I agree with all of that. Very good advice!

Those phraces convinces my thoughts; that's the reason i never grow carnivorous plants in terrariums. nor VFts in terrariums, Humidity leads to heat and make the plants wilt. i also agree with that Myth of "don't let your VFT flower because it will die" Only VFTs that are not raised well die after flowering. Light is crucial for VFTS, it makes those beautiful red pigments jolt from the plants' traps. the flowers are beautiful and pearl coloured; not dull as some may think. the reason why some VFTs don't set seed and die after flowering is from lack of light. that's why they are recommended being growned outside in full sun.

YES!!!!!!!!!!! it's about time someone made this an enjoyable hobby and not a monotinous labor.If I followed all the recomedations of the so called experts this would be no fun at all. the same rules apply to orchids and aquatic pond and aquarium plants I don't know if you are still watching the forum but I think you should post this message every once in a while before more people get turned off by the confusing technology. the secret is use common sense

Well said Remi.(next door neighboor) If Simon_H ever posted these sentences before those people that have given bad interpretations, there would be no people loosing interest in growing insectivorous plants. The more sun light you give your VFT as flowering, the more seed you will be rewarded with. What is enough sun light you may ask? enough sun light is minimum of 6 hours per day during the growing season. or 4 hours a day but keep your plants in an indirect light position for the rest of the day for vigorous growth. Allowing your VFT to flower is not a "foolish thing to do" infact, it is joy to see the Vfts life cycle. i allowed three of my plants to flower, now i have 110+ seedlings from seed. i gave some seeds to my friend Remi, he also were capable of growing them from seed. Watering over head does not damage your plants' bulbs or rhyzomes. i grow my plants outside in full sun, rain, fog and night & nothing wrong happens to them. they are Hardy plants. they grow outside in the wild, not in a dome or in a terrarium.

Ye I agree
I water my VFT's and butterworts and sundews from overhead atleast one a week.
They are fine with it, I dont think the person who suggested that realised that rain infact comes from above?
hehe, anyhow, the only thing I have not done is leave the VFT flowers, reason been that they where new plants adapting to my surrroundings and to my humidity here (hardening off is a great thing) and so would be under a fair amount of stress.
The one plant I let flower did not die, but was badly stunted from this due o what they where going through.
Its made a full recovery however with no special treatment and is now producing large traps.

Thanx for the good info, it would be of great use to new growers.

Cheers

Sheldon

Ok, I gotta play devils advocate here...mostly cause that's the kinda guy I am.

Humidity: The idea is to replicate, as close as possible, the plant's native enviorment. Yes, they may grow OK without it, but there is a reason that flytraps don't spread out and cover the whole south of the United States. High humidty requirements are one of those reasons. And just to make a note, humidity does not lead to heat!!!! Either that, or I slept through thermodynamics while working on my physics degree! ;)

Watering Overhead: I think this primarily applies to butterworts and sundews. Try as we might, very few of us are going to be successful in replicating the natural enviroment for these plants. To that end, we get as close as we can and then take other steps to ensure their well being. Watering from above will wash away the dew and digestive enezymes from these plants. In their native enviroments, the plants have no problem producing more "goo" and stuff. Certainly this requires additional energy expenditure and causes some stress on a plant that is not in its ideal environment. Why would you do this if it was so simple to avoid it??? Especially from the plants point of view. Anyway, I water overhead on my butterworts and sundews when I'm in a hurry. Sure it works, but I don't think it is terribly considerate to the plants either.

Direct Sun: Certainly you must exercise caution with terriariums and direct sun, we all know that. But I notice you live in the UK, and I live in MN. Our sun isn't anywhere near the nasty beast that it is in some of these other locations. I think we are probably in the 5000-5500k range where the tropical sun is in the 6500k range. For me and my plants, direct sun is GENERALLY fine. If I lived in Tucson, AZ (or Mexico); probably not such a good idea for CPs in pots or whatever (especially given lack of humidty). I agree with you that common sense needs to be applied, but it is still worth warning about. I gave a flytrap a nasty burn one time in taking it from dormancy to direct outdoor sun (even in MN).

Water Quality: Still very important, and many beginners still get it wrong. I agree, the hard water is the nasty part. Though I've had a well for 10 years so I never have chemical issues.

Sphagnum Moss: I actually like the looks of the green carpet. Also, if sphagnum is part of the plants native environment, why should we not try to help it out by giving it sphagnum?

Flytraps and Flower: You know, that one seems strange to me also. I guess I still see the arguement about needless expenditure of energy if you are not going to do anything with the seeds.

