FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Because you all helped me out tremendously on my previous post, i wanted your opinion again. do these plants look like they have entered dormancy? when i look at other dormant plant images, they all look as if they are almost completely dead, granted i had done some cleaning up before i took this picture, i.e. removing about 50% of the plant that had turned black and withered away, they are also growing far closer to the ground than during the summer, but the remaining traps are still somewhat active? still pumping nectar across the brims of the leaves and if triggered still close with impressive speed if triggered. I live in too cold an environment to leave them out side during winter, so i house them in my basement using artificial light that matches that of current sunlight hours (turning on at 8AM and off at around 4:30PM which is the current sun rise and set where i live). anyway my question is, do they appear to have entered dormancy? will they stay strong and healthy in the next growing season?

They could well be dormant. They don't necessarily die back a ton and they don't necessarily stop trapping prey. That depends on the temperature and the specific clone of flytrap you've got. Here's some of my outdoor flytraps from today, fully in dormancy:


Your photoperiod is good, but what kind of temperature are they getting right now? They can be somewhat warm (I mean, today is 74 degrees and that's not terribly atypical for January), but they still appreciate it if it cools off some. Our mean winter temperature here is somewhere in the lower 50s, depending on the year. Winter 2016-17 was the warmest on record, with a mean of nearly 59, and my flytraps went dormant fine.

Have they slowed down in growth much? Although my flytraps have lots of green, they have grown very little (maybe only 1-2 leaves) since Thanksgiving.

They look dormant to me. VFT's do not need to die back completely to the rhizome to be considered dormant. If they are not actively growing new traps thats another good sign. I've had mine in an unheated garage all winter (Chicago) and mine look similar to this (maybe a few more dead black traps). Winter for me this year has been unusually warm though (30*F-40*F) so I've had no need to provide them any extra heating (I only turn it on if it's getting super cold below 20*F. IMO they should be around 50*F for optimal dormancy (i prefer 30-40 for mine) and vigor in the next growing season. When I kept mine under short photoperiod but room temperature after 4 years their vigor dropped severely, I even thought I was going to lose them when they looked dormant and didn't start growing until July one year. It's nothing you need to worry about now, I would just modify the dormancy next year if your plants are not seeing at least 50's.

awesome, thats a relief, there growth is has been slowed greatly and the images you provided are incredibly similar to my other VFT pots as well. I can now put my mind to rest
BTW the photo period is the only thing that i was able to use to induce dormancy, my basement is at a constant mid 60's F
which is rather high for them i believe, but it seems they took the bait and when dormant from the shortened photo period

I would say they look dormant to me, but boy are those pink! What species(?) Are they? They're so precious.

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