Question
Hello,
I just recently bought a Venus fly trap from cobraplant.com. I am wanting to go with artfical lighting since I am unable to provide direct sunlight. I recently bought a desklamp with a 26 watt compact florescent light. The lumens is only 1600, will this provide enough light for my venus flytrap? Or do I need to find a 40 watt?

Thank you,
Jake

Answer
Hello Jake,

While outside growing is the optimal way to grow Venus Flytraps, they can be grown indoors if you are willing to go the extra mile in constant care for a full sun temperate. They are much more difficult to grow indoors, so you may wind up losing several plants before you get the hang of it.

My experiences with compact florescent lighting have been disappointing. They provide too little coverage for larger plants or for large numbers of plants and burn too hot to place plants too close to. Venus Flytraps are small and can withstand higher temperatures than some of the mountain species of carnivorous plants, so they might do well under compacts, but I would go with a multi-bulb assembly or use several lamps around the plant while providing the strongest lit sunny window I could. The compact florescent bulbs do tend to drop off in lumen intensity faster than the tubes when you increase the distance from the bulb to 1 foot, which is how lumens are measured, however; if you place the plant closer, say 6-8 inches from the bulb, the lumen intensity is much greater. My preferred method is to grow my Venus Flytraps under the 40 watt shop light tubes. I started with 12000 lumens of tubes, 4 tubes in two banks side by side, with the Venus Flytrap 4-6 inches from the lights situated between the banks of light to receive the strongest light from both banks at once. The more tubes you get, the farther from the tubes you can place your plants to find the best overall lumen intensity for them. 12000 lumens is really just a bare minimum for Venus Flytraps. I have since shifted to using 6 banks of shop lights in a square configuration in front of a North window. That set of lights provides cooler light and upwards of 38400 lumens of intensity and the Venus Flytraps are placed about 8-10 inches from them. A neighboring Sarracenia purpurea hybrid is my indicator that the other plants are getting optimal light when the Sarracenia develops good purple coloration and firm, normally shaped pitchers. Now I have several dozen plants, so that is why I have such a large light setup. You may be able to do the same with about 3 compact florescent bulbs about 8 inches from the plant and place the plant in a South facing window if you have one. So long as the plant develops good color for its sub-species and has well developed traps and petioles, it should be fine there for a while, but be mindful that it will still simply not be as healthy as a plant grown outside in full sun. Be cautious when it flowers and watch for signs of deformity or spindly growth as those may indicate light deficiency. In those cases, move the artificial lights a little closer, add more lights, and find a better window. If dehydration and burning occurs on the tips of the leaves closest to the lights, move the plant a little farther away and/or add a fan to blow indirectly near the plant. If your room has a ceiling fan it would help divert some of the heat from those compacts.

In any event, yes, temperate garden plants can be grown indoors if you can invest the time and resources into making sure they get the best overall environment they need. When dormancy time comes, you will need to ensure the plant gets the proper cues to enter dormancy and then ensure it stays cool all winter until spring arrives. But that is another story altogether as the next winter is a while off.

I cannot stress enough times how difficult indoor growing is for temperate plants like Venus Flytraps and Sarracenias. It took me 32 years to get the knack of it and even now the plants need constant maintenance and observation to ensure they get the right lighting and dormancy periods (and I lost many, many plants in my earlier attempts). On the bright side, I do have over a dozen Venus Flytraps all grown from divisions and seeds from a single plant I received from Sarracenia Northwest a couple years ago, so yes, it can be done. It is just not the most efficient way to grow them.

Christopher