My 1st flytrap... "rescue" from Lowe's :)

[toysareforboys]

Ok, so I was hunting around for any type of CP, none of the local nurseries had anything at all. I read on here that some people were getting theirs at Lowe's so I figured I'd ask em... "In three days we are getting a huge flytrap shipment!!!" Ok, then I guess I will wait... So I picked it up today ($6.88)! All of the plants looked in reasonable health (probably because they were just delivered, lol). I picked the one with the most red in the traps and the least black areas

The emergency first aid I gave it when I got it home: Get it out of that plastic death "clam shell"!. Then a thorough flushing with distilled water (in case, god forbid, they used tap water). Then an inspection with a magnifying glass for any mites, etc., was all clean! I've got it sitting in as little water as possible right now, on a windowsill that gets great direct sunlight.

I plan on re-potting it tomorrow. I've got a large styrofoam Mr. Noodles cup (I want to use it mostly because it says BEEF on the side! lol), it's tall so should give the roots lots of room to grow (they are already coming out the holes in bottom of the little plastic thing it came in!). I've got everything else except silica sand. All the local pool shops were closed by the time I got all the other supplies so I'll have to wait till tomorrow.

If I can build a strong enough cage to keep the squirrels and birds at bay then I plan on making him live outside during the summer

A few pics. I apologize for the poor quality, I lent out my macro lens to a friend, I was shooting under poor lighting without a tripod at 200mm at f5.6, so I had to crank the iso to 1600 to get any usable pics. I promise the next ones will be better!


LICK FOR HIGH RES!


LICK FOR HIGH RES!


LICK FOR HIGH RES!


LICK FOR HIGH RES!


LICK FOR HIGH RES!

I love the instructions that come with it!!! "Use regular tap water and FERTILIZE IT!!" Yeah, I'll get right on that

Thanks a ton OCPS for all the great information I've leeched over the last few days. I hope to grow a strong and healthy flytrap. If he does well, I've got a B52 and two sundews on the way from hawaiianbotanicals.com! WOOT!

-Jamie M. (Whitby, Ontario)

[hackerberry]

Welcome to OCPS Jamie! That's a nice rescue and you're on the right direction caring for your plant. Keep us updated!

hb

[toysareforboys]

Thanks for the welcome

Ok, so it was supposed to be a sunny day today, figured I'd get him use to a little sun. I found a squirrel trap at a local yard sale ($2!) that worked GREAT as a cage to put him in. Just set him inside, "trip" the trap, boom, nothing can get in!

I put a thin white table cloth on just the top part of the cage to protect him from the hot mid day direct sun. I put him out at 9am (was gone all day) and brought him in at 6pm. I noticed three of his traps were closed. I used a flashlight to illuminate from behind, and low and behold, two of the closed traps had food inside them! The third one appeared empty. I'm super pissed I didn't get to see him eat!! I'll have to keep him indoors and once he's done digesting those feed him manually once!!


LICK FOR HIGH RES!


LICK FOR HIGH RES!

Now keep in mind, my flytrap is very small... imagine how tiny those little bugs he caught must be!!

As a side note, I was only worried about squirrels and birds, but are there other "plant eating" insects that are trying to eat my flytrap?? I looked around the area where my plant was sitting all day and on the side of a bag of birdseed was this creature! He was spinning a THICK stream of silk out his bum, so I assume he must be a baby caterpillar? Looks similar to one of the things caught in the trap! He's soft and juicy and can move pretty fast. I was going to feed him to a trap so I could finally see one in action, but didn't for fear of my newbie having too much to eat on his first day

(that's a dime to show scale! SMALL!)

LICK FOR HIGH RES!

Hopefully flytrap is not on "his" menu. It appears it's the other way around for now!

Man, all these things wanting to disturb my flytrap, he may just have to live indoors permanently...

-Jamie M.

[toysareforboys]

And here he is after I repotted him. I wasn't able to use my Mr. Noodles cup because it was cracked all the way around the bottom

For my soil mix I used 50% Peat Moss, 33.3% Perlite and 16.6% Silica Sand.


LICK FOR HIGH RES!

When I was cleaning off the roots I noticed a super tiny little baby flytrap in there so I separated him and put him in his "old" home


LICK FOR HIGH RES!


LICK FOR HIGH RES!

I also noticed there was another tiny flytrap right at the base of the big one, but I was unable to separate him, looked like he was growing right out of the rhizome of his big brother!


LICK FOR HIGH RES!


LICK FOR HIGH RES!

Hopefully he likes his new home

-Jamie M.

[Rug]

Looks like you did a great job on the transplant and seperation! Keep up the good work!

[Devon]

nice plant! Looks great!

I love how the pics say "LICK FOR HIGH RES"

[timmy]

I licked it and all I got was a wet screen? :/

[toysareforboys]

Jul 25, 2010 11:14:29 GMT -5 Devon said:

I love how the pics say "LICK FOR HIGH RES"

Yeah, it started out way back when as a miss copy and paste from "CLICK FOR HIGH RES" and it just happened to be pics of a chick in a bikini on my motorcycle, so it got quite the jokes when it was "LICK FOR HIGH RES".

It just kinda stuck after that

-Jamie M.

[montanaguy29]

I think you are very lucky with the new plant and got 2 little plants growing along with it. I water my red dragons and sundews with rain water as it seems to encourage live sphagnum buds to grow and keep the dead sphagnum moist but the cp's seem to grow best when I water with rain water. I also read that if a plant divides naturally, You should wait until it has a good root system to separate it from the mother plant. I have a small pink VFT that just kind of fell apart as I kept it in direct sun and in a closed ziploc bag for too long and burned it a bit, along with most of the sundews and other VFT red dragons. They are luckily all growing back, but I am not sure how to do dormancy for them. I was thinking about keeping them overnight in the fridge which is about 36-40F so no freezing, and NOT in standing water, just moist sphagnum for now. I was hoping I could take them from the fridge and put them by the south window to get some sun during the day and just keep them moist but not wet during winter dormancy. Any ideas on how to go about dormancy with average temps in butte MT being around -10 to 0 daytime and down to -40F at night??? I figured the fridge is the best bet as no place else has temps that stay above 0 F for prolonged periods of time and just take them out of dormancy after they have been in the fridge at night for 4-5 months. I hope that is ok but please tell me if I am going down a difficult path.