FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Very nice! Is that live sphagnum they are growing in?

Nope, it rained just before that picture so it's not the usual whitish but that's just algae and utrics

rwharold wrote:I could very well be wrong about the direction as I don't have a compass. All I know is that from about 11 AM to about 5 PM, my window sill receives DIRECT full, very bright, sunshine. I have grown 1 VFT there now for over a year, and it has almost tripled in size. I am considering adding the DC XL VFT starter plant to my collection. I have searched but I can't seem to find an actual photo of what a starter sized DC XL looks like. Can you guide me to a good source?

I've grown plenty of nice sized and nice colored VFT's in a NW facing window over the years. Everything I've ever read said you can only grow them in a south facing window. But you'll definately get better results growing them outside where they can get more sunlight and lots of live food.

Frankly, I've found many "facts" about growing carnivorous plants to be merely guidelines. I only recommend growing outside because the plants will do better out there. I have never tried growing in a window all year, so I don't really know.

As with almost anything in life, there are no hard and fast rules that are always 100% true.

In the case of flytraps, they grow far better outdoors in full sun and are much less work and easier to grow for most people when grown outdoors.

But if people want to invest a lot of time to do it well indoors or settle for their plans growing more slowly and/or being less healthy, then flytraps can be grown in any multitude of conditions.

I disagree with the statements about outside being easier. I have several traps and originally attempted keeping some outside and some on my porch. Well I live in Florida and it's hot and bright and rained hard. Those three things nearly killed all the plants outside and on the porch and I had to bring them in. 1 was sunburnt(no I didn't let it dry out) and one had a flower growing on the porch and a crazy storm came in and it rained sideways onto the porch and basically flattened the poor thing. Now I have them all growing under a grow light inside and they seem to be recovering(yay)


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mrsminaya wrote:I disagree with the statements about outside being easier. I have several traps and originally attempted keeping some outside and some on my porch. Well I live in Florida and it's hot and bright and rained hard. Those three things nearly killed all the plants outside and on the porch and I had to bring them in. 1 was sunburnt(no I didn't let it dry out) and one had a flower growing on the porch and a crazy storm came in and it rained sideways onto the porch and basically flattened the poor thing. Now I have them all growing under a grow light inside and they seem to be recovering(yay)

Were those plants fresh out of the deathcubes by any chance? If they were that probably explains everything. Death cube plants are not hardened to sunlight while they are sitting in the store (explains the sunburn), and all growth while in-store is generally very weak, including flowers.

mrsminaya wrote:I disagree with the statements about outside being easier. I have several traps and originally attempted keeping some outside and some on my porch. Well I live in Florida and it's hot and bright and rained hard. Those three things nearly killed all the plants outside and on the porch and I had to bring them in. 1 was sunburnt(no I didn't let it dry out) and one had a flower growing on the porch and a crazy storm came in and it rained sideways onto the porch and basically flattened the poor thing. Now I have them all growing under a grow light inside and they seem to be recovering(yay)


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I'm in Miami, you can't get much more south than me and trust me, they grow outside better than outside, the only fly trap I have inside is a delicate leaf pulling that I don't think is strong enough yet

Funny thing is that the FTS starter size is larger than some large or medium sizes at other stores!