FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

First-time flytrap grower here. I ordered a pack of 20 seeds from FlytrapStore.com (plus little "Coquillage" and "UK Sawtooth II" plants as role models for the seeds).

There were 56 seeds in the pack! Generous! Glad I didn't order the larger size.

My first-grade daughter and I planted 24 in little seedling trays. The rest are in the fridge as insurance in case we blow this first crop. To track their germination and performance, we gave each seed a name: five characters, A to Z (skipped X and Y).

Looking forward to reporting whether Prong, Disco, Igloo, or Gravy hatches first.

I am rooting for Zebra... good luck with your new plants and seeds

Take a selfie with your new plants and post in in my giveaway... located in chit chat forum...you might have a chance to win another plant.

Haha that’s so cute, I love those names!
Being from Yorkshire I’m obviously rooting for Gravy

Who knows? Maybe Gravy will turn out to be a wacky mutation and become a coveted named cultivar. You’ll be able to order one for $69.99 from FTS.

Chloe123 wrote:Haha that’s so cute, I love those names!
Being from Yorkshire I’m obviously rooting for Gravy

By the way, the seedlings are on a heat mat that has the soil at 90°–95°.

Way too hot, right?

I slid a cookie-cooling rack between the heat mat and the domed plastic deli tray that the seeds are in. Hope that moderates the heat a bit.

schmeg wrote:By the way, the seedlings are on a heat mat that has the soil at 90°–95°.

Way too hot, right?

Yeah, that's pretty warm. Would be better to be about 10 degrees cooler.

I like to drill quite a few one eighth inch holes in my dome for ventilation and cross ventilation. This helps prevent fungus infection which arrives and thrives in warm, moist areas with no air movement.

love it!! our kid is done with 1st grade as of today and how we got into these plants in the first place! its fun using them as teaching tools that are also just cool to grow!

I'm rooting for Prong! which fits in well for a flytrap (if you've ever heard the song from the mid/early 90s by...Prong.. SNAP your fingers, snap your neck haha)

[UPDATE JUNE 18] — These seeds have been in their peat cribs for 10 days now. No sprouting yet of course, but I feel like we're in the third trimester.

Nice and humid in their domed deli tray, at 85°F. They had been in fairly dim indoor light. Now the tray is under a T5 light. I covered the otherwise totally clear plastic lid with two layers of Glad Press 'n' Seal to reduce and diffuse the light a bit. Hoping that works as "bright indirect" as noted here. I check soil temp with a digital meat thermometer and can unplug the heat mat if the T5 gets things too toasty.

No mold or other yuckness, which is a relief. The dome has binder clips on the bottom to prevent it from settling in place — allows for some air circulation. I take off the dome for a bit each day to let air circulate.

If there's anything else I can do to ensure success, please let me know.

= = = = =

Along with these seeds I had ordered a 'Coquillage' and a 'UK Sawtooth II' as small starter plants.

My daughter fed an ant to every open trap on the day they arrived. She now knows to let them get settled in.

A few traps on each blackened quickly (just jet lag, right, not ant overdose?), but younger traps are still unfurling. After inconstant daylight for the first week (thunderstorm season in Wisconsin), these too are under the T5 light on a 14-hour timer now.

[UPDATE JUNE 19 — day 10]

ZEBRA hatched first! (See picture.) A ridiculously tiny but legit green sprout. Congratulations, Hollyhock, on predicting the winner.

[EDITED: WHIRL definitely sprouted.] It's possible that its next-door neighbor WHIRL also sprouted. I think I see a teensy sliver of green, but I don't see its seed cover. Could be something else in the dirt.

How did you get such a nice picture?

Sent from my LG-LS777 using Tapatalk

Nightbreed wrote:How did you get such a nice picture?

It's just a camera-phone picture. Cropped, then filters applied from an iPhone app (vignette for the dark edges, and a focus blur to keep the center sharp and blur the rest).

Here's the original:

Whoo hoo! Go Zebra it's your birthday....
Congratulations
Now if only it has stripes...

[UPDATE JUNE 25 — day 16]

Joy!

At breakfast this morning we observed four more seeds hatched on day 16: BAGEL, CRISP, ENTER, and FRITZ. These are all in the same 6-pack seedling tray. Getting me wondering about what factors affect the germination of these seeds.

The two that sprouted on day 10 — WHIRL and ZEBRA — still have their seed caps. ZEBRA is particularly upright and vigorous (for a 5mm tall plant).

The new sprouters are just the merest speck of green. We're using the Flytrap Store's peat/perlite/silica mixture. If we were planting in moss we'd never see 'em at this stage.

BUT. Of 24 seeds, 6 are confirmed germinated. 25% success so far.

One mistake I'll own up to was watering from the top a day or two after planting. Even though I thought I was meticulously gentle dribbling rainwater from a drinking straw, the water must have pushed the soil around too much. I know this because ENTER's seed had been relocated on top of the plastic edge of its seedling cup. Gasp! I moved that seed and its chunk of peat back into the center of its cup. Hope it didn't mind the journey. So now I wonder if any other seeds were washed too deeply into the peat to germinate.