FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I am receiving my first DC XL from the FTS (woohoo!) and the instructions say to acclimate it to the sunshine in my area, but acclimate it from what? I have to have a reference point to know where to acclimate from. I believe the FTS is in Ashland, Oregon while I am here in Independence, Oregon just a few hours drive north but I'm not sure if the plant was in a greenhouse with different hours of light. There is no way the plant will survive outdoors right now, it is still getting below freezing every night.

Pot it up and put it in a sunny windowsill for now. Once your weather figures out it's Spring and stays above freezing, put it outside.
Place it in a spot where it gets six+ hours of direct sun from sunup, then shaded or dappled light after that. That's not a huge deal now, but as summer goes on, the less intense light in the AM will be good for it. While the more intense sunlight in the afternoon will be blocked so it's not getting straight on laser beams along with the higher heat of the summer.
You got this.

Edit: You probably know this, but keep it moist throughout this process.

Many greenhouses are covered in a translucent plastic, often looking foggy or "milky". The light that gets through that plastic is no where near as strong as direct sunshine. If you take a flytrap from one of these greenhouses and drop it into direct, unfiltered sun for 6-8 hours, the leaves are likely to get burned. It's a case of too bright, too fast. To acclimate the plant, put it in a place that gets a couple hours of morning sun per day for one week. The following week, move it to a place that gets 3 hours of morning sun per day. The week after that, 4 hours per day and so on until the plant is getting 6+ hours of sun every day.

Last year, I bought some Pink Venus cultivars from a grower who has greenhouses with the foggy-looking plastic. The plants were about 50/50 red and green, not at all how they're supposed to look. After I acclimated them to direct sun, they were red all over. I do the sunshine acclimation routine with all of my new flytraps, just to be on the safe side.

One more thought on acclimating new plants:
When plants are shipped, the are often sent "Bare Root".
This means there is no pot or growing medium. The plant is wrapped in damp paper towel in a ziploc baggie.
You have to pot it up in a suitable mix.
It will take the roots some time to recover from shipping, they can't efficiently pull moisture out of the medium and send it up to the leaves.
If you don't compensate for this, the leaves will lose more moisture to transpiration than the roots can replenish.
I usually bag the plant or cover it with a dome for 2 - 4 weeks.
This gives the roots time to settle in and get back to work.
I keep the plant out of full direct sunlight during this period.
I may overdo things but I almost never lose a new plant.
Just my 02¢ worth.
Good growing,
Mike

Gotcha, thanks for the input. I have the plant on the window sill of my south facing bathroom window, it came potted already. Good humidity, and sun through the fogged glass right now. It's been there a week now, no visible growth but no negative signs either. I have a Lowes VFT right next to it that's throwing up new leaves well now. I've had that one for two weeks. I'm hesitant about putting them outside, the temps are showing mid to high 30's but it's still frosting in the morning, I had to de-ice my car windows to make it in to work. I assume it's ok for them to be on the window sill for another few weeks? I have managed to kill every VFT that I have put outside for winter dormancy, they are solid black two days after the first frost and water-logged and sunless for the next 5 months. I'm a little gun shy...