FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

ok so i just bought my very first vft. iv had a loosky online for tips on how to care for it, but almost everywhere i go the vft grow 'upwards' like a normal plant, whereas the one i have seems to be growing 'outwards' as in close to the soil and more horizontal than vertical. is this a bad thing??

Welcome to the boards, this place is great!

Low growth habit isn't a bad thing at all.

Some cultivars grow close to the ground like what you are suggesting. However, if you bought your plant at Lowe's, Home Depot, etc., then that is not the case. Those stores only sell typicals. Instead, your plant is probably just coming out of or going into dormancy, with the latter being even more likely.

I just bought a nice B52 look-alike VFT at Lowe's about a month ago, and it had the low, squatty nature that you describe with your plant. Keep it growing in the right conditions and it will most likely start to produce more upright growth, like mine is starting to do.

If it is entering dormancy, it might stay low and flat for a few months, then come out of it. Just give it the right conditions (bright, direct light and the proper media and moisture) and it will be fine.

Good luck!

well i live in norway so its most likely going into a dormant state! i bought it at a pretty reputable (is that a word?!) plantation, but this is the first time iv seen them there (otherwise i would have bought one ages ago!), so im guessing that they only sell typicals.

im very excited to have joined the ranks of Venus flytrap owners and will treat it with the utmost tender loving care!! and yes! this place is great! its been bookmarked and explored all night long!!

congratulatoins on your new venus flytrap, try get some pictures up

Welcome to FlytrapCare and congrats on your new flytrap!

My first flytrap, which I bought in the grocery store, grows with flat leaves year round. Most flytraps grow upright during the spring and summer, and then lower to the ground during winter dormancy (or so I'm told, this is my first winter growing upright ones).

Welcome to the forum!

As everyone else mentions, Venus Flytraps typically grow more prostrate (flat) and hug the ground during cold weather to help keep them warmer (from freezing). The plants usually begin to grow shorter, more horizontal leaves a month or two before dormancy, and the leaves remain that way throughout dormancy and usually for at least a few weeks after dormancy when the plant begins to grow actively again.

In most Venus Flytraps, the leaves begin to grow thinner and more upright as the weather becomes warmer, but some Flytraps have ground-hugging leaves all year.

During dormancy, try to prevent the leaves from freezing, so that they can still produce food for the plant from photosynthesis. Cool to cold but not freezing temperatures are great. Give the plant plenty of light even during dormancy, and don't water nearly as often because the plant uses much less water during dormancy and the growing medium dries out much more slowly when it is cool or cold. You can allow the medium to dry until just barely moist before watering again, unless the plant looks like it is drying out completely.

Best wishes, good luck with your Venus Flytrap, and please post messages to the Forum about its progress and your experience.

Neuroticminx Flytraps have 3 sets of leaves each year. Where I grow them they have 4 sets of leaves. Spring leaves are ground hugging with broad leaves. They also put out their flower stalks in Spring. Then in late Spring/early Summer they throw out tall spindly leaves that reach upward. When Fall hits they put out short thin ground hugging leaves. In Winter they may have no leaves at all and die down to their rhyzome(bulb). But if your plant is cold but isn't too cold and the lighting is still decent they put out tiny somewhat broad leaves with small traps on the end of them until Spring rolls around again. They also shed their leaves 3 times a year(4 with Winter's that aren't too cold). Generally they shed leaves all along and grow leaves all along too but there definitely seems to be spurts of leaf shedding that go along with spurts of growth at the beginning or so of each season.

This is not 100% uniform and some have a tendency to make tall Summer type leaves for a longer portion of the year than just Summer. And some don't ever seem to make the really tall erect Summer leaves and instead have only slightly lifted leaves in Summer that look a lot like their Spring or Fall leaves.

