FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Also, which is better for beginners?

I don't trust hardware stores, their plants are almost always in terrible condition. Most often, they must be immediately repotted and healed.
Sure, rescuing plants may sound awesome but its like gambling, the plants have a 50:50 chance of dying on you. This risk increases for beginners.
I've already wasted 25 bucks trying (saving plants does NOT mean that you save money), don't make the same mistake!
This forum has an awesome list of refutable sellers which you can purchase from. These plants can recover easily and are suitable for beginners.

For absolute beginners, buy an established, potted VFT from a reputable source. You'll spend more, but the recovery time will be a matter of days as long as it's not still dormant. Keep it outside, make sure it doesn't freeze during dormancy, and you'll have a great plant for years. You should be able to find a variety of plants, it just comes down to how much you want to spend for how pretty of a plant.
However, if you're still a beginner, but have a little experience and new media, check out the deathcubes at the hardware stores or Wally World. Even though they're all typicals, I've seen some that look like a variety cultivars, so you can still get an assortment. My last deathcube acquisition is so dark purple that it's almost black.

I think every CP enthusiast will once in a while snag a death cube VFT from Lowe's to revive .

For a beginner, it's best to buy a healthy specimen from a well-known nursery (like FTS).

Another pro to getting death-cube VFTs is that sometimes you can find interesting clones. The cultivar "MD Buttcheeks" was a TC mutation found in a death cube, along with "Cross Teeth China". One of my best clones I got from a death cube a few years ago, from Altman Plants.

ChefDean wrote:For absolute beginners, buy an established, potted VFT from a reputable source. You'll spend more, but the recovery time will be a matter of days as long as it's not still dormant.

100% agree. It is best to get one in good health from a reputable grower who specializes in carnivorous plants and, preferably, Venus flytraps to maximize the chance of success of growing it!

Alright, I have a question for all of you death cube junkies. When you get them from Lowes, Wally World, etc. do they already exhibit the unique characteristics or is it once you have had them for a while? Other than the Rocket Farms clones from Walmart, everything I see is the anemic long leafed green blah. Even when the plants look healthy, they always look like the typical typical.

The same goes for the Sarrs that you rescued. Were they the rhizomes in dried peat moss pots or were they already growing so that you could see what they were?

Every dried and dormant rhizome combo I ever got (VFT and Sarr in the same cube) were both growing in the dry sphagnum they were in, using their stored starch to try to get some leaves up into the light.
However, the potted ones are worth looking through them to see what may be. The last time I got a deathcube, this was right at the front. I took it home, repotted it, and put it outside. The existing leaves are dead or declining as expected, but the new growth is dark, dark, dark purple, almost black.

I picked up 3 red flytraps from a local Lowe's Home Improvement store (I suspect they're Red Dragon / Akai Ryu, but they didn't come with cultivar tags). They were still in decent shape and two months later are growing nicely.

I'm intermediate when it comes to CPs, I recently bough 2 VTFs, one from 2 different Lowes' to rescue them and give them a chance. I never bought a CP from a nursery, but that's a plan to do sometime in the future. I do know there's a chance that they may not make it, but its worth the try and so far they've been doing good.

Agree with the sentiment that -- for a rank beginner -- it's best to buy a healthy plant to start.

VFTs are very slow-growing plants, so a rescue is a prolonged effort that depends upon adequate knowledge as well as patience.

HOWEVER, without decent knowledge, you can easily KILL a healthy plant, so reading up is important either way.

The bottom line is ya gotta know what you're doing. It isn't difficult to grow VFTs, but it is a process of continuous learning.

ApgarTraps wrote:HOWEVER, without decent knowledge, you can easily KILL a healthy plant, so reading up is important either way.

Very true! No matter what, people should have the basic care requirements well understood before attempting to grow Venus flytraps. Thankfully they are very few and usually not too hard to meet.

Matt wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 4:50 pm "...basic care requirements ... are very few and usually not too hard to meet."

So true!

I KILL tomatoes and cucumbers; the fact that I have a thriving VFT collection is proof of how easy they are to grow!

ApgarTraps wrote:I KILL tomatoes and cucumbers; the fact that I have a thriving VFT collection is proof of how easy they are to grow!

Haha, me too! Of course, I typically pay much more attention to my VFT collection than I do our veggies but the fact is that they're really not terribly hard at all to grow. I'm sure if I cared enough to read more about growing veggies well, I'd have similar success with them. But I love my VFTs far more than my veggie plants

Only if Lowes has them on clearance I'll try to salvage but I'm not paying them 12$ retail price

albertoburrito wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 4:29 am Also, which is better for beginners?

I don't buy crap. Why waste your money? BUY QUALITY. I don't get the whole "rescue" thing.