Question
Hi Steve,

I bought a Venus Flytrap in June/July of last year.  It was a young plant with long, skinny stems (as opposed to the short, fatter stems) and after potting it indoors (glass vase) in peat moss and perlite (1:1 mixture) and topped with sphagnum moss, everything seemed normal.  I gave the plant at least 6-7 hours of natural sunlight everyday (when possible), watered it regularly with collected rain water and 100% distilled water and it grew rapidly (within a month, it grew 10 additional traps!).  During this time, it also grew two flower stems and one of the stems even bloomed (I eventually removed them because I read that the flowers rob a lot of energy from the traps).  At one point, the flytrap caught a fly but after a week, the trap turned black while the fly was still trapped inside.  Around December, all the traps slowly turned black and completely died.  I thought this was due to winter but since then, nothing has grown back.

Is my flytrap dead or in hibernation because I had let a flytrap flower bloom? I read somewhere that if the flower blooms, the plant may not grow for a year. Is this true?  I still have the potted flytrap by a window that gives it around 6 hours of warm sunlight everyday.  The soil is still also kept moist with rain water.

Any help you can give me is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
James

Answer
Several points catch my attention in your description. If the plant was bought in summer, it should not have produced flowerstalks. They are normally produced by Venus Flytraps within several weeks of awakening from dormancy (usually in March or April). The fact that your plant produced flowerstalks so late makes it seem as though it was confused as to the season. It might take a year or more of careful growing and timing the yearly dormancy for the plant to synchronize with the seasons, especially if it was propagated in vitro (sterile tissue culture) and had not experienced natural conditions before it was bought.

Venus Flytraps should not be planted in transparent or translucent glass containers, and never in a container that is undrained (does not have a drainage hole) because soluble material can build up in the growing medium and harm or kill the Venus Flytraps. When Venus Flytraps are exposed to the amount of light they need, the sunlight entering a transparent container will quickly overheat the growing medium and root zone and damage or, in extreme cases, actually cook and kill the plant. In addition, if the glass container has high sides, both heat and fungal spores can accumulate inside and threaten the plant.

It is normal for Venus Flytraps to die back for the most part when days become shorter and temperatures cooler. At this time they become almost inactive, dormant (though they still photosynthesize and grow slowly). At that time, the number one killer of Venus Flytraps is fungal or bacterial rot of the roots and rhizome by keeping the growing medium too wet. Their water needs diminish drastically during dormancy, and care must be taken not to overwater. A good rule to remember for Venus Flytraps is to "grow them moist, not wet all the time."

I would uproot your plant and examine the roots and rhizome. If they both look reasonably healthy (if the rhizome is not completely brown and mushy), then I would repot into apppropriate growing medium in a plastic opaque pot that has at least 4-6 inches of depth inside for the roots, no sides that rise above the plant, and with a drainage hole. I would not allow the plant to sit in a tray or bowl of water for more than a few hours at a time, unless one is going to be absent from home while the plant may need additional water.

Best wishes and good luck.