Why isn't my flytrap closing?
By Darkmuse
United Kingdom
Another question from possibly the least green fingered member of this site :)
I have the pictured flytrap on a windowsill in the kitchen where I have seen small flies happily crawl about in the "traps". Why wouldn't it want to feed?
Also the inside of the leaves are pretty green and not red. Is this purely due to it not getting enough sun?
On plant
Dionaea muscipula
- 12 Jul, 2007
Featured on:
carnivorous plants
Answers
They live in peat bog areas - so need lots of light and also only water with rain water.
17 Jul, 2007
very hard to keep i have never been successful with these at all, and i am pretty good with plants, i think they need heated greenhouse - very humid damp air to work otherwise they turn yellow and then just die back in my experience. but there are lots of other types of fly traps that are just as interesting and a lot easier to grow if you loose it why not try a pitcher plant - think they are much easier to grow and very good at munching on flys! quite wierd looking too.
19 Oct, 2007
Hi Darkmuse, I am not an expert but I had the opportunity to talk to one today and he tells me that it is a lack of sun that stops the insides going red. I am not sure why the traps arent closing but he tells me it takes a huge effort to make the movement and can take days for the plant to open/reset the 'traps'. I do know that there are three points or hairs inside most traps and those have to be triggered for the trap to close so if they are really tiny flies... does any of that make sense... more sunlight.
13 Jul, 2007