Garrapata wrote:
On 28 May 2006 20:59:20 -0700, "Lucky" wrote:

/Uh-Oh! Usualy flowering in fly-traps is not a good sign! It's one of
/those, "I'm gonna die, so time to hurry up and reproduce things..."

Perhaps that is a reaction to your care, but mine blooms annually and
show no signs of stress

A healthy flytrap should flower annually in spring-summer. Depending on
growing conditions they may also flower in autumn, especially if the
spring flowers are removed and the plant has more energy reserves than
it knows what to do with. Anecdotal evidence suggests that flowering
weakens the plant. Realistically, if the plant is growing strongly,
flowering slows down vegetative growth a little but the plants continue
to grow well. Cutting the flowers off will, however, divert energy to
vegetative growth and, lets face it, you grow these plants for the
leaves. If a plant is struggling to start with letting it flower can
take away enough energy to severely affect its health.

/Did you purchase it at Walmart per chance?

I don't patronize Wal Mart but friends do and they bring home some
interesting and well grown plants

/I got one from there and have been having problems with it. Then
/again, I got it from Walmart, so I guess I can't expect the best
/condition....

Fly-Traps aren't the easiest things to grow, they are sensitive to soil
and water.

A very important point, although I don't necessarily agree with them
not being easy to grow. These things are killed with misguided kindness
more often than not. They're not suited to high nutrient/salt
concentrations. As such, they need a nutrient depleted potting mix (eg
sphagnum or peatmoss + sand/perlite), low ppm water
(distilled/DI/RO/rain water) and no fertiliser. Die hard carnivorous
plant nuts will use dilute fertiliser but unless you have an extra few
plants you don't mind killing, getting fertilising right can be more
miss than hit. Other than than remember they like full sun and are
temperate bog plants. They like moisture, humidity but also good air
circulation. Most of all they require a cool dormancy period or they'll
eventually fade away.

I killed a bunch before I got one to survive. Mine is in a
large glass fish bowl with several inches of gravel and peat. It only
gets dionized water or rainwater and very dilute fish 4 times a
year(plus what it catches). It is in an east facing picture window that
gets strong early morning sun. It shares the bowl with a small Nepenthes
which is also happy