Question
I recently was given a growing kit of VFT seeds made by the brand DuneCraft.  I have been receiving your newsletters for the past few years and has been keeping pitcher plants and VFTs for years outside but never from seed.  It includes a small egg shaped container to plant in (which I figured was wrong) says to use a Jiffy peat pellet of 'premium quality soil' (wrong I think) and to put in the refrigerator during the winter to keep from dying (wrong).

I was just wanting to make sure that I was correct and how you sprout your common variety VFTs from seed.  I live in Bonifay, Fl (Northwestern Panhandle of Florida) and have about three or four pots growing outside in sphagnum moss that I gently collected from around the bog in the back of my property where there is natural growing Sarracenia flava var rugella and some kind of sundew.  I water mine with nothing but pure rain water.

Thanks,
~ Kolton

Answer
Hi Kolton,


Sorry about taking awhile to get back to you.  We've had quite a fury of activity over the weekend.

Basically, unless you have some other use for the other parts of the kit, just discard that stuff and keep the seeds.  Be sure to burn the directions so no one else reads them and gets frustrated. :)

Just sow your seeds on some pots with typical peat/perlite media.  Venus flyraps don't require stratification.  You can use live sphagnum, but it tends to overgrow the seeds.  The germinate in about 2 weeks.  If after a month you don't get germination, the seeds were probably old.

We'd love to see some pictures of the bog near your house.  Contact us through the website to send us a photo.

Good Growing!

Jeff Dallas
Sarracenia Northwest
http://www.cobraplant.com