FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I bought a small pot with some VF in septerber last year and i have been doing okay until today but i have some newbie questions.

1. Watering
Since the it's dormancy started i have been watering it with approximately a little less than 1/4 of a regular cup (I measured it as half of a small cup i have) every 2-3 days with distilled water. New leafs have been sprouting so i'm not very concerned with this but if i'm doing something wrong and if at spring i must do something other than this amount daily i would be glad if someone told me.

2. Black leafs
Some leafs have become black and im still not sure what to do with them. Up until now i've been cutting them off (Once they have become black to the base) but i wonder if i must just leave them alone.

3. Flower stem
A strange stem started growing out of the pot (I later found out it is a flower stem) and i want to know what to do with it. Some sites say to cut it off if i'm not a skilled grower, or the plant will die. Other say to to let it be and get free seeds. I honestly know nothing on this matter and i concerned.

4. Re-plant
The pot my VF is currently in and i wonder if i should re-plant it into a bigger one. If yes, what size and what kind of ground.

Any answer appreciated!

I have included some pictures (For some reason they're sideways), i know my VF looks miserable but i think it's because of the dormancy?

iTardavk wrote:I bought a small pot with some VF in septerber last year and i have been doing okay until today but i have some newbie questions.

1. Watering
Since the it's dormancy started i have been watering it with approximately a little less than 1/4 of a regular cup (I measured it as half of a small cup i have) every 2-3 days with distilled water. New leafs have been sprouting so i'm not very concerned with this but if i'm doing something wrong and if at spring i must do something other than this amount daily i would be glad if someone told me.

2. Black leafs
Some leafs have become black and im still not sure what to do with them. Up until now i've been cutting them off (Once they have become black to the base) but i wonder if i must just leave them alone.

3. Flower stem
A strange stem started growing out of the pot (I later found out it is a flower stem) and i want to know what to do with it. Some sites say to cut it off if i'm not a skilled grower, or the plant will die. Other say to to let it be and get free seeds. I honestly know nothing on this matter and i concerned.

4. Re-plant
The pot my VF is currently in and i wonder if i should re-plant it into a bigger one. If yes, what size and what kind of ground.

Any answer appreciated!

I have included some pictures (For some reason they're sideways), i know my VF looks miserable but i think it's because of the dormancy?

1) I just water it about the same amount until the media is wet like squeezed sponge. Not too wet. When the pot gets light, I water again.
2) removing them is for aesthetics. I remove them when they're crispy and they come right off.
3) it is a flower. If your plant is healthy, it'll be just fine with the flower. Might as well let it finish flowering, make sure it pollinates and get the seeds.


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I think the pot is fine. You could go with something deeper, like a red solo cup. But I think the pot is fine. What lights are you using?

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1. You seem to be doing well. What you described about the plants growing means that the plant is not being under watered. You don't need to focus on the amount of water it's receiving as much as the soil. It should be constantly a little damp, not waterlogged or completely dry.

2. Eventually, leaves on a Venus Flytrap will just get old and die. It's not necessarily a sign of bad health unless a large amount die at once. You can clip the leaves when they completely dry out.

3. People like to say that a flower stalk will suck the life out your plant and cause to sulk for several months. Although I haven't experienced this, it can happen if the plant is already stressed or unhealthy. Yours looks a little rough and the plant should be flowering around spring so I'd say to cut it off. Even if it already has grown as much as it has.

4. The pot is fine for now. Venus Flytraps tend to like pretty deep pots though so when spring comes a pot around 5 or so inches will do.

It looks like you plant is light starved. The plant is completely green and the leaves are elongated and splayed out. You were guessing it's because of dormancy but I don't think that's it. If you kept your plant inside for the winter, and it wasn't cold enough, the plant might have not caught on to the fact that it winter started and continued to try to grow. This is supported by the flower stalk. Usually Venus Flytraps never flower in the winter.

Unless your winters are deathly cold (common cold snaps below 0F) you could probably keep your plant outside unprotected for dormancy. Or at least for now give the plant a little cold right now so it can sync up with the seasons.

Yeah, it looks to me like your flytrap never went into dormancy. They normally bloom in the springtime after the weather has warmed up and they actively start growing again. Your plant also looks like it's not getting sufficient sunlight. If that's the case, then the flower spike will expend more energy than the plant is receiving. Under normal circumstances, I would say to just leave it. But if that were mine, I would cut the spike off at the base and root it as a cutting to obtain more plants from it.

Flytraps' roots don't spread out like most plants. They grow straight down in search for more water. So deeper pots are preferred. For mine, I like using those plastic self-watering pots with the small reservoir at the bottom. I still water them from the top, but I also flush out any murky runoff water and fill the reservoir up with fresh clean water, and I keep the reservoir filled at all times so that the tips of the roots never completely dry out.

As for winter dormancy, I keep mine on a windowsill in my unheated garage, where the temperature never falls below 50°F, and they can still receive plenty of sunlight but remain in a dormant state. Because even though they are "dormant" and not actively growing, they can still photosynthesize energy from the sun and store it up in their rhizomes. Then, when spring rolls around, they will burst forth with lots of new flytraps and have more than enough energy to flower and produce seeds.

Since yours is actively growing and trying to bloom, I would gradually increase the amount of sunlight that it is getting. If you want your flytraps to flourish, then it's going to need more sunlight. They prefer direct sunlight, but in your plant's case, it will have to adjust to receiving more sunlight over time. This way, the foliage that it has already won't get sunburned. But even if that were to happen, any new growth will already be acclimated to the direct sunlight and will grow perfectly fine.

Thank you all for your replies
(Didnt have much time to answer back but here i am)

Light: I had had my plant directly near a window, with only a curtain sometimes blocking part of the light. For now i just placed it near a window with no curtain, so imo the light change wasnt big, and it doesnt look as if it got a sunburn.

Temperature: I currently live in Belgium, so winters aren't that cold, the coldest it ever gets is 3°C (37°F). I moved my plant from a sometimes heated room (Probably why it wasn't synced up) to a never heated room.

Flower: I still don't know what to do with it as half of you have different opinions. By now it already started to open, is there a point where it's too late to cut it off? And if i let it bloom, how do i pollinate it?

Thanks in advance.

Since the flowers are close to opening, then just let them. The best time to trim the stalk is before it has expended all of that potential energy, not after. There's no harm in letting your plant bloom.

The best time to pollinate your flowers is after the stigma on the pistil in the center of the flower has become receptive. You will be able to see when the tip of it opens up and becomes fluffy looking. That's when you take one or more of the pollen sacs with a pair of tweezers and dust it on the tip of the pistil.

Thank you all very much!

iTardavk wrote: Light: I had had my plant directly near a window, with only a curtain sometimes blocking part of the light. For now i just placed it near a window with no curtain, so imo the light change wasnt big, and it doesnt look as if it got a sunburn.

It's the opposite: It's not getting enough light. Windows are usually never enough and need to be supplemented with grow lights if you are attempting to grow a VFT indoors.