Care and Feeding of your Venus Flytrap:

  1. Venus flytraps grow in boggy areas and need to be kept constantly moist. The plant should always be sitting in ½ inch or so of water.
  2. Water quality: regular tap water will kill your venus flytrap. It must be either rain water, melted clean snow, or distilled or deionized water.
  3. Feeding: you can capture insects and "feed" the plants. When you put a live insect into an open trap you need to disturb at least two of the trigger hairs to get the trap to close. If the insect is dead the trap will open back up without "digesting" the insect. We use a very dilute (1/8th strength) soluble fertilizer and spray a small amount on the foliage once every 2-4 weeks. If you use fertilizer you need to spray with clean distilled water a few hours later to rinse the fertilizer back off so it doesn't "burn".
  4. Photoperiod: you can keep your venus flytrap actively growing if you give it 24 hours of light/day. You can provide that with an inexpensive shop fluorescent light fixture and cool white bulbs.
  5. Terrarium: a terrarium provides a nice humid environment for your venus flytrap... but it should do OK even if you just keep it sitting in a saucer of water. (maybe slip it in a plastic bag during holidays).