Venus Fly Traps from Homebase
Discussion
I remember venus fly traps as a kid. near impossible to buy and an exciting prospect of giant salivating triffid style jaws crunching down on an itinerant blubottle.
The reality, sadly, was a few tiny, wilted looking traps which never caught anything and died in about a week flat.
I recently went into homebase (my life is so exciting) and spotted some venus fly traps....not the paltry, undernourished specimens from memory but exciting, healthly multi-trapped harbingers of insect doom. So (with much support from Mrs Nightmare..ahem..) I bought one!
Since then it has continued to grow apace, is actually pretty scary looking..but...doesnt seem to have caught a damn thing. at all.
So..has anyone else got one? do they think it really IS a venus fly-trp or some sort of genetically engineered look-alike? and why isnt mine eating anything?!
thoughts on a poastcard....
Night
The reality, sadly, was a few tiny, wilted looking traps which never caught anything and died in about a week flat.
I recently went into homebase (my life is so exciting) and spotted some venus fly traps....not the paltry, undernourished specimens from memory but exciting, healthly multi-trapped harbingers of insect doom. So (with much support from Mrs Nightmare..ahem..) I bought one!
Since then it has continued to grow apace, is actually pretty scary looking..but...doesnt seem to have caught a damn thing. at all.
So..has anyone else got one? do they think it really IS a venus fly-trp or some sort of genetically engineered look-alike? and why isnt mine eating anything?!
thoughts on a poastcard....
Night
I tend to wing flies and feed it the odd one or two. Believe me, trying to wing flies whilst not making them a splat is hard.
Link to help
Another handy link
www.cpukforum.com
Get a Sundew, nature has a funny cruel streak
Link to help
Another handy link
www.cpukforum.com
Get a Sundew, nature has a funny cruel streak
I bought one of these a couple of weeks ago and it doesn't appear to have had much in the way of food action.
I even came downstairs one morning to find a drunken fly in the dreggs of my wineglass. So I dutifully deposited said fly into one of the traps and it just staggered out of the trap and wandered across the table!
I even came downstairs one morning to find a drunken fly in the dreggs of my wineglass. So I dutifully deposited said fly into one of the traps and it just staggered out of the trap and wandered across the table!
Big glass jar.
Catch fly using a piece of card to seal the jar open end.
Wait until fly gives up trying to escape.
Place jar up side down over the Venus fly trap.
Wait for the fly to be enticed into the open jaws.
Get board and walk away.
Come back to find dead fly.
Place dead fly in jaws and watch it squeeze the fly.
Catch fly using a piece of card to seal the jar open end.
Wait until fly gives up trying to escape.
Place jar up side down over the Venus fly trap.
Wait for the fly to be enticed into the open jaws.
Get board and walk away.
Come back to find dead fly.
Place dead fly in jaws and watch it squeeze the fly.
They're good fun and my kids were fascinated when I fed flies to mine. Key things to remember are that:
- they are marsh plants that live in poor soil, so they should always be kept moist;
- they get their nutrition from the insects, so NO fertiliser/plant food;
- their traps should only be triggered to feed them, so don't let the kids play with them or they'll die really quickly.
Lots of info. here:
www.littleshopofhorrors.co.uk/customer/pages.php?pageid=12
- they are marsh plants that live in poor soil, so they should always be kept moist;
- they get their nutrition from the insects, so NO fertiliser/plant food;
- their traps should only be triggered to feed them, so don't let the kids play with them or they'll die really quickly.
Lots of info. here:
www.littleshopofhorrors.co.uk/customer/pages.php?pageid=12
Ahhhh yes - dionea muscipula if I remember correctly.
Way back in 76 (the heatwave summer for all you kiddies) I had one of these.
I got mine to flower and pollinated the flowers and then grew the seeds to seedlings. This is quite a difficult thing to do so I was quite pleased with myself. Indeed this may have been almost the most successful thing I have done in my miserable life - but anyway.
They need 2 things - 1) water every day to keep the sphagnum moss moist but not soaking and 2) nitrogen in the form of meat. If they don't catch a fly a week minimum you need to get minced beef and put it in the trap. The trap will only stay shut if 2 different trigger hairs are triggered within a few seconds otherwise the plant assumes a false alarm and reopens the trap (which is actually a leaf).
Now - to all you creationists nutters out there, here we have an elegant example of evolution at its finest. A VFT which closes traps on the triggering of one hair only will probably lose a significant number of traps and disadvantage itselt to such an extent that it will be less 'fit' (in the genetic sense) than a VFT which requires 2 hairs to be triggered within a certain time interval thereby detecting movement of live pray and not just wind or a passing insect which escapes before trap closure.
Oh and if put it by a light at night it will eat loads of moths.
Just going to lie down now
Way back in 76 (the heatwave summer for all you kiddies) I had one of these.
I got mine to flower and pollinated the flowers and then grew the seeds to seedlings. This is quite a difficult thing to do so I was quite pleased with myself. Indeed this may have been almost the most successful thing I have done in my miserable life - but anyway.
They need 2 things - 1) water every day to keep the sphagnum moss moist but not soaking and 2) nitrogen in the form of meat. If they don't catch a fly a week minimum you need to get minced beef and put it in the trap. The trap will only stay shut if 2 different trigger hairs are triggered within a few seconds otherwise the plant assumes a false alarm and reopens the trap (which is actually a leaf).
Now - to all you creationists nutters out there, here we have an elegant example of evolution at its finest. A VFT which closes traps on the triggering of one hair only will probably lose a significant number of traps and disadvantage itselt to such an extent that it will be less 'fit' (in the genetic sense) than a VFT which requires 2 hairs to be triggered within a certain time interval thereby detecting movement of live pray and not just wind or a passing insect which escapes before trap closure.
Oh and if put it by a light at night it will eat loads of moths.
Just going to lie down now
Bought a pair from Homebase a couple of years back and they are still going strong, not quite as effective against daddy long legs as the dog but then they don't jump as high. Try leaving them by an ajar window with a night light just after dusk. That normally attracts some fluttery little critters.
4WD said:a scary £3.99 of your finest sterling.....
Looks like it may be handy for catching those damn spiders too! How much are they?
thanks for all the replies guys...but it's mostly what I already knew....this one is growing REALLY WELL but hasnt eaten any insects...hence my suspcion!
If you dont feed em enough water they just send up lots of teeny pissy looking traps. lots of water grows them big purply scary ones like Bob has on his!
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