Question
I bough a fly trap from Albertsons and I decided to let it grow outside. It started to get cold and instead of letting it to dormant I decide to grow it in my house under an AeroGarden light. I give it about 15 hrs a day, and it's doing really great. But recently I fed one of the new traps a tiny spider and the trap re-opened within two day so I tryed it again last night with a bigger spider and when I seen it today it's already starting to open up alittie bit. Is this a problem?????? Because I though the trap is suppose to stay close for 7 days.....

Answer
Hi Jontue,

There are two issues that might be affecting it, but overall it's not really a problem.  The first is whether the spiders were already dead when you fed them to the trap.  The plant is stimulated by the insects struggle to get free.  If there isn't any struggle, then the plant is stimulated to digest the bug, so it reopens to catch something else.

The other possibility is the exposure to cold temperatures.  When the weather cools down, the traps actually stop digesting insects.  So the exposure to cold, though brief, may have triggered this reaction.  The plant still thinks it's cold.  If this is the case, you'll need to wait until the plant produces new leaves before you see the normal plant reactions.

On another note, it's not at all necessary to protect your flytrap from cold temperatures.  We grow them exclusively outdoors at our nursery in zone 8 with very minimal winter protection.

For more information about growing flytraps, read our care sheet:
http://www.cobraplant.com/caresheets

I also recommend watching our DVD, Grow Carnivorous Plants Volume 1:
http://www.cobraplant.com/DVD

You will also find our monthly podcasts very helpful:
http://www.cobraplant.com/videos

Good growing!
Jacob Farin