FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi Everyone!

Could I get some advice on trying to save these store bought VFT's? They are in sad shape but this is all the store had on hand. My kids just learned about VFTs in school and were really excited so I found these available locally for one of their birthdays today. I put them on a south facing window sill in my bathroom. I propped open the tops using some tissue and plan on slowly opening them more over a week. They are sitting in about 1/8" of RO water right now, which they have completely soaked up.

My concern is overheating them in the sun with the tops still on. They are in my bathroom which has a higher humidity than the rest of the house. Should I just skip the slow removal of the tops and just take them off entirely? Or should I move them to a window with less direct sunlight? Should I open the window? The outside temp is in the low 70's right now and dropping to the low 40's at night. I don't want to shock them from going from the interior of the Lowe's store to getting much more sun, they look really fragile. What do you think? Thanks in advance!

Indoor temp ~75degF (not including sun exposure)
Location: Salem, Oregon USA

Welcome to FlytrapCare!

If they were my new plants, I'd probably repot them all in one large pot (or several larger pots) and then move them outdoors in full shade. Then watch for any serious negative effects and gradually try to move them into dappled sunlight to get them some of that wonderful Oregon fall sun!

I've done just as you're doing without any heat issues. If they were outside instead of in a window, they would probaby get cooked though. They'll probably be fine to remove the lid after a week at which point I would also do as Matt suggests. Dappled sunlight is the key to not burning them. If you don't have any you can try to find a spot with morning sun and gradually move it towards longer sun exposure as the days pass. This time of year in Oregon, it's probably a much lower risk of sunburn than what I'm used to down here in Texas.

This would be a good time for you and your kids to start reading up on venus flytrap dormancy if you haven't already too!

Thanks for the quick reply Matt! Do you think I can do that all right now with no acclimation? Just remove the tops, repot, and place them outside? At their current size/age, could I keep them inside under a grow light for just this winter and next year allow dormancy? If I put them outside, I will have to surround them with razor wire and a minefield to keep my kids from messing with them. If they are indoors for awhile I can at least keep a better watch over them until the novelty goes down just a bit. Thanks for the tip on using shade xr280xr, I'd like to know if I could get through this first year without the dormancy but I'll do what it takes to keep them in the best health.

Natedawg wrote:Thanks for the quick reply Matt! Do you think I can do that all right now with no acclimation? Just remove the tops, repot, and place them outside?

Yep. They might get a bit of sunburn and show signs of stress from lower humidity levels, but the temperatures are moderate this time of year and the sun isn't too intense, so they won't suffer too badly.

Natedawg wrote:At their current size/age, could I keep them inside under a grow light for just this winter and next year allow dormancy?

Well, first of all, those are full grown (mature) plants. But regardless of size, ALL flytraps require dormancy. I'm not sure where this idea came from that for small flytraps, dormancy can be skipped, but I've seen it written quite a few times recently.

I've grown plants under lights during the winter and the plants that are allowed to have a natural dormancy always end up much larger by the end of the next growing season. Plants that aren't given a dormancy will stall growing sometime in late spring or early summer and plants that received a dormancy will outgrow them.

Thanks for all the info Matt, looks like I'm all set!

Matt wrote:I'm not sure where this idea came from that for small flytraps, dormancy can be skipped, but I've seen it written quite a few times recently.

I think it may have originated from conversations about seedlings. If you have just germinated some seeds in the fall, I could see skipping the first dormancy since (I'm assuming) germination would naturally occur mid-late spring. I could also see skipping the first dormancy for seedlings in general if you're unable to protect them from frost or hard freezes. Refrigerator conditions would be great for them, but I don't know about outdoors in a 3 inch pot in Wisconsin. Maybe better to stunt their growth for a few months than to risk losing them? Granted I haven't experimented much with cold-hardiness of seedlings...I've always given mine a sheltered dormancy. Have you left seedlings outside over the winter, Matt?

xr280xr wrote:I think it may have originated from conversations about seedlings. If you have just germinated some seeds in the fall, I could see skipping the first dormancy since (I'm assuming) germination would naturally occur mid-late spring.

That's true. I suppose if one were germinating seeds in late September or later, it might work out to "skip" dormancy. From my observations, flytraps will only vigorously grow for about 10 to 12 months. Then they'll need dormancy. So starting seeds in September under artificial lighting and then getting them outside in the spring could work OK.

xr280xr wrote:Have you left seedlings outside over the winter, Matt?

