My Carnivorous Plant Bog.

[Vater Araignee]

Click to enlarge.

Your plants cant get any more goth than mine.

[Onyx]

Nice!

I tried cultivating some Venus fly traps but could not keep any of them alive. Fascinating plants.

[Fierce Critter]

Jon tried to get me to buy a pitcher plant by telling me it was uber goth.

I chose to save the $9.99.

[Crazed Vampyress]

lookit those lil beauties! im so jealous. im right along with Onyx... i had some a few years back and i struggled to maintain them. yours all look lovely! what is your secret?

[DeadBurgerKing (10)]

I want!!

[Vater Araignee]

My secret is knowledge.

However this particular set up is for advanced Carnivorous plant horticulturists, because it contains tropical, sub tropical, southern temperate, temperate and annual species.

Dionaea muscipula 'Typical' (the green VFt's) are southern temperate.

Dionaea muscipula 'Akai Ryu' (aka Red Dragon) are a cultivar but have the same requirements as typical

Drosera burmanii is a tropical annual. those are the small light green sundews

Drosera ???? × spatulata spatulata is the only portion of this hybrid I have been able to identify and it is a temperate species. those are the slightly larger green sundews.

Drosera binata ssp dichotoma Is sub tropical to sub tropical in range and com from Australia and New Zealand. Those are the ones with the forked leaves.

Drosera filiformis × filiformis 'Florida Red' sub tropical. those are the ones that have thin leaves growing straight out of the media by my Purple pitcher.

Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purpurea (Purple pitcher plant) Is a temperate/northern temperate, it is also native to Michigan.

As you can tell it takes a lot of work in fall to keep all my plants alive, but I can ignore a few of them.

Most people start to understand that they have been treating their VFt's wrong when tell them that thay are native ti a very small area of North and South Carolina. Those domes to find covering CP's in the store, we call death domes/cubes. The reason they are there is for keeping curious fingers off the plant.

For those of you that see a plant in the store and want it. Don't do it. These plants are considered rescues so unless you are familiar with hardening or are willing to kill plants to learn, it just isn't worth it.

Water is another important factor. Sodium free reverse osmosis, distiled or rain water only. They are sensitive to minerals and chemicals. Even well water can kill them.

You can use potting soil on them either, the nutrients in the soil will kill them also.

You know I can myself save a lot of typing by giving you a link.

World-of-Carnivores

I don't think Troy will have an issue with me saying Join up and ask questions and learn.

[Vater Araignee]

I want!!

You live about 8.5 miles away from me.

Do you have a balcony? If so, what direction does it face?

Heck consider all your windows. South east to south west are what you want. If you don't have any the you will have to consider investing if florescent lighting.

And guess what! I know the prices of everything around you. So some so so lighting would cost you less than $15.00. A month later make it decent by getting another set. A month after that make it great by getting another. If you are comfortable with electrical work then you could make a spectacular lighting system in the same space as two 4 foot dual bulb florescent fixtures.

I should mention that My price includes bulbs because you don't need those expensive garbage florescent grow bulbs, just 40w cool white.

If you truly want I can help. CP's get so zen.

With a 4' storage container, a couple of shop lights and a timer you could grow hundreds of pygmy sundews.

[Destroit]

Ooooh I have an array of "goth-plants" myself! I'm big into weird plants (I should post pics eventually). I mean I do have a regular crop/flower garden too, but I love my potted pretties.

I have a dragon tree for starters (two actually, I may give one away). It takes them 15 years to grow four feet indoors, and are originally from the Canary Islands. They look like palm trees almost, but are not even in that family, and the edges get bright red in good light. Why are they goth? Because they actually BLEED. Yeah that's right, a tree that bleeds red sap. Pretty badass. I grew mine from seed and it's already maybe a half a foot tall. (I planted it last January indoors, it's outside right now though)

I have a Mimosa Pudica (sensitive plant) that is very pretty, almost a shrub kind of thing, that gets little fuzzy canary pink blooms and the plants bloom together (I have two) which is a mystery to me. Probably some sort of plant phermones, even though they're in opposite ends of the yard. The cool creepy thing about this one? When you touch the leaves, they MOVE. Literally. You touch it and it throws off the water pressure in the plant causing all of the leaves to close in about 5 seconds or less. It's amazing to see it in action, people almost don't believe me until they touch it and go *GASP!*.

