FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey everyone, I wanted to bring up an old post that I found on the forum about flytraps possibly not closing because of flowering and wanted to know what all of you thought about it and my current situation with flytraps not closing.

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Last summer I had 2 flytraps that would not close due to either the extreme heat(I live in Arizona with 95+ temperatures) or that I was over watering them too much, or the flytraps were lacking direct sunlight. The flytraps would either not close at all or very slowly.

In March I ordered a Bimbo flytrap from flytrapstore that is very healthy and growing well. Since it has been cooler I am able to give my plants 8+ hours of direct sunlight a day, I always use filtered water and making sure that I am not overwatering. About a week or two ago I noticed that the Bimbo was growing a flower stalk so yesterday I finally cut if off. For the heck of it I wanted to test one of the Bimbo flytraps to see if it would close and at first it would not at all, but then finally it started to close very slowly.

I know that when there are flower stalks growing they take tons of energy from the flytrap. I was wondering if it is possible that this could be why the flytrap on the Bimbo was closing so slowly? One thing to note is that it has been unusually hot here in Arizona for being April. There has been at least a week or two of temperatures being 95+ and even one day got up to 98 degrees! lol... So this could also be why the traps are closing so slowly.

I know in that old post that I put above, some think that it is because of the flower stalk while others said that the traps can close just fine with the plant flowering, and in my situation obviously this is not due to being in a hardware store and being closed too many times.

But anyways, I have attached a picture of the plant, and I just found it all to be quite interesting and wanted to see what others thought about all of this!

frankgrimes087 wrote:I know that when there are flower stalks growing they take tons of energy from the flytrap. I was wondering if it is possible that this could be why the flytrap on the Bimbo was closing so slowly?

Yes, that certainly does happen sometimes with some cultivars. But I think the major issue is the heat where you live. Anything over 90ish F with low humidity definitely stresses a flytrap. It won't kill them, but they won't grow all that well nor be very healthy either which can lead to their traps not closing as well. We have to deal with similar conditions here in southern Oregon.