FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

For some reason, it hadn't really occurred to me that these things actually worked as pest control.

I thought I was growing them because they were amazing, but I have VFT in the kitchen window that now has all it's traps full of those house flies that used to hang around in the window for long enough that you started to see them as permanent fixtures. You know they are a problem when visiting kids would recognize them from last time they visited, and want to give them names.

These days, they don't last more than a few minutes.

On each side of the VFT (full - must plant more), we have a pitcher plant to take care of the tiny ants that visit (nearly full - must plant more), and a sticky plant that takes care of the tiny bugs that you sometimes walk through a cloud of in your backyard, only to discover that they taste really, really bad, and sometimes follow you into the house when you leave the door open for a bit (coping just nicely - no need for any more).

I move that all windows be framed by CPs.

It also occurs to me that anyone marketing these things, might do well to market them based on the size of the pest (to humans), and kind of pest in their local environment that the plants tend to catch. I would have bought something called a mosquito plant, or a wasp trap years ago just for the convenience of it. (bug sprays make me sneeze a lot)

I'll be the first in line to buy a beer for the grower of the Venus Mouse Trap.


ie: mosquito plant, wasp plant, irritating tiny flies that taste bad plant etc etc

Commercial fly traps were designed to copy carnivorous plants (flypaper = sundews, "rescue" fly bags = pitcher plants)... I sell a lot of venus flytraps to neighbors with livestock, but their plants usually die within a few months

Do they die just because they are not cared for, or is there something else going on?

BullwinkleII wrote:Do they die just because they are not cared for, or is there something else going on?

It can be hard to grow CPs outdoors here because our summers are so hot and dry. I have killed quite a few plants myself by forgetting to top up the water.

I'm trying to figure out how to make a few drip fed hanging baskets to hang over my little planted area I have in the backyard. I'm thinking I might put a blue barrel on the veranda roof and catch rainwater as it steps down from the house roof. When it overflows, it will just continue on into the gutters.

Maybe.

My tap water here is has high levels of dissolved salts at around 400ppm. My rainwater reads 45ppm, but trying to get a decent head of rainwater poses a bit of a problem.

I want sticky traps everywhere