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It won't digest live plant matter. Venus flytraps secrete the enzymes phosphatase, proteinase, nuclease and amylase. These enzymes target insect prey, which have high levels of protein. They do not digest plant matter. When a leaf closes on a bug, it (the bug) will often secrete chemicals such as uric acid, which keep the leaf closed. Otherwise (such as if ...
10
Your plant doesn't look like it's happy in the conditions it is growing in. For example, it definitely doesn't look like it is getting enough light.
Here are some tips for coaxing your plant back into healthy condition.
Basically it needs at least 4 hours of sun per day, well drained but moist growing conditions, and it is recommended to water it with ...
8
I would not recommend it, but I think you should ask this question in your siste site: https://parenting.stackexchange.com/.
The problem I find with this "gifts":
these are very very slow to grow (so very boring for a children)
very difficult to see a live trap of fly (or a digestion of I fly). IIRC two per year should be enough for the plant.
It is ...
7
Nepenthes, or the Asian pitcher plant, naturally grows in the tropical regions of Asia either in high mountain rain forests or in warm lowland grasslands at the base of mountains. They are divided into two types, those that live above 3000 feet (highlands), and those that live below that (lowlands) with differing requirements. The Nepenthes x 'Miranda' is ...
6
Graham is right. There are carnivorous plants that can be kept it inside. I wanted to add a few things, though. One is that some carnivorous plants will stay alive inside, but they might not do extremely well. They may need brighter light or higher humidity than your house provides. You can compensate if this is what your particular species requires by ...
6
Carnivorous Plants like full sun generally though you could place your plant on a window sill with high levels of solar insolation if wanting to keep as a house plant. They live in nutrient poor boggy soils so you are going to need to water them frequently with distilled or rain water in summer. You can feed them freeze dried insects once or twice a month ...
6
Nepenthes can be grown as windowsill plants as long as adequate conditions are provided.
There are two main divisions for nepenthes, highland and lowland with some groups in between. Lowlanders tend to need high temperatures and very high humidity (imagine a rain forest). Highlanders need lower temperatures and usually do not require as much humidity (think ...
6
The plant evolved to eat live insects and spiders, and not dead ones. So you have to trick it by making it think it's caught live bait...
To feed a dead bug to your plant, first drop it into the trap so the trap closes. Easily done. Next, ever so gently squeeze the two lobes of the traps between your thumb and forefinger, as if you were trying to pick up ...
5
Pitchers tend to die much earlier than leaves.
I know this from personal experience. I've had pitchers die on leaves which last a month or more afterwards. I usually cut the pitchers off once they die (mostly because I think it looks better).
On another note, you do not need a terrarium to grow nepenthes. I have a N. maxima which I have been growing as a ...
5
I'm going to go against the grain here, and say NO. I don't know what the lowest TDS of the water in your area is (average is 350ppm -- http://www.tdsmeter.com/education?id=0018), but 350ppm is entirely too high for VFTs.
A VFT requires 50ppm or lower of TDS (http://venusflytrap.info/gloss-tds.html). If your water is above this, regardless of chlorine or ...
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I had a Venus fly trap for years, your specimen looks healthy as far as I can judge. These plants originate from a swamp or bog ecosystem, I think in North or South Carolina, so they like wet feet (they like surplus water in the pot, which is fatal for most houseplants). Also they don't want any minerals in their water, so you'll have to use rain or ...
4
Yes that should be possible. But read up on the details below.
How to grow Sarracenia. From the Carnivorous Plant FAQ. Good link. The whole FAQ is also helpful.
Above says "zero-nutrient, acid medium". So I assume that means zero nitrates? If you have algae in your pond then you probably have too many nitrates they are feeding on.
4
I have seen these plants growing wild in USDA zone 4. It should be possible to duplicate the conditions:
full sun
constant access to water but not in the water
sited at the edge of a hummock of grasses over compacted dead plant material
I would use dried sphagnum moss if you can find it at florists or craft stores. Failing that shredded coconut husk or ...
4
As it's a CFL bulb, it won't be getting baked because of the low heat output. According to my houseplant book, Nepenthes likes to be constantly moist, but not waterlogged, not just slightly damp, and likes to be surrounded by humid air, so maybe using a pebble tray arrangement, half filled with water with pebbles sticking out for the pot to sit on top of ...
4
Most of the carnivorous plants require a soil that is free from pesticides, trace elements from chlorinated water and "nutrients". In this case nutrients refer to Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium that are commonly available in most soils and are higher in soils with more organic matter like compost.
