Venus Flytrap
Dionaea muscipula
Through the year 🗓️
☀️ Summer now
Full sun and a topped-up water tray; outdoors it catches all the food it needs.
🍂 Fall
Let it wind down as traps blacken. Shrinking is dormancy beginning, not dying.
❄️ Winter
Give it a true cold rest at 35–50 °F (porch, garage, or fridge method) for 3–4 months, keeping the soil just damp.
🌱 Spring
Repot into fresh peat-perlite as dormancy breaks, and cut the first flower stalk unless you want seed, because blooming drains it.
The details
Light & placement
- Light
- Full sun: 4–6+ hrs of direct light or a strong grow lamp; a dim windowsill is a slow death
- Ideal PPFD
- 400–800 µmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹
- Grow-light distance
- 6–12 in below LED
Water & feed
- Watering method
- Tray method: stand the pot in ½–1 in of distilled or rainwater and keep the soil permanently wet. Tap or filtered water's minerals poison it within weeks.
- Fertilizer
- None, ever; fertilizer burns the roots. It feeds itself, and a couple of live insects a month is plenty if it's grown indoors away from bugs.
Home & habit
- Soil
- Nutrient-free mix only: pure sphagnum peat + perlite or sand. Regular potting soil kills it; pH 4.5–5.5
- Humidity
- Average and up (50%+); wet soil matters far more than air humidity
- Temperature
- 70–90 °F growing; needs 35–50 °F for winter dormancy
- Mature size
- ~5 in rosette; flower stalks to 12 in
- Repotting
- Yearly in late winter into fresh nutrient-free mix
- Propagation
- Division of offsets in early spring; leaf pullings on wet sphagnum; seed (slow).
When something looks wrong
- Overwatering signs
- Blackening traps and rot smell only if water is stagnant AND cold; otherwise wet is correct
- Underwatering signs
- Dry tray, wilting traps, crispy blackened leaf edges
- Common pests
- Aphids, fungus gnat larvae, spider mites; gray mold in cool damp
Common problems 🩺
The usual suspects when Venus Flytrap looks unhappy. Most houseplant trouble is watering or light, not disease — see all plant problems if you are not sure which plant is the culprit.
Traps turning black
Likely cause
Tap water is the usual culprit. Individual traps also blacken with age after catching a few meals.
What to do
Use only distilled or rainwater. Trim dead traps; a few blackening at a time is normal.
Dying back completely in winter
Likely cause
Dormancy, not death. Flytraps need a cold rest of a few months.
What to do
Let it die back somewhere cold and bright, keep it barely damp, and it returns in spring.
Weak, floppy traps that will not close
Likely cause
Not enough light. This is a full-sun bog plant.
What to do
Give it 4–6+ hours of direct sun or a strong grow light. Never feed it human food.
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