Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 09:33:13 -0400 From: BREWER_CHARLES@ecomail.damneck.navy.mil To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg3289$foo@default> Subject: Re[2]: Flower buds
"El-Barto" wrote:
> The instructions that came with my VFT told me to snip flower buds once
> they appear, 1 has grow to about 6 cm, should I snip it?. If so, where?
> ie. at the base,..
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You don't have to do this. Sometimes it's recommended so that the
plant puts its energy into making traps instead of flowers and seeds.
I've tried leaving the flowers on some plants, and cutting them off
from others. All my VFTs look fine.
If you want to cut off the flower stalk, pick a convenient place
near the base.
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I like doing both. I cut off some of my vft flowers and allow other plants to
flower. Most of the flowers I cut off are from newly divided pr planted plants.
This allows them to get established for a year. The older plants established
plants(10 years old or older), I just let go to flower seed. If you never had a
vft flower for you, you may want to give it a try. They are kind of neat to look
at, but once finished, just cut it off like Perry suggested.
One other interesting fact about vft flowers, although I have not tried this, I
have heard that you can take a flower stalk (green of course), cut it off at the
base, lay it on some damp peat, Cover part of the stalk with live sphagnum, lots
of light(not full sun) under high humidity. If lucky, the stalk will produce a
lot of new plants. This is similar to the leaf cuttings technique. Speaking of
vft flower spikes, I have several pictures of my vft flower spikes with tiny
flytraps growing up and down the stalk. I also have several plants that send up
multiple flowers 6 and 7 flower spikes from one plant and the list of flower
mutations go on. This usually occurs with my older flytraps, say 8 to 12 years
old. I plan to send these pictures to Phil Wilson (Hi Phil) in the UK, hopefully
he will write one of his famous articles and include some of these pictures in
the UK CP Journal (hint, hint).
Charles
Va. Beach, Va.
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