Growing Guide: Venus Flytraps (Dionaea muscipula)

Venus Flytrap: 'Cup Traps' and 'Typical'

Recently, I've really become interested in Dionaea. I'm not sure why. I've always thought it was a neat plant, but never really bothered to collect cultivars. Now, I'm nearly a dozen different cultivars. It all started with 'Cup Traps' and few, free popular cultivars, all of which weathered winter wonderfully. Since, unlike my Sarracenia, these were actually photographable, I started snapping away for instagram and got hooked.

'Typical' Venus Flytraps

Most people's first experience with carnivorous plants involves a Venus Flytrap. For most people, it's always the first time they kill a carnivorous plant. Hopefully, my experience slaughtering a few will help others avoid killing their own.

If you're like me, you'll have obtained your first Venus Flytrap from a grocery or hardware store, potted long-fiber sphagnum in a small, 2.5" round pot with a clear, plastic cup lid. The included instructions will almost certainly result in the demise of your plant. 

To grow the plant successfully, the first thing you need to know is that it was probably light-starved. Exposing it to high intensity light (whether by light bulb or sunlight) will result in leaf burn, i.e. the plant's leaves dying back due to the intensity of the light. What you'll need to do is slowly, over the course of a few weeks, expose it to higher levels of light. In the wild, the plants can be exposed to sun for significant portions of the long, summer days in North Carolina.

Additionally, you'll need to keep the media moist, but not wet. The best way to do this will depend on the conditions the plant is exposed to, but will generally involve putting the pot in a tray of water which is allowed to evaporate before refilling. Personally, I like to use window box trays filled with an equal parts mix of sphagnum peat and perlite. 

So, the keys to good growth are: (1) (eventual) full sun, and (2) moist, but not wet media.

'Big Mouth' (Top)
'Fuzzy Tooth' (Bottom)

One of the neat things about Venus Flytraps is the existence of a large number of cultivars - clones of plants with unique traits. At last count, there were 80-something 'official' cultivars - ones with published descriptions - but many, many more exist. The unique traits range from extremely large traps, to interesting coloration, to "deformed" traps, such as those seen on 'Fuzzy Tooth.'

As I've begun to collect cultivars, I've noticed that not all are equal. For instance, 'Fuzzy Tooth' is certainly one of the best performing (in terms of growth) plants in my VFT collection. It is a robust grower with large traps. Other cultivars have not grown as well.

Venus Flytrap Seedlings

 Just one more note before I go into my handy tip sheet, growing Venus Flytraps from seed. This is extremely easy. Basically, just sprinkle seed on the same equal parts medium of sphagnum peat and perlite and wait. If the seed is viable, it should begin to sprout within a couple weeks. Traps appear soon after sprouting (see above).

Okay, here's a handy tip sheet from my experiences:

Media: A mix of 1:1: milled sphagnum to perlite works very well. Sand can be substituted for perlite, but I like the airiness of perlite.
Moisture: Keep moist. I generally use window boxes placed in shallow seed-starting trays filled with water and allow that water to mostly evaporate before refilling. This method keeps the media moist but not soaked.
Pot Size: [Edited thanks to Tommy's input] Although, I've seen pictures of them growing in rocks, they have quite long roots. As a consequence, deep pots are best. The deeper the better. Often times, the pots they come in at the store are too shallow for full grown plants and the roots will quickly become tangled and the plant will not grow as well as it could.
Feeding: I keep mine outside most of the time, so they catch their own food. Inside, I do spray with Maxsea Grow 16-16-16 Water Soluble Seaweed Plant Food Fertilizer, but I'm not convinced that it has any real effect.
Temperature: Venus Flytraps are used to the long, hot summers of North Carolina, so they really thrive when temperatures reach the upper 70s and 80s. Cooler temperatures will slow growth. Freezing will induce dormancy. Generally, when fall comes around, I try to take mine indoors and allow them to settle into dormancy after a few more weeks under grow lights. I've found that digging them up and placing them in plastic bags in the refrigerator works well to induce dormancy, but, honestly, they seem to go semi-dormant as soon as temperatures dip to the 50s, so it hasn't been too much of a concern.
Dormancy: Dormancy is generally induced by a combination of shortening days and lower temperatures. I try to avoid allowing my flytraps to freeze, although it is possible to grow them far north of the Carolinas, if they get mulched for winter. Since I don't have a permanent outdoor grow space, i.e. a bog garden, I usually  dig mine up, place them in plastic bags with a bit of damp paper towel or long-fibered sphagnum, and place in the refrigerator for a couple months.
Propagation: Propagation by seed is very easy, if the seed is fresh. Plants do take longer to grow, however, if started by seed, than if started by leaf-pulling. Cultivars are best propagated by leaf-pulling, which requires a leaf with a bit of the white rhizome on it to be pulled from the mother plant. It is then placed in a moist media mix, given high humidity, and, in a short while, a small plantlet should appear. Alternatively, once can wait for the cultivar to divide naturally and split it apart then.