I have a bunch of black dragon coleus plants. Obvious reason for them being goth is that they're very dark purple (actually black in some areas) with magenta colored edges (this is the leaves not the flowers). They're ungoth at the same time though because the blooms are huge shooting stalks of bright baby-blue kinda periwinkle colored flowers.

I have a venus fly trap plant, catches evil flies and yellow jackets in my yard and EATS THEM GOOD! I bought it in a store and it's doing very well.

I have a standard pitcher plant also, which isn't so good at catching big bugs because I need to up-pot it so it can get bigger, but it's pretty and the green kinda turns red on it in good light too.

I also have a measely little sundew plant which makes bugs go STICK and slowly digests them, it's kinda like a spider web really.

That's it for my creepy plants, I want more though. There's a plant native to a very very small part of Africa called a weltwitcha (sp?) which has huge leaves like brown leather straps and are on the ground, with a very odd center. They're unique because they require fog in order to germinate and are very hard to grow. They're also (I believe) in the Gnetophyta class, which there are only about 4 species alive on earth still in that class of plant (in prehistoric times almost all plants were Gnetophyta, which are technically conifers). I can't get a hold of any of the seeds though, probably because they're so rare, but they're HUUUUGE, they get to be probably three feet in diameter.

[DeadBurgerKing (10)]

You live about 8.5 miles away from me.

Do you have a balcony? If so, what direction does it face?

Heck consider all your windows. South east to south west are what you want. If you don't have any the you will have to consider investing if florescent lighting.

And guess what! I know the prices of everything around you. So some so so lighting would cost you less than $15.00. A month later make it decent by getting another set. A month after that make it great by getting another. If you are comfortable with electrical work then you could make a spectacular lighting system in the same space as two 4 foot dual bulb florescent fixtures.

I should mention that My price includes bulbs because you don't need those expensive garbage florescent grow bulbs, just 40w cool white.

If you truly want I can help. CP's get so zen.

With a 4' storage container, a couple of shop lights and a timer you could grow hundreds of pygmy sundews.

Ok! Tell you what, we should hang out sometime and you can take a look around our apt and give me some tips! Once I get the spare cash I'll so get one!!

As for being comfortable with electric work...well, I'm an electronic so I think I can manage lmao

[Vater Araignee]

Ok! Tell you what, we should hang out sometime and you can take a look around our apt and give me some tips! Once I get the spare cash I'll so get one!!

As for being comfortable with electric work...well, I'm an electronic so I think I can manage lmao

Ever try to overdrive a compact florescent

[DeadBurgerKing (10)]

Ever try to overdrive a compact florescent

I've never own floreescent lights. I assume you need one in order to take care of these types of plants if it doesn't get the right amount of sun light though?

[Vater Araignee]

I've never own floreescent lights. I assume you need one in order to take care of these types of plants if it doesn't get the right amount of sun light though?

Correct.

Most carnivorous plants need lots of light. If you cant supply enough direct sunlight then you need to start supplementing.

The pink to red you see in the traps of my Typical VFt's and the red all over my Akai Ryu are good indicators.

Once I had somebody sell me a cultivar 'Aoi Ryu' (green dragon) it was suppose to have zero pigments in it resulting in an all green plant, but when I got it adjusted to correct lighting it developed pink in it's traps.

Straight up the most important things for exceptional and basic CP cultivation are:

Good light

Nutrient poor/free growing media.

Sodium free RO, distiled or rain water.

and a little knowledge.

