Expert: Christopher Littrell - 12/3/2011

Question
My 9-year old son is eager for some carnivorous plants this holiday season.  I see on the carnivorous plant sites statements such as "no need for terrariums!"   But what if I want to use a terrarium?  We have cats--cats that love to eat and un-pot plants--so a terrarium or enclosure would be best.  What do you recommend? Thank you so much.

Answer
Hello Lauren,

Terrariums are mainly used for plants that simply cannot survive without high humidity and controlled conditions. Terrariums, for most other plants, are simply to restricted, do not provide aeration, cannot provide adequate drainage, cannot allow for high enough intensity light for most carnivorous plants, and are a major cause of mold on plants.

My suggestion would be to obtain some other plants that cats hate and place those plants near and around the plants you need to grow open pot. You could also simply enclose the plants in wire mesh or other material around the pots, allowing the best of both worlds. Another consideration would be light levels. It sounds like you want to grow plants indoors, so you will need to grow tropical carnivorous plants that can survive indoors in lower level light in windows or under strong florescent lights of at least 12000 lumens (plants like Cape sundews, Butterworts, Lance Leaf Sundews, Nepenthes and the like). If you are wanting to try Venus Flytraps and Sarracenia pitcher plants, you would need to provide them with full sunlight outside and seasonal dormancy in winter as they are temperate carnivorous plants requiring basically the same conditions a garden plant would. They require full sun or the equivalent in light levels, around 30000 lumens or higher (10-12 cool white 40 watt florescent tubes one foot from them), and winter dormancy for three or four months out of each year in cold, short light level days to survive. These temperates can live for decades, but become annuals in the wrong conditions.

I was about 8 when I first had my parents buy a bunch of carnivorous plants for me. I placed them in a terrarium and watched them slowly die one by one within a few short weeks. Lesson learned. Now I grow them all open pot. So long as they have the proper light, seasonal variations according to species, and proper mineral free water levels, they thrive and reproduce.

Christopher