Venus flytrap Myths and common misconceptions

it's leah at flight drive store with matt me that's sam he's wearing our awesome new t-shirts that we're offering at flight drive store turn around let's see the little icon on the back woohoo isn't that cute i haven't put the products up yet but hopefully you do so later that'll be up by the time you read that you look at this so but we're going to do a video today on fly trap care myths um venus flytrap pyramids and this is requested by ben or benny so here we go i'm going to ask some questions and matt's going to answer to them and he and is an expert on these so he's got some good info for you okay so one of the first myths is that fly traps venus fly traps are supposed to be raised in terrariums like enclosed glass or otherwise spaces is that a myth or is it should we be growing flower traps and terrariums uh fly traps can be grown in terrariums in the short term but everyone i've known who's ever grown them long term in a terrarium typically has issues so what you gain with a terrarium is elevated humidity and a controlled environment but what you lose is fresh air sunlight and the ability typically terrariums don't have drainage so you'll end up with mineral buildup over time and the lack of air movement and the lack of really strong sunlight usually leads to mold problems so you're going to have issues almost inevitably inevitably everyone i've ever known who's growing any kind of uh for any a period of time in a terrarium or indoors typically ends up having problems so mold and also rot or golden rot and mineral build up okay so not rot per se i mean when the plant sheds traps as they do naturally like as they grow they'll they'll shed some of their older traps if those aren't removed fairly quickly you got a chance for mold to start growing on them but what really typically happens the most common thing to kill a fly trap is crown rot and without a good air movement you're going to have and with elevated humidity levels you're going to have a much higher chance of getting crown rot and it's going to come eventually yeah so there's there's scary places um they can def they can definitely be scary right that they're required but the thing is is flytraps can grow in very low humidity levels we live here in oregon where the humidity in the summer is typically under 20 relative humidity so they don't need humidity they do better if they have humidity but it's certainly not a requirement as long as their soil's moist they will keep themselves hydrated and grow well okay so that leads me to the second fly trap care myth which would be that venous fly tramps are swamp plants and they need to be in lots of water all the time yeah so people say they're swamp or bog plants and while it's true technically that they're found in and around boggy areas where they actually grow and i've been to the wild to see them in their natural habitat they so the pitcher plants that cohabitate naturally with fly traps typically are growing in or right in near the water whereas the fly traps are slightly uphill a little bit away from the water so what the soil they're in typically is uh moist but not soaking wet and so in cultivation what we've discovered and and i have to give credit to my uh long-term friend uh steve doonan for for persuading me to give growing this way a try because i had read this is probably 12 14 years ago when i started growing as an adult again uh i had heard that you have to keep them sitting in water all the time so that's what i did and i'd always get problems um and they just wouldn't grow as well as what i was seeing coming from steve's plants um he lives down in new mexico grows outside in new mexico in a high desert area super hot super windy super dry and he grows his plants in pots just like this and so he and i partnered a few years ago and he gave me a lot of these pots and i still use them like they're my favorite pots for growing fly traps and mostly because they're attractive but also because they're insulating and deep enough and as you can see none of these are sitting in water and i never typically never leave fly traps sitting in water unless we're going on a vacation and i know that they'll need water while we're gone and might dry out that's the only time i ever leave fly traps sitting in water if you look at any of our trays there's no water in any of the trays right now yeah i mean the growing medium is moist enough for sure but it's there's not sopping wet right you can never ever let them dry out but you don't want them sitting in water all the time and you'll get people who say i don't want to grow big roots i want big traps well the reality is the longer the root system gets the bigger the plant can get because the roots can support a larger plant and so yes you can get a one-off trap here or there uh on a small plant that's big but ideally you let these things get a really significant root system and then they become almost like heads of cabbage the plants that steve grows down in new mexico with the number of flies he gets and the way he grows them they are the biggest plants i've ever seen yeah the technique works okay so here's another fly trap care myth and that you can explain which is that venus fly traps will hurt you or your pet people write and say is it gonna like hurt my plant or hurt my finger or what-have-yous but i mean we shouldn't laugh because you don't mean i guess if you don't when i said that you just could immediately stop laughing um because they you know if you have no experience with them you just don't know but here we are to clear that up what do you say to that one well they're non-toxic they have so if a lot of people worry when they're sometimes pets eat them like the cats in particular seem to like to gnaw on fly traps when people grow them indoors uh so they're non-toxic so you don't have to worry about your pet getting poisoned or your kid getting poisoned and yeah the traps are not dangerous or harmful in any way they're basically just like a leaf grown into a position where they're spring-loaded and when they close it's not any more significant than just having like a leaf that curled in like a dry leaf curled around your finger so okay they're not harmful they're not dangerous there is no risk in growing these at all yeah i think it kind of tickles when they close on you okay so next on to the next myth we just have a few more here um that venus fly traps are indoor plants like you could just pop one on your desk and it i mean that would be cool but again this is one of those points that if you go out there there are still plenty of websites that say you should grow them indoors and a windowsill and keep them sitting in water all the time even what is reportedly the ultimate care guide on youtube that has a way way way more hits than anything we'll ever have probably uh they say keep them sitting in water and and that's just not true and it's similarly growing indoors again short term and a very sunny window sill they can do okay but they really do need to be outside in full sun yeah we've experimented growing them in our we have a really nice window that has light coming in through all the angles it was a bay window and even in that case uh the plant itself thinned out a lot and got really weak and droopy and yeah they just without good strong light the leaves don't mature properly the traps don't get very large and they'll typically grow spindly um you can look at these actually these were in these light deprived conditions for a long time you can see with the spindly little yeah the traps don't mature the leaves look spindly and that's what you'll get when you grow in low light on the other end of the spectrum if it's super hot and super dry um for instance down in arizona people typically growing outdoors there will have trouble if it gets over 100 they do not like being that hot so it's ideal to either move them into shade or provide them with a shade cloth 40 to 50 shade cloth in those conditions but if you're growing most of the united states where it's a tempered climate not over 95 to 100 degrees just sit them in full sun and let them do their thing they'll be super healthy and happy okay so outside outside sun okay outside short term indoors is okay again but yeah uh don't make a habit of it and don't leave them in i would say for more than a month indoors yeah and that would be i wouldn't even yeah that's a lot for indoors unless it's dormancy time yeah and it has to be direct sunlight like it's touching the plant a lot of people say no i've got direct sunlight and nice it's on a porch where the direct sunlight is outside um but the porch covering is keeping the plant from getting sunlight so it has to be sunlight that's touching the plant not that's just hanging out around there okay one more question and you've got 45 seconds to answer this um a myth about flytraps do you have to feed them they do not require being fed they grow much more quickly if they catch a meal every once in a while or if you provide them with one but they are just like any other plant that's green they have chlorophyll and they photosynthesize hence the reason they need more sunlight but they appreciate a lot of sunlight what about like hamburger yeah anything they if you do choose to feed them make sure it's an insect or like freeze-dried blood worms or something along those lines yeah no human food for them some sort of fog or insect is best okay so those are our myths for today uh contact us if you have more questions about um care or myths that you know of and check out t-shirts online later

Channel: FlyTrap Store

Views: 6,537

Rating: 4.9819818 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 6JEnFMiks1c

Length: 9min 54sec (594 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 13 2021