FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi guys, pretty new to the Venus fly trap world but this site is a mine of information, very nice !

So I bought my first flytrap at a pet shop (yes really!) right now I am exposing the plant for little time to direct sun because it was inside and I read on the forum it should get used to more sun ! right now it is looking go, i guess..

but it came in a very little pot (see pic) I am wondering if I should repot it in a bigger pot and if so when ?
thanks for your advices
here are some pics

That thing is pretty beastly. Good looking flytrap That flytrap in particular will look amazing given lots of light due to the specific genetics of your plant's petioles - with 6+ hours of *direct* sunlight per day those wings on the petiole near the trap will flare out even more.

It will do fine the remainder of this year in the pot it's in now, but you can repot and it may allow the plant to grow more freely. If you choose to do so, use a 6 to 8" deep plastic pot; does not have to be wide at all, as flytrap roots grow pretty much straight down. Stay away from ceramic pots, as many of them can leech minerals into the soil.

Generally we repot in Spring just when the plants are waking up; I repot in Spring but I've repotted glytraps mid-season and late-season and never had any problems. Just be careful you don't rip or destroy the delicate roots.

Lastly, I'd cut the flower stalk off, whether you repot now or not. It will help the flytrap establish/settle into its new environment and grow bigger traps. Until you are actually ready to collect seeds to grow flytraps from seed, cut all subsequent flower stalks off at the base when they're between 1-3 inches tall.

Look here for info on making new flytraps out of that cut flower stalk: http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/propa ... ml#p133578

For whenever you do repot: Soil for flytraps

Good luck

Thank you for the tips, I will definitely give it more sun it will look nice and I will cut off the flower stalk!

just to be sure the flower stalk are those thing pointed ?

The arrow in the middle is the flower stalk. The parts noted by the other two arrows are unfurling leaves.

ha right, I didn't know there was only one, thanks !

A flytrap flower stalk is the only one that will always come up looking like a little "fist". Its stem will also be completely rounded, whereas trap leaves have a flat side. Usually only one flower stalk at a time, but sometimes you will see more than one. Also note that you may have more than one flytrap in there; flytraps divide their rhizomes naturally over time and develop additional plants, in addition to propagating from seed via flower stalk.

The reason it's generally a good idea to cut off the flower stalk is this: When most plants flower, they spend X amount of energy on the flower stalk. Some plants expend more energy than others in this process. The Venus Flytrap is near the upper end of this, whereas it spends a lot of energy on flower production. It literally removes all plant-energy from other parts of the plant and puts everything into the flower stalk, which stunts its growth to some greater or lesser degree (partly depends on how much sunlight it gets - a flytrap that gets the minimum of 4 hours per day will be in seriously rough shape during/after flowering, while a flytrap that gets 10 hours of sunlight per day will still be set back from flowering, but won't suffer nearly as much as flytraps that receive less light. There are other factors as well including cultivar of the flytrap, water/soil content.

Your idea of acclimating the flytrap to more sun, carefully, over a period of a week or so is a good idea; keep doing that.