Another growth pattern I've seen is that they tend to divide at the end of each season but at the end of Summer, beginning of Fall the most. Their dividing seems to accompany their leaf shedding. The flower stalk receding also causes a burst of growth or more precisely, not necessarily more leaves/traps emerging but bigger leaves/traps emerging.

I grow 1000s of Flytraps. All different clones with many typicals from seed and the median growth pattern that I've seen is basically what I've described to you here above.

This isn't always noticeable to beginner VFT growers who more often than not purchase tissue cultured VFTs that are less than 2 years old and have not yet grown in an environment that matches all 4 seasons for long enough. Consequently their leaf shapes are all mixed up. But one thing that does seem to be common is that around the time they are purchased and shortly afterwards these not too long out of TC VFTs tend to make long, broad, delicate, more ground hugging than erect leaves. They also tend to be a very rich green color with little coloring in their traps. Whereas VFTs grown outdoors tend to be more of a yellowish-green color with more robust leaves and more color in their traps. I believe the TCed VFTs are different because they have a rich accumulation of nitrogen from the TC and have yet to be grown in particularly strong light. But eventually they shift into a more natural growth pattern after they've been grown in normal seasonal conditions for a while.

Steve I don't doubt that warm weather is partially a factor in VFTs making tall erect leaves but where I live in June and July it often doesn't even hit 70 F and sometimes only hits 65 F and yet the vast majority of my more mature VFTs threw out the tall erect Summer leaves anyways. It could also be that the Sun's light intensity is a major trigger for the tall erect leaves too but there is often cloud cover even all day long where I live in May and June especially. So I'm not sure that my VFTs are really detecting more intense light in those months. By contrast September and October have noticeably less cloud cover and are generally warmer than May-July and yet in early September most of my VFTs put out thin short ground hugging leaves anyways. I suspect the biggest factor in leaf shape growth pattern is an established internal clock that they have.

idontlikeforms wrote:Steve I don't doubt that warm weather is partially a factor in VFTs making tall erect leaves but where I live in June and July it often doesn't even hit 70 F and sometimes only hits 65 F and yet the vast majority of my more mature VFTs threw out the tall erect Summer leaves anyways.

I think you overlooked a very important part of Steve's post. He didn't say that VFTs make tall erect leaves due to warm weather. He said:

Steve_D wrote:the leaves begin to grow thinner and more upright as the weather becomes warmer

In spring, weather is warmer than it is in winter. Even if the difference isn't as large where you live (with highs only in the 70s in July) it's still warmer than it was during the winter. But I think the main idea behind Steve's post is that you can gauge the seasonal growth by when weather starts warming up with an implied reference to when days get longer. When I read Steve's post I interpret it like this: "as weather gets warmer in spring (due to the lengthening of the days), flytraps will start putting out thinner more upright leaves."

idontlikeforms wrote:I suspect the biggest factor in leaf shape growth pattern is an established internal clock that they have.

That's absolutely correct and that "internal clock" is controlled by the photoperiod. The lengthening and shortening of days has more control over plant growth than does temperature. I've heard and read this a few places now. Due to the fact that temperature can vary a lot year to year, but sunrise and sunset times have little to no variance, temperate plants rely more on daylight hours than temperature to signal them to change their growth patterns with the seasons.

VFTs at my house EVERYTIME i bought them,they will reward me upright growth.just dont know why most of them i bought from shopping mall,growers etc etc.their growth at my house must be upright.even my vft in dormant also in upright shape

weird eh?

Matt wrote:I think you overlooked a very important part of Steve's post. He didn't say that VFTs make tall erect leaves due to warm weather. In spring, weather is warmer than it is in winter. Even if the difference isn't as large where you live (with highs only in the 70s in July) it's still warmer than it was during the winter. But I think the main idea behind Steve's post is that you can gauge the seasonal growth by when weather starts warming up with an implied reference to when days get longer. When I read Steve's post I interpret it like this: "as weather gets warmer in spring (due to the lengthening of the days), flytraps will start putting out thinner more upright leaves."

