Grow Your Own Venus Flytrap

By Destry Masterson

Venus Flytraps are one of the most fascinating, enthralling and captivating plants in the entire horticultural world. This plant alone is bound to get any child interested, if not completely invested, in gardening and growing.

All plants are beautiful, but how many actually serve a functional purpose. Of course there are the edible plants and the plants that smell good, but Venus Flytraps are going to start clearing your house of bugs!

Because of the amazingly complex nature of these incredible plants many people think they are very difficult to grow, which is, in fact, not the case. The hardest thing about these is keeping them in humid areas, which is easily done by getting a humidifier or plant the plant in an old fish tank.

If working with a glass container to contain the humidity, you will have to be careful of the temperature. Glass is prone to creating small acclimatized areas of its own, easily trapping microwaves and heating to excessive temperatures or deflecting outside temperatures from entering and remaining too cold.

Two hours of sunlight should be enough to keep the Venus plant happily supplied with heat and light, but during the summer you may want less exposure and in winter you may want a little more. The trick is to watch your plant and keep a close on its condition.

Soil is imperatively important when growing any plant, but surprisingly these plants are very adaptable. Many plants need a wealth of nutrients to be mixed in with the soil surrounding their roots, but the Flytrap is going to get a lot of nutrients from live bugs.

One thing to be concerned with is the acidity of the soil. Flytraps are acidic plants that thrive in poor soil with little low in nutrients and a pH of around 6.0.

Do not add lime or sulfur to the soil. If you are using back yard dirt a small amount of fertilizer will be good to mix in, but keep it at a minimum.

The best type of soil to use though is sphagnum mixed with sand, usually if you are buying a Venus Flytrap starter kit you will get a soil mixture with it, but if not you can always get some from your local nursery. Soil is only half the nutrition this plant needs the other part comes from the bugs it will eat.

If you have it outside it will get enough bugs on its own, but if inside you may need to finds some slugs or small flies for the little guy. Do not in any situation feed your Flytrap hamburger, this causes indigestion and rot and will inevitably kill the plant.

One last thing, this plant can live completely submerged underwater for months! Everyone ought to know that.

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About The Author
Destry Masterson is an author who has written hundreds of articles. She publishes articles about landscaping and Orbit 91213 for Sprinkler System Store.

Contact Info:
Destry Masterson - MyOnlineArticleWriting@gmail.com - Twitter: @DestryMasterson