FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I've been looking at ideas for growing my VFT's this season, and I'm really loving the look of food/beverage cans being used as pots. I have a few concerns about it though. My first one being rust - I know that there's a coating inside the cans but once I made the drainage holes, wouldn't that breach that coating and expose the metal to constant moisture? I'm also wondering about any harmful chemicals leaching into the soil from this coating, as well as the aluminum possibly having a negative effect on the roots. Lastly, would the cans become too hot sitting in the sun? I live in Canada, so while we don't get crazy hot summers, we can get a heatwave lasting a few days to a week. If heat would be a problem, I was thinking of either placing a styrofoam cup inside each can or painting them a light colour to help combat that. Any help/suggestions will be appreciated.

A few examples:

Well, they are your plants, but you are right about the rust in the drainage hole. While it won't be a problem immediately, the rust will probably eventually kill your carnivorous plants. However, for REGULAR plants, the rust is beneficial because it provides nutrients. DON'T USE THE CANS FOR YOUR CP'S!!!

About your heat question...i prefer light-color (white, light grey and yellow) plastic pots for my cp's. as long as it is those colors and shiny, you should be fine.

Don't use the cans! it's for your own Carnivorous plant's good!

I think they look great. I don't know from personal experience whether there will be any issue of the metal cans affecting the growth or health of Venus Flytraps, but it seems like it would be an interesting experiment (although Venusflytrap7 advises against it).

I'm currently growing several Venus Flytraps in large insulated plastic drinking mugs (the kind commonly available in "convenience stores" in the U.S.) and they work fine, but of course they are inert plastic with a drainage hole drilled in the bottom.

Thank you both for the replies. I think I'll experiment with one of my plants and update if I see any changes to the VFT in the future. I may even drill the holes and coat the edges with some sort of sealer. As terrible as it may sound to some, at the end of the day it's just a plant!

audreytwo wrote:Thank you both for the replies. I think I'll experiment with one of my plants and update if I see any changes to the VFT in the future. I may even drill the holes and coat the edges with some sort of sealer. As terrible as it may sound to some, at the end of the day it's just a plant!

You can line the cans with plastic...like plastic bags. Just poke a few holes in them. That should help prevent the reverse-contamination. Not quite sure how well it would stick, but nail polish is inert (non-toxic) when dry....so are most, if not all, spray paints. Just zap the drilled holes with either one and it should help seal the metal...at least for a while. Can recheck it during repotting. Clear nail polish has been used to coat cheap jewelry and other metals (copper, bronze, etc) to help keep them from tarnishing.

The idea never crossed my mind, and without the pix I don't think I would have envisioned it well, but I must say: the cans give a nice effect in the pix. Pretty cool idea.

Not sure about the sun. I would think they would heat up pretty rapidly with the darker colors. Would be a shame to lose the effect by painting them. I think it might be a better idea for indoor growing....unless you just want to use cheap left-over cans.

Naja, you gave me an idea! Perhaps I'll just glaze or shellac the inside of the can after drilling the holes like you would a regular ceramic pot.

audreytwo wrote:Naja, you gave me an idea! Perhaps I'll just glaze or shellac the inside of the can after drilling the holes like you would a regular ceramic pot.

Well, I'm not sure about the glaze or shellac, so I'm not going to encourage or discourage you. However, keep in mind that if they are food cans then they may already have a lining...plastic or otherwise. That's one of the reasons that I am not sure about how well nail polish would stick. Anyway, if it is lined, then you really just need to seal the metal edges of the drilled holes. However, a plastic liner (bag?) would help make things eaiser over the long haul, I would think. Poke a few holes in it, put it in the can, fill it with media and get the media settled then cut the plastic to the rim of the can.

I'll give it a shot, maybe even do a thread with pictures on the method I use in case others want to try!

Sounds really cool. It would be neat to try to make one from an oldschool glass coke bottle or whisky bottle. Might be hard to plant though. Youd have to break the bottle to repot but it would be unique. At the end of the day it is just a plant.

Put the coke can in a coozy. haha

masmith wrote:Sounds really cool. It would be neat to try to make one from an oldschool glass coke bottle or whisky bottle. Might be hard to plant though. Youd have to break the bottle to repot but it would be unique. At the end of the day it is just a plant.

Put the coke can in a coozy. haha

A bit off-topic, but a lot more than babies can be made from a whiskey bottle:

http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/02/06/the ... bottle-pc/

Click the pix for a larger version.

Good luck with this! If you need ideas for a sealant I would highly suggest aquarium sealant; it's designed for long-term use in aquaria so it should be inert.

In addition to Grey's suggestion about using Aquarium sealant, I have sometimes used artists' clear acrylic medium, brushed onto the surface, to seal various containers. It works very well and is inert and insoluble once it dries (requires only minutes or hours to dry). Available wherever artists supplies are sold. Artists acrylic medium is a thick white water-based gel that can be diluted with water and which is completely clear when dry.

http://www.dickblick.com/products/tri-a ... l-mediums/
http://www.dickblick.com/products/winso ... l-mediums/
http://www.dickblick.com/products/blick ... c-mediums/

Thanks again guys for the replies! I'll try and come up with a tutorial for this .