Joe

With humidity let me make a statement.
VFTs grow in a humid enviroment naturally...yes
Humans "grow" in all kinds of enviroments just fine now because we have adapted.
Let me share what I have seen for myself.
Growing a VFT in 80% humidity makes the plant grow all happily and all, you now have more fungus worry, but you think because its so humid where these plants came from you are doing it a favour.

Any VFT that is grown under such conditions compared to a plant like mine which has been hardend off will have soft weak leaves and generally I have found terrarium CP's go down hill faster than those that have grown stronger via adapting to their conditions.

I was led to belive this crock above when I got my terrarium kit, the plants looked good yes, but 2 months after they where now growing in 30% humidity, they looked and felt far better than in the high humidity enviroment.

I suggest anyone who would like proof, get another VFT, do as I have said and harden it off.
Wait 1-2 months once this has been done and see which one appears stronger and healthier to you.

Thats my opinion on the humidity thing, looks like overall its a marketing gimmick to sell fish bowls.

Cheers

Sheldon

There are a few "curious" points about your post. You write...

"Growing a VFT in 80% humidity makes the plant grow all happily and all, you now have more fungus worry..."

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I don't see many fungus issues. I had a fungus issue 1 time with a Drosera...never on a Flytrap though, so I'm not sure what all the worry is about. Let me put it this way, how well did your outdoor plants like that hailstorm compared to a little fungus worry?

I've got two flytraps outside and two flytraps inside. Of course my outside conditions are not all that unfavorable. I have a big pond right off my deck, MN is fairly humid in the summer, and I keep them in large containers of water so their mircoenviroment humidity is quite high as well.

Not considering my red dragon (which must be outside to reach it's full potential), by far the best looking flytrap is the one that sits inside the window cill terrarium.

And I don't think your human adaptation analogy is a good one. Yes, us humans have learned to adapt alright. Consider the Inuit in northern Canada. They adapted to cold weather and minimal winter light - I guess their record levels of suicide are just a triffle? Does that mean they grow fine?

We have "adapted" to grow in Phoenix, though the water comption of a community of this size in the middle of the dessert poses larger enviromental risks. I don't think that necessarily a good thing either.

But how in the world you would consider that replicating their native growing environment a "crock" is absolutely beyond me. To each his own I guess.

I say this because the storys that are pumped out by those nurserys that dont know any better go along the lines of "you need to grow this plant in 80% humidity or its going to produce deformed traps, its going to have stunted growth, and its not going to be as healthy"
All of which is nonsense, the hardened off plants are far more hardy and tolerant of change than those that are babied in a 80% terrarium.
The majority of my plants are indoors as well under grow lights, so I have no worry about hail or such things.
It has just saved me a few hundred dollars on a fish tank and equipment as well as taking the extra hastle out of dormency at winter.
What would I have done, carry the whole tank outside during dormency or the whole tank in the garage during this time?

You may not have had fungus, neither have I, fact is with all that sitting humid air you are more prone to it.

Like I said, people swallow this story that I stated above, just like I did until I took a chance with all these plants.

A simple test is to try it yourself and see the physical difference between the humid conditions and the plant which adapted to your conditions.

I can assure you that the hardend off plant both looks and physically feels stronger.
Mine also recover faster from shock, and that is not my imagination.
Over all they are far stronger plants that in my opinion would come out of any problems easier thatn those living in the tank.

None of us get these things to see them die, we ofcause want the strongest and healthiest plants so that we dont have to post here about "what now?"
The industry is full of the kind of nonsense that I quoted, thats what I speak of.
Terrariums can be a nice looking feature to a house, I have no problem with that or terrariums overall if setup correctly, kinda like the effort that LG and alot of you put in your tanks.

But what I cant stand is the position I was in as a new grower, here I am purchasing a FISH BOWL!!, with instructions saying to cover it with saren wrap.
Now lets think about this.
High humidity (up to 100%), still air, constantly wet conditions......where is this going too?
Now I would have been a tad happier if there was a drainige system to get rid of any excess water and which would help get rid of the build up of minerals.
I would have been happier if there was airstones to pump fresh air into the tank.
But this kind of mentality is what everyone is pumping out today, that fishbowl could have EASILY started a fungus outbreak, how long do you think it would have taken before the other plants got it?

I see so many people on here that Ive answered who are sticking their plants in tanks and bowls, not because they want to, but because they believe they have to from the bull they have read online.

This is my complaint, people still dont know jack about so much in nature, guys like Byron_1 go along and run experiments to actually gather valid facts that they find, instead of sticking to info from some idiot that guessed it up 100 years ago.

I think its time growers realise that plants and these ones in perticular can adapt very easily and very happily with greater benefits to them as I see it.