[CandyQuackenbush]

Back in Agri-Science, we had alot of peoplen wanting Venus Fly Traps, and Pit Falls Traps because they where "cool". Saddly when we got them, we would tell the people that bought them that you need the humidity and LIVE flies for them.

About a week or so would go by, and there are the people that just bought them, and they are dead. Dried up, mushy, and black.

I looked at one this one kid that bought the Venus Fly Trap what he fed it and where he kept it. He told me this:

"I fed it hamburger. But it was raw. I kept on the windowledge, and it died."

Dude, it was DECEMBER! He kept it in the cold, and fed it what I told him NOT to feed it.

He bought ANOTHER ONE, and did the same thing. Geez, I wish that I could have shook his head. I hate people that don't know what they are doing. Plants are living things too.

[Vater Araignee]

Back in Agri-Science, we had alot of peoplen wanting Venus Fly Traps, and Pit Falls Traps because they where "cool". Saddly when we got them, we would tell the people that bought them that you need the humidity and LIVE flies for them.

About a week or so would go by, and there are the people that just bought them, and they are dead. Dried up, mushy, and black.

I looked at one this one kid that bought the Venus Fly Trap what he fed it and where he kept it. He told me this:

"I fed it hamburger. But it was raw. I kept on the windowledge, and it died."

Dude, it was DECEMBER! He kept it in the cold, and fed it what I told him NOT to feed it.

He bought ANOTHER ONE, and did the same thing. Geez, I wish that I could have shook his head. I hate people that don't know what they are doing. Plants are living things too.

For VFt's and Sarrs (north American pitcher plants) you only need about 40% humidity and they can be acclimated down further. You don't need to feed them anything, they are plants and do photosynthesize however they will grow faster if fed. You cant feed the any thing that is dead to VFt's unless you understand their trapping methods or it will just rot in the trap. If the burger didn't kill his plant then he assumed it was dead because it tried to go dormant, many Flytraps are thrown away unnecessarily because somebody mistook a needed dormancy for death. And VFt's should be dormant during December unless they are being cultivated south of the equator then the cycle should be reversed, they are native to a small area called the green swamp in located on the border of North and South Carolina and they do get snow there.

Dries up plants are not always dead they could just be experiencing humidity shock and if you treat them like they are alive they may recover in 6 to 8 weeks.

Mushy CP's are typically caused by high humidity and or over watering, water with salt or high mineral contents will cause it also.

Black leaves don't mean death, the only way to be sure is to examen the rhizome and roots. Sometimes dormancy looks like death.

The only time an inexperienced grower should get a Flytrap is early spring to mid summer. That way you get some understanding of the signals the plant will give and know when to put it into dormancy rather then assuming it's dead. And I'll also say it is not a beginner plant.

In my not so humble opinion the best beginner plants are sub tropical and tropical sundews like the two I mentioned above. D. burmannii is also a good choice because even though it is an annual it has the potential to live 2+ years and if you do keep it alive that long then you have shown you are willing to acquire the knowledge needed.

[DeadBurgerKing (10)]

Back in Agri-Science, we had alot of peoplen wanting Venus Fly Traps, and Pit Falls Traps because they where "cool". Saddly when we got them, we would tell the people that bought them that you need the humidity and LIVE flies for them.

About a week or so would go by, and there are the people that just bought them, and they are dead. Dried up, mushy, and black.

I looked at one this one kid that bought the Venus Fly Trap what he fed it and where he kept it. He told me this:

"I fed it hamburger. But it was raw. I kept on the windowledge, and it died."

Dude, it was DECEMBER! He kept it in the cold, and fed it what I told him NOT to feed it.

He bought ANOTHER ONE, and did the same thing. Geez, I wish that I could have shook his head. I hate people that don't know what they are doing. Plants are living things too.

That's why I don't have any plants. I'm so worried that I won't take proper care of it...