FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I've been to numerous web sites which contain info on the VFT, and this site is the best. All tell you never to fertilize a VFT. But a few sites tell you that advanced growers use a dilluted fertilizer, and it is sprayed on the leaves, has anyone tried this?

I''m no advanced grower so i can't really answer this question but i'm not quite sure how that would help the VFT??? Maybe someone else can answer this sry im no help.

I have tried using very dilute fish emulsion as a foliar spray every 2 weeks during the growing season and found that the vigor of the plant and size of traps was improved, but as a side effect I also got some interesting distorted and malformed traps (not many, but more than would usually be produced). It's not really necessary to fertilise your plants as they should get all the goodness that they need from catching and digesting insects, but if you do want to try fertilising your plants, make sure that you don't get any fertiliser on the soil as this will encourage the growth of algae. The fertiliser should be VERY weak - I have used the fish emulsion type at 25% of the minimum recommended dosage.

eg. general plants may require 10ml/litre, whereas orchids and ferns will tolerate less (minimum dosage) 2.5ml/litre - in this case I would use only 25% (or 1/4) of 2.5ml per litre of water.

I would not recommend trying this unless you have some plants to spare.

Thanks clearing some of the mystery up on fertlizing a VFT. I'm not thinking about trying this as a newbie. I guess seeing how heatly my sons VFT looks compared to mine made want to get more info from the experts. I thought it was worth asking about the dilluted fertilizer.
Not sure if you seen the pics I posted but you can see how healthy my sons VFT looks. I guess a bit of patience is the best advise I can give myself. Thanks again for your input. BTW this is a neat web site!!!!

Yeah, in my opinion it's not worth taking a chance with. No need to fix something that isn't broken, in other words.