And as far as your comment about the hail, as upset as I was that it happend, the plants are still fine and you know what, I took that risk and accept that.
I am not prepared to go spend $200.00 on fish equipment when my plants are growing just as fast in this climate, and looking far healthier.
I can only laugh at "your VFT will develop deformed traps under low humidity", ye well apparently my Big Mount VFT which has a 1.9" length trap that currently has 35% humidity here does not believe this.

Cheers

Sheldon

Sheldon is right joe. I used to believe the same crap that they have to be in a terranium, high humidity, etc etc.

I have 6 CPs outside in my backyard recieving full sunlight. 2 pitchers, 2 VFT's, 1 sundew, 1 butterwort. They are all alive and doing well outside.

A lot of people here have learned that the high humidity stuff is bogus. You just give your plants time to adapt to your environment, and they're fine.

Hello ,
I just wanted to say that I agree with Sheldon , my plants are hardened off and the Venus Flytrap has shot up over 10 new shoots in the past 3 weeks , I will admit that the traps are still small ( about 3/8 " ) , but it is healthy looking , I just got the sundew , but will harden it off . I beleive that the reason why Venus Fly traps haven't populated the whole south of the U.S. is that there isn't that many nutrient deficient soil bogs around .It is a well known fact that hard minerals kill carnivorous plants . By the way Sheldon I am sorry to hear about your encounter with the hail storm . This Utah weather is crazy to say the least ... I also beleive that if carnivorous plants can adapt to nutrient deficient soils by catching insects , that they can adapt to different growing conditions .

Darryle

Hi guys

Its not that Im pointing finger saying "you wrong", theres a guy on this forum (forget his name) that has an AWESOME terrarium in his house that is just stunning.
I would have such a thing for looks, the thing looks better than sea water aquariums Ive seen.

The thing Im bi*hin about is the info and LACK thereof given to growers, thus this info filters to people like me and you who ofcause dont know about other methods and so it is spread.
Now for guys like LLeapordGGecko, he has a nice setup, and one to be proud of.
Yes I dont like the humidity thing unless it must be had, but if your terrarium is setup with so much care, the airstones, fans, lighting (the list goes on) then fine.
But the common newbie teenager grower that is force fed the cr@p we all are from places like meanplants.com, they are the ones you will end up with dead plants.
And what a waste that is, not only to probably the greatest plants on the planet as far as evilution is conserned, but some of the few plants that still have so many unanswered questions.

What I want is for each newbie grower to know all the info out there, and for those that can only afford 2 plants and no big fancy terrarium setup to realise, insead of spending 10 dollars on a retarded fish bowl, go get yourself a 2 litre coke, enjoy the thing and harden your plants off.

I personally would be in some serious trouble with the amount of plants I have if I was forced to use terrariums, now atleast with one plant per pot, I can move them indoors/outdoors where I please.

They are equily as beutiful and the sundews after 1-2 weeks have just as much dew as when they are in high humidity enviroments.
Inface my one concern with hardening off was that the VFT's would be slower to close because the leaves where getting firmer and harder.
Feeding them occasionally has shown me that infact they are still extremly fast and infact hold onto heavy duty bugs like pillbugs far more firmly than in a terrarium.
The leaf does not buckle as easily.

To each his own, but I advice those growers to atleast try adapting the plants, once you see the "before and after" you will see why I preach about this.

Thanx

Sheldon

If i had known that b4 i had ever Thought of putting my plants in a terrium, i would have an whole other Vft to acount for, and probably would have healthyer plants now, We learn from our mistakes, People need to know more about this Fourm, I know i wish i had ran upon it befor hand

akheadbanger I fully agree.
i have learnt a lot here as well, it was thanx to a post somewhere about hardening off and then cobraplant.com that got me to attempt what I did, ofcause with great success now.
I am especillay impressed with the Butterworts under 30-40% humidity.
They look superb and are very greasy.

We all learn from our mistakes, and luckily from each other.

Cheers

Sheldon

I am a total newbie and never grown VFT... yet (that's why I'm here reading :p), but it seems to me that a sterile environment and a covered bubble of air is not a "natural environment" they get in a bog either - at the very least they will get air circulation - even if humid.

I have no idea what is better or worse, but when it comes to duplicating conditions, it may also be a bit about which ones are most useful to duplicate (which could be a covered pot for all I know) - for that matter, even offering air circulation could be exposing them to pollution their original environment doesn't have.

So it may be possible that some people have success duplicating some conditions and others with other conditions - depending on where they are (desert, lush green farmhouse, apartment overlooking a permanently traffic bogged street...) or what they are willing to do (monitor for fungus, make an effort to harden off carefully or put in known safe environment and minimize worry)...

Just some thoughts.