FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I bought a fly trap a few months ago and followed the general directions on this site about soil, distilled water, light, etc. The plant has grown several times its original size in a matter of about 4 months and appears very healthy.

Now Fast forward to today, when I just happened to look at the site again out of curiosity for some new tips. I just learned about the concept of dormancy, and realized that I should probably get my plant into dormancy soon in order to give it a solid 3 months or so.

However, the thing is actually growing a flower stalk as I type this, in the middle of winter.

My questions are:

1. Is this in any way normal?

2. Should I still try to get the plant into dormancy?

Hello PowersofTen and welcome to flytrapcare!

It sounds like you've done an excellent job of growing your Venus fly trap into a healthy plant.

PowersOfTen wrote:1. Is this in any way normal?

Venus fly traps can sometimes flower in the fall, but I've never seen one nor heard of one flowering in the middle of winter. What are your growing conditions? How much light is the plant getting? What is the average daytime high and night time low that it's been experiencing? I'd be surprised and shocked if the plant were experiencing cool temperatures and natural sunlight only and started flowering now.

PowersOfTen wrote:2. Should I still try to get the plant into dormancy?

If you've been growing it under natural sunlight, it should already be in a dormant state. If you've been growing it under lights, you could move it to a windowsill and let it get a bit of rest. But the reality is that the days are already getting longer now. It's the shortening of days in the fall that trigger dormancy. I'm not sure how a plant would respond to being taken from under lights (if that's where you're growing it) where it has a fixed 16 hour photoperiod to being in a window with only 10 hours of light. It might just stall in growth and then resume growing in a few weeks.

Matt wrote:
Venus fly traps can sometimes flower in the fall, but I've never seen one nor heard of one flowering in the middle of winter. What are your growing conditions? How much light is the plant getting? What is the average daytime high and night time low that it's been experiencing? I'd be surprised and shocked if the plant were experiencing cool temperatures and natural sunlight only and started flowering now.

I was thinking about this a moment ago and I have a theory as to what may have caused the abnormal flowering. My wife and I were trying to tough out the winter to save on bills, and we were never turning the heat on in our apartment. For about a month it would normally be from 55-60 degrees inside. However, my wife got sick of this, and thus we started turning on the heat during the day to a steady 75 degrees. Could the dramatic temperature change have triggered the flowering? The plant normally sits on a window sill that gets a lot of sunlight during the day.

Matt wrote: If you've been growing it under natural sunlight, it should already be in a dormant state. If you've been growing it under lights, you could move it to a windowsill and let it get a bit of rest. But the reality is that the days are already getting longer now. It's the shortening of days in the fall that trigger dormancy. I'm not sure how a plant would respond to being taken from under lights (if that's where you're growing it) where it has a fixed 16 hour photoperiod to being in a window with only 10 hours of light. It might just stall in growth and then resume growing in a few weeks.

Well, I'm sort of uncertain about whether the plan ever went dormant or not.I bought it one day from a grocery store and it was very small and sickly looking, but I didn't really notice blackened dead parts like in the pictures on this site. Of course, that was at a time that was a bit too early for dormancy anyway. A few of the leaves have died recently and I removed them, but at the same time the healthy ones have been growing fairly rapidly. It has been under natural light from the start, but the temperature has been anything but natural.

I'm not sure how unusual it is.
I had a few of my plants flower in the fall. I cut them off.
Last year I had a plant flower while in the vegetable drawer of my fridge.
I have one sending a stalk up right now. It is sitting in a southern facing window, natural light only.

happened to me as well, I put some of my VFT into dormancy, but some I just put outside for my TC project.
the growing conditions for mine, since I also keep amphibians as pets, I use UVB and daylight lamps a lot.
And VFT near the terrarium, and it started to grow flower stalk around christmas 2009.

i dont see a flowerstalk?

When switching from artificial lighting to natural light, it takes about 3 weeks for plants to resume normal growth again.

kevinqwe wrote:i dont see a flowerstalk?

it's dead center, pointing at the camera.

Wow, thats cool. How about you self pollinate it cut it off and plant it as a leaf cutting, plus you get seeds AND a whole new plant. Who knows if you do that the seeds might be the parent or a new one.

I have a VFT comming out of dormancy right now and it's trying to send up 2 flower stalks..
I'll need to chop them though because the plant has about 4 green leaves and the rest are red/black..

Ron.