Guides to growing the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula): light, water, soil, dormancy, feeding and common problems.
Venus flytrap seed is easy to sow but slow to grow. Here is what the ICPS, Barry Rice and specialist nurseries say about fresh seed, surface sowing, warmth, light, germination time, seedling care, stratification and the years it takes to reach a mature plant.
Most Venus flytraps need fresh soil every year or two, and early spring is the usual time. Here is what experts recommend for the soil mix, pot type and depth, the repotting steps, dividing a crowded plant and aftercare.
A Venus flytrap that will not close is usually showing normal trap behavior, such as a worn-out, very young or cold trap. Sometimes it points to low light, wrong water or a stressed plant. Here is how to tell the difference and what to do.
Black traps on a Venus flytrap are often normal leaf turnover, but they can also point to the wrong food, hard water, salty soil, low light, rot or pests. Here is how to tell which one you have and what to do.
Whether your Venus flytrap needs feeding at all, which live and dried foods work, how big a meal should be, how to get a trap to digest dead food, how often to feed, what to avoid, and why a trap may turn black after a meal.
Why Venus flytraps go dormant, how cold and how long their winter rest should be, how to water and light a dormant plant, and how to tell a sleeping flytrap from a dying one.
A beginner’s guide to Venus flytrap care, indoors or outdoors: light, pure water and the tray method, peat and sand mixes, pots, temperature, a short note on dormancy, feeding, flowers, repotting, and black traps.