Expert: Christopher Littrell - 6/25/2007

Question
THe leaves are growing good and all but every time a trap tries to grow it dies or it just stays black like its burn't.
I leave it by the south window btw.

Answer
Hello Jose,

The problem is that I have little information to go by other than the leaves are turning black. Such blackening can occur for many reasons.

Is the plant in a terrarium or a pot with a dome? If so, the sun coming through the window might be damaging your plant by refracting through the cover. As a matter of fact, Venus Flytraps do their best in open pots outside after being slowly acclimated to higher intensities of light for several weeks before placing them in direct sun on a patio.

If the plant is in an open pot, the best setup, then there are other factors that might damage the Flytrap.

1.  Hard water from a tap or drinking water contain minerals that can slowly damage the soil Ph and kill carnivorous plants of almost all types, Venus Flytraps in particular. Always water them with distilled, fresh rain, or reverse osmosis water that has all mineral content removed.

2.  Fertilizers can also kill Venus Flytraps if they get in the soil. Venus Flytraps cannot handle fertilizer on their roots and such will rot and burn their root systems after a few weeks or months, damaging the soil Ph like hard water does.

3.  Overwatering can eventually cause root rot in Venus Flytraps if the water level goes up to the plant's root crown and drowns the roots. Always keep the water level below 1/4 the height of the pot. Best bet is to use a 4-6 inch tall pot with drainage holes and a large tray that holds about an inch of water under the pot.

4.  Fungus and mold can infect Venus Flytraps when they are grown indoors. Venus Flytraps tend to make horrible house plants for this reason and many others. The closed conditions of a house keep air stagnant and full sunlight cannot really reach the plants even in a window.

5.  How long have you kept the plant? Venus Flytraps should go dormant in winter so that they get a rest period before flowering in spring. Without dormancy, the plant would weaken and die off within months to a year in most cases.

In any event, it sounds like some environmental factor is damaging the plant. If anything on the list looks like the potential culprit, make changes in your care of the plant to alleviate the situation. In the case of hard water and fertilizer, the best bet is to repot the plant in sphagnum peat moss in the dry bales found in hardware stores and nurseries with a 50/50 mix of clean, plain perlite. Make sure that none of the ingredients you use have any additives like fertilizer as many companies make peat moss and perlite products with chemicals and fertilizers added, be careful not to use that stuff.

Send me a followup if you can think of anything else that might have affected your plant (household chemicals, fungicides, fertilizers, insecticides, cleansers and so forth).

Hopefully your plant will recover soon,

Christopher