> >>I have a Venus Fly trap which has been growing very well for months
> >>on a sunny windowsil, producing new traps weekly. I've come
> >>back from holiday and noticed that it has flowered and no more traps
> >>have been produced and the last trap produced has started to go black
> >>maybe it's dying ?
> >>
> >>Has the flowering weakened it ?
>
> Yes it has. Although you'll see beautiful photos
> of flowering carpets of Dionea in books, individual
> plants can actually flower-away to nothing...
I long since given up removing flowers from my VFTs. I think they're
part of the plant - if you want to grow the plant, then grow it as
it's meant to be, rather than removing parts of it. I just counted 14
flower spikes on my 3 pots of VFT, and loads of nice traps too, so I
come to think that the tale about removing flowers is a bit of a
myth. Most of the flowers have produced abundant seed too, no doubt
due to the attention of the insects I saw on the flowers while they
were open.
It does seem a bit early in the year for your VFT - flowers or not -
to have no new traps. I suppose it might depend on the local climate
though. Mine never go fully dormant - they get to look a bit bad in
Winter, and stop growing, but there are always a few old traps
present.
-- Clarke Brunt (clarke@brunt.demon.co.uk)