Bought a Venus on sale. How can I nurse it to health?
2” pot with drainage
Last watered 1 day ago
2
Use distilled water, reverse osmosis (RO) water, or collected rainwater. Tap water and bottled drinking water contain minerals that will slowly burn and kill the plant. The soil should always be damp, but never fully waterlogged to the point of root rot. Give your plant as much direct sunlight as possible aim for at least 6 hours daily. If grown indoors, you will need to use a high output full spectrum grow light. If you recently bought your plant, it may have been in a dark store. Slowly introduce it to bright, direct sun over a few weeks to avoid burning the leaves. Never use standard potting soil or add fertilizer, as plant food will burn the roots. Pot them in a 50/50 mixture of nutrient-free sphagnum peat moss and perlite. If kept outdoors, they will catch more than enough bugs themselves. If kept indoors, you will need to feed them a small, live bug once a month. Drop the insect into a trap and gently trigger the tiny hairs inside so the trap closes and digests the prey. Do not trigger the traps without food inside, as this wastes the plant's energy. Venus flytraps require a 3 to 4 month winter dormancy. During the colder months, they will grow much slower, and some traps may turn black and die back. Keep the plant in a cooler environment (around 35F to 45F and keep the soil just damp, not fully soaked. You can trim off any blackened leaves.
