Basin's carnivorous plants

basin79

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Both of those would be a dream. I do windowsill supplemented with a light (was two, will have to replace a bulb before going home I guess) and a terrarium with led lighting. As above, I'm building an automated terrarium from an old refrigerator. Tonight my friend and I are going to try drilling holes in it without bricking the fridge because thay would be really terrible. I don't have a place to put a garden or greenhouse. Not sure if a terrarium maybe counts as a glasshouse?

How do you grow, and @basin79 @Andrea82 @pannaking22 how do y'all grow?
Just on sunny windowsills in the house. Put them out on warm sunny days for a few hours in summer to catch food too.
 
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Jealous...

How do you grow lowland neps and Heliamphora on the same windowsill? My Heliamphora suffer when they don't drop down to pretty cool temps at night.

How do you keep this cool? I picked up the fridge specifically because it cools itself.
The short answer to both is I live in Ireland XD The kitchen windowsill is actually on the cool side for those plants.
With the tent it never goes above 30 and that's on the hottest days. For when it does get that hot I have an extractor fan that compliments the USB powered circulation fan and the cooling fans on the LEDs. The great thing about the LEDs is they don't get hot at all, just sort of warm.
The most difficult thing about the tent is maintaining high humidity, even with very low ventilation it dries out fast in there.
 

pannaking22

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Both of those would be a dream. I do windowsill supplemented with a light (was two, will have to replace a bulb before going home I guess) and a terrarium with led lighting. As above, I'm building an automated terrarium from an old refrigerator. Tonight my friend and I are going to try drilling holes in it without bricking the fridge because thay would be really terrible. I don't have a place to put a garden or greenhouse. Not sure if a terrarium maybe counts as a glasshouse?

How do you grow, and @basin79 @Andrea82 @pannaking22 how do y'all grow?
Windowsill for me as well. I'd like to start putting them outside, but it gets so hot and dry here that I'd be afraid that they'd die out there since I'd have a hard time keeping up with the water.
 

Andrea82

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Both of those would be a dream. I do windowsill supplemented with a light (was two, will have to replace a bulb before going home I guess) and a terrarium with led lighting. As above, I'm building an automated terrarium from an old refrigerator. Tonight my friend and I are going to try drilling holes in it without bricking the fridge because thay would be really terrible. I don't have a place to put a garden or greenhouse. Not sure if a terrarium maybe counts as a glasshouse?

How do you grow, and @basin79 @Andrea82 @pannaking22 how do y'all grow?
I'm not growing them yet, I'm just riding along to soak up all the knowledge from you guys before I start. :smug:
I had a VFT once but it died on me. This was 15 years ago and I want to make sure I get it right this time :)
 
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I had a VFT once but it died on me. This was 15 years ago and I want to make sure I get it right this time :)
Follow these rules and you will find VFT's easy:

• Rainwater/distilled water only. Keep very moist but not wet

• When repotting use 1-1-1 peat moss, perlite and sand.

• Keep in full sun as much as possible

• Don't close the traps needlessly

• Cut off the flower stalk before it starts growing tall. Leave the VFT outside in winter, kept a lot drier. This will make the plant come back stronger the next year
 

Andrea82

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Follow these rules and you will find VFT's easy:

• Rainwater/distilled water only. Keep very moist but not wet

• When repotting use 1-1-1 peat moss, perlite and sand.

• Keep in full sun as much as possible

• Don't close the traps needlessly

• Cut off the flower stalk before it starts growing tall. Leave the VFT outside in winter, kept a lot drier. This will make the plant come back stronger the next year
Keeping it outside... Are you sure? It can get as low as -15°C here in winter. Also very wet.
 
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Keeping it outside... Are you sure? It can get as low as -15°C here in winter. Also very wet.
-15 is a bit too cold but they can go a couple degrees below freezing. Mine go down to -8 here for a while during winter and do fine so long as they aren't wet.
The cool period causes the plant to go dormant and is essential to perennial growth. Flytraps that don't get their natural winter chill will grow leggy and weak the next year, and you will probably get lots of malformed traps. The removal of the flower stalk is just as important if you want a long-lived, strong plant :)
 

basin79

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You can see the nectar on the edge of the leaf. Sneaky buggers.





This tiny fly made the fatal mistake of landing on this small sundew leaf.





Random pics.





Black and white versions.


 

Andrea82

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The first b/w picture could be wall art, like cover one wall with it and then have snobbish people over who have no idea what it is but because it is art they go like :pompous: 'hmm yes, quite, what a marvelous piece, quite fetching'
Which it is, of course, but while they are searching for what the artist might have meant by it, I go like, 'great isn't it, nature?' :smug:
... I have a very vivid imagination sometimes...:bucktooth:
 

basin79

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The first b/w picture could be wall art, like cover one wall with it and then have snobbish people over who have no idea what it is but because it is art they go like :pompous: 'hmm yes, quite, what a marvelous piece, quite fetching'
Which it is, of course, but while they are searching for what the artist might have meant by it, I go like, 'great isn't it, nature?' :smug:
... I have a very vivid imagination sometimes...:bucktooth:
Arty farty.

 

krbshappy71

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I caved and got a VFT, this forum is going to ruin my retirement plans. I'll just sit around eating cat food and watching my plants and pets. I haven't had one of these plants since I was a kid mistakenly feeding it hamburger! Time to redeem myself. Fabulous pictures, by the way, basin49!
 

basin79

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I caved and got a VFT, this forum is going to ruin my retirement plans. I'll just sit around eating cat food and watching my plants and pets. I haven't had one of these plants since I was a kid mistakenly feeding it hamburger! Time to redeem myself. Fabulous pictures, by the way, basin49!
Well played.

Bloody hell fire I've aged. 30 years just like that.

And thank you. Much appreciated.
 
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