Help My 1st VFT

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Hi all, im new to this and would like to turn it into a hobby as i find the Venus fly trap interesting but don't understand them fully.
I bought my 1st 1 a few months ago from homebase, it been healthy till now. (or i think its not healthy)
It had lots of leaves on it when i 1st got it but now only 4 and they not responding to flies but also i have what looks like a flower stalk which is about 5 inch high with about 5 round buds i think at the end of it. what do i do as here in UK its coming to winter but the plant is flowering, and i am worried it may die.
I have left the plant in the pot and substrate it came in and i water with rain water. any help will be much appreciated, thank you, also would like to get into more of these type of plants what is the most interesting 1 to look out for plus where is best to get these plants from.

[hal]

First, I'd cut off the flower stalk as it's taking energy from the plant.

How much light does it have? Should be full sun and that may be the reason it's waning. A bright windowsill usually isn't enough for VFTs - they need to be under strong lights.

For long term success, VFTs need a dormancy every year and if they aren't established in a bog outside, the most successful method is to put them in the fridge. There's threads here on how to do that. However if it's a young plant (probably is if you just bought it) it should be able to survive one year without a dormancy.

My recommendation would be to make sure it has lots of light and humidity, hope that stops it from dying off and next autumn put it into dormancy.

[shoggoths]

Hi,

Also, if you go on with cutting the flower stalk like Hal said, don't throw the stalk away. Instead, put it on wet long fiber sphagnum in a transparent plastic box under strong light, like for leaves cutting. This way you should have plantlet from the stalk in a couple of months. In this case, it sometimes helps to make some small incisions with a razor blade every inches over the stalk.

[dcads29775]

Thanks all, I will chop the stalk of and do what you say. Hopefully I will have new plants from it As for sunlight the VFT is in a south facing window and gets sunlight most of the day.