FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I’m super excited to grow Venus flytraps. Thus far I’m the proud owner of a bag of what I’m pretty sure we’re not legit seeds and are actually chia seeds…. But eventually I’m going to find some real ones I hope

Welcome to the forum! Stick around here for a month and participate in the community and you will be eligible to get legit flytrap seeds from the seed bank. As it is, you can start today with some of the sundews that are Level 0. If you are just starting out though, your best bet would be to start with a plant that is already established rather than starting from seed. They are a little tricky. Working against you, however, is that most of the plants in the US are now moving into dormancy so they will be entirely uninteresting. If you wait until Spring, there will be a bounty of people selling and/or trading divisions of their flytraps (yours truly included).

Again, welcome to the forum and feel free to ask any questions you might have.

Oh that’s cool!

I’m new to carnivorous plants but not plants as a whole. I have a sunroom/ plant room that’s pretty full of my indoor plants although nothing super exciting, tons of pothos, monstera, succulents, a handful of desert roses, and a few others. Plus an ever expanding backyard vegetable garden although right now I’m pretty sure it’s 90% pumpkin vines xD.

I live in zone 9b so I think the right climate for carnivores, I’ve always just found them a bit intimidating. I did a bunch of research when I bought what turned out to be the fake seeds so hopefully I can manage to not kill them.

It is a great hobby and very addicting. I would recommend going ahead and requesting some capensis seeds from the seed bank and getting started with them. They are a good indoor carnivorous plant and they are pretty bullet proof. Plants like flytraps, sarracenia, and some sundews are really best grown outside in full sun or indoors with some serious artificial lighting. Another good plant for you to grow indoors would be nepenthes. They do very well in bright, indirect sunlight like in a sunroom.

Panman wrote:It is a great hobby and very addicting

Truer words have never been spoken! Dont you worry, soon that sunroom will be filled with all kinds of carnivorous plants.

Welcome to the forum!

Most of what I’ve read about carnivorous plants has been about growing indoors, I didn’t think about outdoors. I do love the idea of an entire bed of them though! Do they need anything special with the soil? What I had read about seeds was to not grow them in soil and to never use fertilizer. Most of my existing beds are pretty nitrogen rich (I have a house bunny and most my compost comes from his litter box).

I put in a seed bank request, I hope I did it right

Your seed bank request looked perfect. The the obsession begin!

As far as growing outside, they do have very special soil requirements. Absolutely no fertilizer or nutrients so garden soil, compost, etc. are completely out. They can be grown in a mix of peat/sand/perlite in varying proportions. I have two outside container bogs that are using straight peat moss. This is a picture when I flooded it for watering in the summer.

Welcome Cosmickitty! To change the subject slightly, as Panman said, adult plants are much easier than seeds. Even though this isn't the best time to buy a VFT, a lot of places that still have them also have a sundew (drosera) or two mixed into the display. Subtropical sundews grow all year indoors. If you can find one locally, it would be a great start for you - a lot of the growing requirements are the same as a VFT and the common ones you might be able to find are pretty hard to kill.

Welcome to the forums!