to proceed it salubrious.

How and when to prune a Venus flytrap

The only pruning your plant will need is to tidy up dead leaves.

How to propagate a Venus flytrap

When growing a Venus flytrap from seed, sow the seed as soon every bit it is collected. Spread it onto a mix of peat moss and sand or perlite, then go on warm and reliably moist – practice not let it dry.

Dividing a Venus flytrap

Older, healthy plants will produce "pup" plants around their base. Carefully dissever the pups when re-potting and place in a suitable mix.

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Source: https://www.bunnings.co.nz/diy-advice/garden/planting-and-growing/how-to-plant-and-grow-a-venus-flytrap

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