Question
Greetings and thanks for taking the time to answer my naive question.

I have had a great deal of success in raising Nepenthes, however I have just recently tried my hand and raised a beautiful Venus Flytrap I purchased this spring from Sarracenia Northwest. However, given that I've mostly raised Neps and they don't require a dormancy period, I am somewhat naive about how to properly winterize a flytrap.

I live in Nebraska (zone 4) where it consistently is in a state of hard freeze for weeks at at time, and so keeping it outdoors is out of the question. I have heard some winterize the plants by placing them within a refrigerator, but I am concerned about the absolute loss of light it would then have.

Do you have any recommendations for me so I can winterize this plant? I'm greatly looking forward to purchasing more of these guys come spring....

Answer
Venus Flytraps need a dormancy period in order to compensate for a summer growth period in which the plant may expend more energy and use more stored food than it generates. It's a risk and a gamble, but if the plant catches food, the gamble pays off and the plant is able to store that food for future use.

During dormancy, when the plant is relatively cool and growing very little, it is not completely inactive. Instead, the leaves continue to photosynthesize, convert sunlight into food and store that food to have a good reserve with which to start the next season. For this reason, as you were aware, sunlight (or strong artificial light) is important even during dormancy.

Dormancy for a Venus Flytrap doesn't need to be excessively long nor excessively deep (cold). Although Venus Flytraps can survive brief freezing air so long as the soil doesn't also freeze, it is optimal to keep the temperatures above freezing in order to preserve the leaves, most of which will live through dormancy and continue to provide to photosynthesize, and often continue to live even through much of the next season before dying after being replaced by many more newer leaves.

Fourteen to sixteen weeks is often long enough for dormancy, and plants grown in good conditions will often break dormancy and begin to actively grow after that amount of time, so long as the days are getting longer and the temperature has warmed enough. This can be accomplished in cold climates by growing the plants indoors (in a cool spot during dormancy) or in a greenhouse or other somewhat sheltered conditions where the climate can be controlled to some degree.

Regarding temperature, dormancy can be well maintained when the temperatures vary between the low 40s Fahrenheit up to 60 degrees for most of the hours of the day during dormancy. If the temperature rises during the day into the 70s or even 80s for a few or some hours, that is perfectly fine so long as the majority of the time the temperatures are relatively cool to fairly cold, but above freezing.

In a cold climate, a window often sheds cold air during the winter, so a plant grown in a sunny windowsill with some clear plastic or a curtain, with the plant placed between the curtain and the glass of the window, can be kept reasonably cool while still receiving light. An unheated garage with translucent panels, or a window in such a space, so long as it doesn't freeze, can also be appropriate. The refrigerator technique (placing the uprooted plant in a ziplock plastic bag with some moderately moist but not saturated material (damp paper towels, etc.)) can work but does not give the plant the light it needs during dormancy. The plant will start out with a handicap in the spring and won't grow as well as a plant that has received light during dormancy and hasn't experienced any freezing weather.

A cold frame could work as well. The best thing to do is to use your own creativity to come up with a solution for dormancy that is suitable to your personal circumstances and in your own particular climate. I hope that these few notes help.

Best wishes-- Steve