FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello,

Right now I’m growing quite a lot of Venus flytraps and I’m in a conundrum on what to do with their flower stalks.

Should I let them bloom and try to get some seeds or cut them off and try to grow plants from? I’ve never tried either of them.

If you want seeds, go for it. You should get around 50 (?)seeds per flower if they pollinate.

You can also snip the flower stalk if it is smaller, like 1 or 2 inches. You can then treat it like a leaf pulling, either by putting it in water or soil and waiting for strikes.

I'll add on to the cuttings thing, if you decide to go that route. I've yet to allow one of my flytraps to bloom, but back in the spring I clipped my King Henry's stalk at around 2-3in and just stuck it straight into the LFS topdressing beside it to see what would happen. The stalk eventually shriveled up and turned black and finally disappeared entirely, and I honestly completely forgot about it. Lo and behold, a couple months later I'm reminded of it when I see a tiny flytrap poking up in its place. It's probably around the size of a dime already with 8 or so traps, which I imagine is a fair bit faster than seeds would have been, and that with not so much as a trace of the stalk left above ground. Next year though I'll probably let my Maroon Monster and DCXL flower so I can cross them and see if I come up with something worthwhile (because why not), so with any luck I'll get a better comparison between seeds and cuttings then.

Also, if you didn't already know this then another aspect to consider is that obviously seeds won't yield exact clones of the parent plants while cuttings will, so if you're wanting to propagate cultivars then cuttings would likely be the better option. Seed grown plants are always just considered typicals of some form or fashion, even if they came from a cultivar or cultivars.

Thanks for the replies! I guess the plan will be to get seeds from the typicals and cut the flower off my B-52.

You'll get plants much faster with cutting and planting the stalks than you will with seeds. Plus, if you're plant is stressed in any way, it's not putting energy into a stalk it could use elsewhere.

As has been said cuttings are a lot quicker, but I find that seeds are far more rewarding if you have the patience (which I have). The sheer genetic diversity, of the seedlings, even from typicals is phenomenal, I have deep red plants, red traps, yellow traps, large traps, small traps etc etc, plus you get hundreds of plants and if you can cross-pollinate with cultivars the results can be even more eccentric.
Not all good things can happen immediately
Cheers
Steve

steve booth wrote: ↑Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:08 am As has been said cuttings are a lot quicker, but I find that seeds are far more rewarding if you have the patience (which I have). The sheer genetic diversity, of the seedlings, even from typicals is phenomenal, I have deep red plants, red traps, yellow traps, large traps, small traps etc etc, plus you get hundreds of plants and if you can cross-pollinate with cultivars the results can be even more eccentric.
Not all good things can happen immediately
Cheers
Steve

It would depend if you would like a clone of your original plant, or perhaps would like to make new cultivars with different genetic vaiations

Agree with all the above. If you want more of the same plant, you want to take cuttings but if you're looking to grow something different then you can try to get something from seed.

As others have indicated... it all depends on your goal. If your goal is to have more of the variants you all ready have -- clone them using the flower stalks. If you are hoping to have a new, possibly very unique phenotype, then seeds are the way to go. Just keep in mind if the latter is your endgame .... you many have to grow out a LOT of plants to get even one really special 'keeper'.