Fair enough.

Matt wrote:That's absolutely correct and that "internal clock" is controlled by the photoperiod. The lengthening and shortening of days has more control over plant growth than does temperature. I've heard and read this a few places now. Due to the fact that temperature can vary a lot year to year, but sunrise and sunset times have little to no variance, temperate plants rely more on daylight hours than temperature to signal them to change their growth patterns with the seasons.

I think their internal clock is set by photoperiod but more specifically it's photoperiod playing on genes that dictate a set growth pattern(Spring leaves first, then Summer leaves, then Fall leaves). I've grown VFTs under H/O lights before with lights on either all day or most of the day. I've put them there right out of dormancy. They first put out their squat Spring leaves and flower stalks and then switched to their tall erect Summer leaves after about 2 months of growing in the exact same conditions. They hit the Summer leaf growth stage sooner than they would have if they were grown outside. Of course it's also possible that they did this because their growth cycle was speeded up due to being under lights that were on for a longer period of time each day than they would have experienced sunlight outdoors.

I guess I should have mentioned longer day length in my previous post. Thanks, Matt.

The point I was trying to make is that leaves that grow prostrate (low to the ground) have a much better chance of surviving frost in winter, because they are protected by heat radiating from the gigantic thermal mass of the soil in which they grow. I believe that longer leaf growth corresponds to when the plant "thinks" that such a danger is past and it can put up longer leaves that can reach the available sunlight better (such as in their natural habitat which they share with grasses and other plants, all of which can potentially shade the Venus Flytrap and diminish the light available to this sun-loving plant).

I personally believe that the shorter, ground-hugging leaves in fall/winter/spring are an adaptation and response to help protect the plant (from freezing), that's all. But this is just one person's opinion and anyone is free to disagree, disregard it or believe whatever they wish.

idontlikeforms wrote:I've grown VFTs under H/O lights before with lights on either all day or most of the day. I've put them there right out of dormancy. They first put out their squat Spring leaves and flower stalks and then switched to their tall erect Summer leaves after about 2 months of growing in the exact same conditions. They hit the Summer leaf growth stage sooner than they would have if they were grown outside. Of course it's also possible that they did this because their growth cycle was speeded up due to being under lights that were on for a longer period of time each day than they would have experienced sunlight outdoors.

That's true. I too have noticed that flytraps grown under lights (either brought out of dormancy) seem to do the pattern of low-lying growth followed by upright growth. Often times plants out of TC put up upright growth right from the start and then progress into low-lying growth. Like you're setup, these changes are taking place without changing anything about the growing conditions, so that does indicate that they have some sort of internal genetic clock that's independent of the weather and conditions that they experience. Good point.

Steve_D wrote:I personally believe that the shorter, ground-hugging leaves in fall/winter/spring are an adaptation to help protect the plant, that's all.

I had never thought about the low-growing leaves of winter and very early spring in that way Steve. But now that you say it, it makes perfect sense to me as well. Very cool discussion!

wow.. idontlikeforums, steve_D and matt, for a total vft newbie that was an intense discussion!! lol.. but thanx for all the info!

'Dion' (yeah i wasnt very creative with name..) is doin well! He's not dead yet which is amazing for me.. usually all i have to do is look at a plant and it dies..! For now all he does is sit happily in the window watching the snowflakes and prolly laughing at all us poor saps who risk broken bones and frostbite everytime we go out! his leaves are still low-lying but they'r a beautiful lime green with just a hint of pink in the trap.

oh yeah question.. am i supposed to remove all the dead bits while he takes his yearly nap?

iv taken heaps of pics but my camera and pc dont like each other very much so still working on uploading..

You can remove the black stuff... but only the black stuff. If anything even has a little green leave it, because it is still making energy.

...or you can leave the black stuff. Its not going to hurt anything. I've found that if you leave the black leaves long enough, they almost always fall off with just a slight tug.