Hello adrienne 03,

You can remove the plant from the old container, but first, harden it to low humidity over two weeks by punching holes in, or lifting, the dome a bit every three days. By the end of two weeks, the dome should look like swiss cheese or be lifted a couple of inches all around and no longer hold humidity at all. Then repot the plant into a larger pot with drainage holes, a 5 inch is good. Make sure to use the dry bales of sphagnum peat moss of the Canadian premium type and perlite in a 50/50 mix. Put the pot in a large tray of water that is about 2 inches larger than the pot size and able to hold about an inch of water in depth. That will provide a good water base to keep the soil moist all the time and give a bit of natural humidity.

Never fertilize the plant and only give it mineral free water, like distilled, reverse osmosis, or fresh rain water.

Since the plant has been in low light in a hardware store, you will also ned to harden the plant to high light levels. Place it in a sunny east windwo while you adapt it low humidity, then in a south window after the humidity dome is off. A week after that you can place it in full sun on a patio or somewhere outside where it is protected from animals and curious neighbors. Flytraps really need a huge amount of light to grow well, but they just need to get a tan for a couple of weeks before throwing them out in ultraviolet light.

Thank you for the help, but I read that you shouldn't repot it. Is it necessary that you repot it or can I leave it in the original one?

Hello adrienne 03,

The reason they say not to repot is probably so it will die in the tiny pot they sold it in so you will buy another next year. Remember, these people are the one's that sold it in a humidity dome with instructions to give it only partial light and grow it like a houseplant (I have also seen silly instuctions on those poor carnivorous plants in hardware stores that say to fertilize them, fertilizer kills them too). Venus Flytraps are more like a rose or garden plant as they need full sun to thrive, just in acid soil mix as I described above. Their roots also get cramped as they grow quite long, so in a tiny pot their is more risk of infection from mold and bacteria. If you never repotted it, the moss would degrade and kill the plant eventually anyway. Venus Flytraps live for over 10-20 years in the wild, so in cultivation they will need to be cared for like any other plant year by year with repotting.

Mine was in a 3 inch pot when I got it half way through winter. It was in dormancy, so I left it there and continued giving it cold weather and short photoperiods to keep it dormant. Come spring, I took it out of dormancy and then repotted it into a 5 inch pot. It is going crazy flowering and growing new rhizome divisions now. I have had no problem with mold or with the plant being damaged by repotting. As a matter of fact, repotting is good for them as it opens the soil to air so the roots can breathe, something very important to carnivorous plants.

I see, thank you again! I'll be sure to get a new pot very soon.

Your welcome adrienne 03,

It is not a have to do right away sort of thing, but just repot it in the growing season either this year or next after domancy so that it can reestablish it's roots and get some room to grow. In bigger pots, they grow faster and larger, of course, they will rarely get over 8 inches or so across.

This plant was repotted right after winter.

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And here is the first seed from that parent plant germinating two weeks after sowing (no humidity dome needed).

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Happy growing.

What I have done is to take the pot that it comes in and fit it atop of another plastic container, so that the VFT pot is suspended. Then I just water it a little bit every day and allow the water to drain through to the secondary container. This "wets their whistle" without keeping them too wet. After the growing season is over I place the plant in the attic window sill, where it is cold and will go dormant. The following spring I place the plant and soil contents in a larger, deeper pot or bucket.

Thank you both! I have one last question (I dont want to start another topic)... When I bought the plant, one of the heads was going black. Do you suggest I cut it off? If so, which part do I trim off?

Hi adrienne 03,

If only the trap (which is the actual leaf) is blackening, you can just cut that off at the petiole (the stem supporting it from the ground). If the dieback continues down the petiole, you can just cut it down as far as possible to the ground. Basically, just cut what is black and leave the parts that remain green so that the plant can photosynthesize as much as possible. Trimming those dead sections will not only improve the look of the plant, but will keep fungus and infections from setting in, just in case. In bright light and with no humidity dome, such worry of infection is almost nonexistant.

In general, anything black ought be snipped. Anything green, even if it is only the leaf, minus trap, should be left to photosynthesize.