Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:41:45 -0500 (EST) From: Jeffrey Shen <jjshen@unix.amherst.edu> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg624$foo@default> Subject: Hello there!
Hello out there on the CP ML! Since I'm new to the list, I'll give a short
description of myself..
I've always been facinated by CPs ever since I was little, having read
various books on the subject. However, I never had an opprotunity to
try and cultivate any of these plants before until recently. I spotted
a venus fly trap in a store somewhere, and jumped at the opprotunity
to purchace it. This was 3 or 4 months ago.
Unfortunately, since I don't have a very green thumb, my plant seems to be
running into some problems. I figured that this ML was the place to go for
some suggestions.
My plant seemed to be doing fine up until this month and 1/2. When I bought
it, it had traps that were about 2 cm long, with short petioles. The traps
were health at the time, since it shut properly when I fed it a ladybug
and a spider.
It was repotted in a 6" diameter pot with pure peat moss. I've been watering
it with Britta(tm) filtered tap water, since the water around our area is
filled with calcium deposits. Just recently I've switched to pure distilled
water. I've been keeping the soil moist, watering from a plate and letting
the water soak up from the bottom of the pot.
My problem is this: I thought the plant was healthy at first, since the
new pettioles that grew out were much longer, larger and wider than
when I had originally bought it. However, NONE of the traps seemed to be
developing correctly. They were either 1) very small and underdeveloped
or 2) looked brown and very dried out (sunburned?). These
traps were nonfunctional, or failed to develop at all. Subsequently,
the petioles also withered as the traps died.
Meanwhile, the original traps also failed to work when I placed bugs in
it, and they started to look deformed and "fixed in place". I assumed that
this was because of winter, and that the plant was going dormant.
Just recently (within this week), that inside the peat, I've
noticed little silverish colored bugs, not larger than a millimeter in
length crawling around the plant. They do not seem to be on the plant itself,
just in peat moss, but they could possibly be on the rhizome(?) of the plant.
They don't seem to fly, but they seem to jump pretty well. Are these
Aphids? Could they be the cause of the underdeveloped traps? And if so,
how do I get rid of them? I'm afraid to use insectiside sprays since
the bugs are not on the top of the plant itself, but inside the peat.
I would probably have to saturate the soil just to get rid of them, in
which case I would probably kill of the plant in the process. And I can't
use fumigation since its sitting in my house on a window sill. Any suggestions
as to how to get rid of these bugs? I was thinking of submerging the plant
in water as a webpage suggested, but I'm not to sure how to go about doing that
, and besides, wouldn't the plant drown in the process?
Any help would be appreciated! (and growing tips, etc).
Thanks!
Jeff Shen
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