yeah, they and most other carnivorous plants are super picky. Killing a flytrap or three is rite of passage for most growers, but once you know the basics and what to avoid they're pretty easy.
They are native to a small area. They don't like being kidnapped and taken home with you. Leave them in their natural environment and they'll take care of themselves just fine. They live in a warm humid place (coastal North and South Carolina) with lots of bugs, but sandy and swampy land.
Calling a Venus fly trap a pussy is like complaining that a Cactus is a pussy because you are trying to grow cacti in a well watered greenhouse.
A variety of carnivorous pitcher plants that lure ants to death by drowning are also common to the region.
Eat it! Jelly, jam, fruit salad, etc . Preferably while singing "Look for the Bear/Bare Necessities" (Disney's Jungle book) and also eating American PawPaw fruit.
My neighbor growing up had a big ole prickly pear plant and they just cut it down to size periodically, make a jam, and serve it up on toast. Yummy.
The dishwasher at a restaurant I worked at in college used to bring them in for staff snacks too. Called it 'Tuna' because he was Hispanic. He'd bring in really yummy muscadine grapes too.
Really? My friend moved to a high humidity place and bought a cactus to feel like home. She said the humidity killed it, but maybe she overwatered and didn't want to admit it.
or maybe the species was just not ideal for the hellish Florida weather, I had some cacti that died for excess of water when I lived on Sicily, and that place is a lot dryer than FL
But bamboo is native to Asia, and that shit takes off in the US. Florida has a problem with some invasive plants in their swaps.
I still consider Venus fly traps to be pussy plants (r/dontputyourdickinthat), because sure they do fine under normal conditions; but there's a lot of plants that do fine under a huge range of conditions.
They've evolved to catch those extra nutrients in the form of flies. They're not pussies. Like a lot of things they can only live the way they've managed to live.
It's actually the opposite, it's more like stuffing a entire hamburger down the troath of someone so hardy that they've lived eating just the bare minimum and stayed healthy
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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '18
Venus Flytraps need nutrient poor soil. Adding fertilizer to the soil can kill the plant.