What this plant needs is a soil mix that you can make ...
4
I don't disagree with Giacomo's post, except for the quantity of bugs they eat, but I can tell you a little more about this subject.
Carnivorous plants are a lot of fun and can be easy to keep. I know that I killed several until I found some good advice. I think I started out with a venus fly trap (VFT) and based on internet advice, I put it outside in the ...
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Congratulations on the start of your CP(carnivorous plant) obsession. These are great and hardy plants. I've got a mess of them and plan to make a bog garden soon.
I'll do my best to answer your questions. For your first question, those are three separate plants. It's also not a bad thing for them to be crowded. I'd typically only split them if the pot was ...
4
Venus flytraps “digest” their prey differently than you may expect - the fly and it’s chitin carapace will not dissolve completely, but remain seemingly unchanged when the trap opens again. If you look closely, you will notice that the remains look “empty” or “flat”, not as plump as a live fly. Chitin is a pretty stable substance whereas the inner organs can ...
4
greetings from Elche!
Since Valencia and Elche have quite similar climates, maybe my experience helps you: I have my venus flytraps for one year and a half, and they seem to be happy staying outside (in a balcony) all year long, getting direct sunlight even in the summer.
Regarding watering, the pot of my plants is inside a bigger pot, and everyday I pour ...
3
I am currently trying to germinate bladderwort from seed. I prepared a very moist soil less mix in a plastic transparent egg carton and put them under indoor lights.
Six weeks later progress is slow. The seedlings are one to two millimeters high.
I believe the real difficulty will getting them large enough to out grow the algae that will start growing ...
3
There are a number of factors that come into play:
source of your water (affects the pH and amount of dissolved compounds)
treatment applied to the water (likely chlorine or chloramine)
ability of the soil to buffer/absorb compounds in the water
species of plant - some can tolerate water treatment chemicals more than others
How these factors all work ...
3
The fertiliser was a huge mistake, carnivorous plants hate root nutrients, so if you added any fertilizer, it would have to be extremely diluted, and apply it to the pitcher.
Water it more often, try misting it, too, with a cleaned spray-bottle.
Only use pure water; don't use tap water because it will kill the plant.
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Not all Nepenthes will work as house plants. I have tried N. alata with no luck.
N. miranda is a hybrid that I have had good luck with. I bought it at Lowest as an adult larger plant 5 years ago. It is a fussy plant as far as repotting. Taking several months to start growing well. Despite this it gets used to normal New England conditions. I grow it in a ...
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I purchased a venus flytrap in the middle of my roach erradication. (My ex roomies left their own roomies)
So far, one plant has captured twelve baby roaches that were drawn to the nectar.
Even baby heads of the flytrap have snapped on the tiny bugs.
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It's a nice sentiment, but considering practicality, even if you did get the environment right for your plants (most carnivorous plants are rather picky), cockroaches are not going to fall into the traps. They are careful, and usually ground feeders. They will rarely fall from above, and falling into a plant trap is not a likely thing.
Most carnivorous ...
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I would certainly question the statement 'there is a small chance they might not be red' - nearer the truth is the statement 'you have no idea what you're going to get'. Each seedling will be genetically different from all the others, so you need to decide which ones are worth keeping and which aren't, as they grow on. Although you say they've germinated, ...
3
Maybe the plant is not 'hungry', can I ask if that insect in the photo was captured by the plant itself or did you put a dead insect there? The trap will only work for living insects, they'll have to move and keep moving to keep triggering the trap. A dead bug won't trigger the trap to completion.
Like stormy already said, the plant is dormant in wintertime,...
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It isn't normal, no. Not entirely sure what the problem is, but there are a couple of observations to make from the images you've posted. First, the soil in the pot is too low, which means the plant gets less light than it should because of the amount of pot sticking up above it. Second, the soil it's in looks like it might be pretty wet, though it's hard to ...
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Nepenthes are very sensitive to air humidity. Even the “modern hybrids” created for living room conditions prefer humidity in the upper range (60 - 70%), for older types even higher is necessary. The first symptom of too-dry air (and often the only one in modern breeds) is failure to grow new pitchers.
We found a very trivial solution, but it needs ...
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Carnivorous plants specifically? I don't know.
As to plants generally--I've never heard of a cross between plants of the same order but different families, but it's possible at least one might exist.
Crosses between plants of different genera of the same family are fairly common by comparison, but they're still rare: e.g. goji and tomato. They might not be ...
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