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Venus flytrap dying

mom_of_busy_3
12 years ago

My kids recently received flytraps from their teacher. We tried feeding them and triggering the traps but they just stay open. Some of the traps have turned black so I trimmed them off. Now they are yellowing. I have been giving them plenty of sun light without the cover on them and them covering them with the top at night. I watered them with distilled water. Today I was reading about them and realized that they are potted wrong.

The kids did a project where they did sand art in a wide mouth mason jar and then the teacher planted the plants on top of that. The plants looks as though they were removed from the original pot and were still in their peat moss. Upon closer inspection today (a week after receiving the plants) I realized there was a small layer of potting soil between the sand and peat moss.

I removed the plant and peat moss and cleaned all the soil out of the jar and off of the peat moss on the underside of the plants.

Is there anything I can do to save these plants?

Comments (9)

  • terrestrial_man
    12 years ago

    It is hard to tell from what you are describing but I would suggest that you need to put the plants into small plastic pots.
    If you area is normally humid during the day leave the potted plant uncovered, covering at night with an inverted jar.
    these plants love brightly lit spots with some direct sun for an hour or so each day.
    Place your potted plant upon a larger inverted pot before watering and water with the distilled heavily. you may want to put the entire get-up into a tray in order to save the drained off water that can be used for other plants.
    Do not let them sit in any water.
    read the instructions below.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Care instructions

  • petiolaris
    12 years ago

    Here's a visual aid for growing them:

    {{gwi:562345}}

    {{gwi:562347}}

  • Hegory
    12 years ago

    Are those pine needles petiolaris? the VFT in the bottom "rightish?" looks great! Is one of those a fused tooth?

  • mekapellen
    12 years ago

    You should use the tray method for VFTs. You don't want them to be standing in water, per se. Put the pot containing the VFT into a tray. Then water the VFT with distilled/rain/reverse osmosis water. Continue watering until you have about 2 cm of water in the tray. Don't let this dry out.

    Also, contrary to what many people assume, VFTs are temperate plants, not tropicals. They should be outdoors in the summer if possible (and in the winter too if you're in a warm enough area).

  • petiolaris
    12 years ago

    Those are indeed pine needles. I rearranged the container, recently, so I'm not sure which pot was the Fused Tooth.

  • newtoucan
    12 years ago

    I've had my venus fly trap for almost a year now. I repotted it in the peat moss about 10 months ago, and only distilled water, water from the bottom in a nifty self watering container I got at Walmart. No cover used. It gets enough light during the day sitting near a window.

    The problem is that the traps are supersmall. It keeps putting out new leaves which are decent to small in size, but the traps are just supersmall. The plant doesn't look anything like the healthy ones in your picture.

    What can I possibly due to boost the health of this plant.

  • tommyr_gw Zone 6
    12 years ago

    Has it had dormancy since you've had it? They NEED 3-4 months of dormancy each winter. Is it in FULL Sun outside? If you're growing it inside I won't respond any further, these are not indoor plants.

  • newtoucan
    12 years ago

    I just took it out of dormancy. It went 4.5 months in dormancy. I'm slowing reintroducing it back to sun, but full sun in Phoenix will be too much for it. Indoor sun in my living room is like full sun outside elsewhere.

  • sitting_boy
    12 years ago

    I am pretty sure VFT can not have too much sun. The only issue would probably be the water in the dish heating up to like 150 degrees in the sun. You could solve that by planting it in a white clay pot and top watering it every day instead of putting it in a hot water dish. If the traps are green then it needs more sun. If the entire plant is mostly red then it is probably near maximum sun exposure.

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