FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi Everyone,
It's my first post here!

I usually read a lot in the forum but never posted anything until now. I bought a Venus Fly Trap a while ago and started to investigate as much as i could about it, this web site and forum are simply the best!
Anyway when the flower stalk appeared i chose to cut & replant it, mainly because:
1) My orignal plant is in a very small pot and i don't want to replant it
2) I would still like to have a venus fly trap in a bigger pot
3) I want to create as many as i can and then offer a few to my friends (they are hard to come by here in Portugal)!!

So looking at the forum i could find a lot of info but very few pictures. I found a member's post with a couple of images but then it stops somewhere last year. All in all i could only find a single image here (and in google for that matter) where you can see leafs coming out of a planted flower stalk. So i thought it would be nice for everyone else to get a couple of photos at a time with the evolution of my plant and eventually i might get a photo of a few leafs coming out of it. Also, i'm doing it under less than ideal conditions as you will see, so the information should be useful for other ppl out there.

So, some info about my plant:
1) I couldn't find perlite anywhere in Portuguese Shops, so mine doesn't have the right mix
2) I couldn't find any peat moss at first anywhere either, i ran every shopping mall and even the specialty shops for plants and couldn't find any. Eventually I did find it in a shop for vegetables?!? At least i think it's what i have, the guy in the shop kept telling me that wasn't soil and that i wasn't going to grow anything with it...
3) I decided to cut the stalk when it had about 4 cm.
4) I placed around 1,5cm of the stalk in the earth, the rest is out
5) It get's about 4 hours of direct sun everyday and about about 6 of normal daylight
6) I use distilled water both with a sort of sprinkler and placing the water in the recipient as suggested in the forum here (see photo)

The result:
After about 1-2 weeks the top part starts dieing (which is normal):


Zoom in:


After about 2 months it still looks like this:


I'll keep updating it every now and then with more info.

10/03/2012
Update: The Original Plant just got another Stalk growing up, i'll need to think what to do with it... Should i do the same i did? I'm thinking i could let it flower and get seeds this time!!

Very nice! I'm not sure if the photo you found by searching Google is this one:

Featured in the article:
Venus fly trap propagation
But that's the one photo I can remember taking of my flower stalk producing plantlets.

Oh, and I'm glad that you decided to join and post here on the FlytrapCare forums Golgothar. Great first post

I'll be dong this too. So far I have notice flower stalks on my: B52, maroon monster, crimson sawtooth, and typical. The typical I want seed from. The others will go into the dirt!

Ty for posting! This is a great thread!

Matt wrote:Very nice! I'm not sure if the photo you found by searching Google is this one:
But that's the one photo I can remember taking of my flower stalk producing plantlets.

That is the one! You need to be aware you have the only photo in the word of a stalk producing plantlets!

Golgothar wrote:You need to be aware you have the only photo in the word of a stalk producing plantlets!

Hah! Surely not, but it may be the easiest one to find

I have this one

Original photo was taken by BigBella.

Another month went by and no news. The plant looks exactly the same.
On a side note, my main plant flowered again and i will have seeds very soon!! I'll try to exchange some by mail with other member in the forum

Carefully unearth the flower stem you planted and see if there's any new growth beneath the soil. If so, replant the stalk (or lie it on its side) so it's receiving direct light.

My flower stalks were rotting, one after the other, until I replaced the bulbs in my plants' light stands with badly needed 6,500K, flytrap sufficient bulbs. Interesting thing is, the only two stalks to finally take off were just stubs (no flower). I went ahead and moved all of my stalks to the same container where my leaf pullings are growing. Have to see what happens.

Stratofortress wrote:Carefully unearth the flower stem you planted and see if there's any new growth beneath the soil. If so, replant the stalk (or lie it on its side) so it's receiving direct light.

My flower stalks were rotting, one after the other, until I replaced the bulbs in my plants' light stands with badly needed 6,500K, flytrap sufficient bulbs. Interesting thing is, the only two stalks to finally take off were just stubs (no flower). I went ahead and moved all of my stalks to the same container where my leaf pullings are growing. Have to see what happens.

Hey, congrats. Just wondering how long you waited until you checked the stalks for growth?

jaester wrote:
Hey, congrats. Just wondering how long you waited until you checked the stalks for growth?

Thanks, I had the two "stumps" under UV/High Humidity for at least 5 Weeks; maybe more. Still can't get anything out of the stalks that still have the flower. I'm sure my lighting upgrade made the difference

Thanks for the good advice staratofortress.

I unearthed it today and had the following result (see photos below):


Apparently it has a good red color, and only the bottom part is a bit rotten. Can you guys give me feedback, this is supposedly good right, i should leave it as it was and wait longer?

I also noted something else, it's really minimal and barely noticeable but could the small round things on the top in the picture below, be the beginning of growing plant?


Let me know what you guys think.

Yes, from what I can see, that stalk has some strikes at the very top. Keep the entire stalk very moist from this point on. To increase humidity, Use a plastic cup or saran wrap to cover the surface of the pot + 12-16hr daily photoperiod.

IT LIVES!!!!

Here are some photos of the evolution of my plant:


And after a week:



What i find interesting is that it took several months to get to this point.
Now a couple of questions, i've been sprinkling the plant almost everyday and giving it as much sunlight as possible.
I started by try to cover it up at night but then i uncovered it during the day, since i saw Steve saying in another post (and it makes sense) that the plant would get so hot that it could get cook. Since it does get pretty hot here in Portugal 20º-30ºC i figured i should leave it uncovered and with as much sunshine as possible, it doesn't have that much humidity however, any hints in this part? I'm i doing it right?

In addition to what Steve said - if it got this far without, there's no sense covering it now.

I'd carefully unearth the stalk and check the base of the flower stalk cutting for additional plantlets/callouses. If it has some, plant the stalk sideways rather than upright; those plantlets need some soil to root in (leave a little less than half of the sideways flower stalk exposed to light). If it doesn't have plantlets/callouses at the base, shove that stalk down deeper so the plantlets are at the same level with the soil.

Congrats

Congratulations on the strikes!