On Fri, 02 May 2003 16:48:30 GMT, "verizon" wrote:

I bought a venus fly trap from home depot a little over a month ago,
everything is ok so far

today though we had a hot today out and i managed to catch a big fly, and
found another dead one


(since this thing has not eaten anything since the first day i got it), and
since both are really big flies i decided to help one of the trap close and
now i am afraid that i might have hurt it. when i close the trap i only
applied pressure at the outer most region (where the "teeth"? are located)

so, my question is do you think i hurt it, is it ok to help the traps close
using the same method i have used in the future?

also does the dead fly i found have any nutritional value?

The fly supplies whatever micro-nutrients the plant requires to grow.
A bog usually doesn't supply these materials. From what I remember
reading online a few years ago, the plant only needs about one fly
every one to two _weeks_, so it's not a big occurrence. The plant
also requires _live_ flies, since the stimulation of the fly walking
around the trap is what starts the digestive process. Some people
catch wasps, then freeze them for a couple minutes so they're still
alive, then put them in the trap so they are still (temporarily) alive
and thus walk around, but I wouldn't recommend this especially
since he could escape and you'd have a very angry bee flying around.

I might still have the links (from many years ago), lets see....

http://www.sarracenia.com/faq.html
http://www.pitcherplant.org/

These should help a lot with info for your venus fly trap. As someone
else said, do not tease it by touching the trap; this saps energy
from the plant. Also use only sphagnum peat moss as potting material.
And don't let it flower; cut off any flower stalks.

Dan