I haven't grown seedlings (outside of tissue culture) for many, many years. But here in Ashland, I filled up a very large pot (half wine barrel) with B52s one year and let them go through an entire growing season. Some of the divisions were very, very tiny. Temperatures got down into the single digits a few times and night-time lows were pretty much always below freezing from mid-November through March. Even the teeniest of the tiny B52s came back the following year, much to my surprise. I think the key is having a larger pot with a relatively stable temperature. Plants in smaller pots that heat and cool quickly would likely not survive.

Matt wrote:I think the key is having a larger pot with a relatively stable temperature. Plants in smaller pots that heat and cool quickly would likely not survive.

this is something I think is very likely, from all my reading and reading and reading and reading some more, seems one of the most important factors for keeping fly traps thriving isn't so much concern for how extreme one way or the other for its conditions get, but rather how they get to those conditions (hot/cold/humidity/etc) the importance seems to lie in how long it takes for those conditions to shift when being acclimated one way or another as they seem very easy to adapt to so many different growing conditions, the tiny spindily root system and how skinny of pots many people grow them in for depth as opposed to width would do much worse with rapid fluctuations and not having a more stable environment for the temperatures/humidity/etc.

regulating and letting them ease into the heat or the cold, seems to be the most important factor outside of the conditions for water/medium/sunlight

In Moof's discussion of Dormancy which is posted at the top of the Venus Flytrap Care Forum he says:

Let’s talk about hibernating small plants now. As we know, they are more vulnerable to unfriendly conditions, such as lack of light and lower temperatures. Technically, putting them into dormancy isn’t that hard and can be beneficial, but it should be tried by more experienced growers. Beginners can skip the dormancy of small plants (up to 4-5 cm, 1,5-2 inches), without having to worry about negative effects. Seedlings can be “cheated” simply by repotting them.

I keep reading again and again that temperature swings and freeze/thaw cycles are the most damaging things and all I can think is, wow, these plants would never survive an outdoor colorado winter. t shirt weather one day, white out blizzard the next. just this sunday is supposed to dip 50 degrees overnight and that's not unusual.

i hope they like the garage.

1cashew wrote:In Moof's discussion of Dormancy which is posted at the top of the Venus Flytrap Care Forum he says:

Let’s talk about hibernating small plants now. As we know, they are more vulnerable to unfriendly conditions, such as lack of light and lower temperatures. Technically, putting them into dormancy isn’t that hard and can be beneficial, but it should be tried by more experienced growers. Beginners can skip the dormancy of small plants (up to 4-5 cm, 1,5-2 inches), without having to worry about negative effects. Seedlings can be “cheated” simply by repotting them.

would the small plants assignment be purely size or age? any clue how to factor in very tiny divisions from an older mature/established plant?

example: I just split up a plant we got recently and had many very very tiny divisions rosettes of leaves no bigger around or taller than a quarter, small rhizome chunk and some 4-5" healthy roots -- I know that natural divisions will tend to grow much faster than seedlings, but while they are still this size - skipping dormancy doesn't feel like it'd be right for them but it was a question I had pop into my head prior to and then after repotting. they are tiny little plants growing in a 6 x 6 x 8" deep pot along with the other larger adults mixed in

I have some leaf pullings about quarter size and some seedlings almost 3 months old. I brought them in and put them under lights about four days ago. It made sense to me that the plants being fed and growing all winter would give me larger plants quicker. I brought them back outside yesterday morning to continue into dormancy. I do not want weakening plants going into dormancy next year. Age seems more of an important factor to me than size as size is determined by more variables than age. Next year I think I will wait to germinate some seeds until September.

I would say xr280xr that the bulk of naturally occurring germinations of VFT seedlings occur from mid June through mid July but of course adverse climatic conditions will delay germinations.

Hey Matt, considering that you also live in Oregon, how do you handle the rain? It's going to start raining tomorrow and likely just keep raining from now until the beginning of June along with frequent frosts. The plants will be completely waterlogged all winter and spring. The temperature is just going to keep dropping as well, so they are never going to lose any of that moisture. Any thoughts? Should I keep them covered with something clear so they still get the sun but minimize the rain? The're looking pretty sad right now but I do see some new growth. I have the ability to fabricate a clear acrylic enclosure that could be open on the sides, like a little pagoda. This could protect them from the elements but still allow the sun and airflow.