Venus Flytrap Dormancy - How to Keep Your Venus Flytrap Dormant

[Music] [Applause] so it's awesome time right now and that means it's time for dormancy hello and welcome back to the flytrap garden in today's video we will be looking at the Venus flytrap dormancy and that's a subject that not many people actually know about so there's about three main things that you need to look at when you put your Venus flytrap into dormancy and we will cover these three things today firstly you may be confused as to what dormancy even is essentially dormancy is when your plant goes to sleep in winter because you know it's tired it's been a long summer has been actively catching all these plants and it just wants some time to rest and go to sleep gives the kids to a nanny and they can look after them and essentially either go to sleep for about three to six months depending where you are in the world if you're in warmer climates such as Australia they will go to sleep from max three months because it's really not that cold here but if you somewhere such as the UK they may be in dormancy for about four to five months the colder it is the longer the dormancy the warmer the shorter the dormancy so that's just jump straight into it there are three factors that you have to take into account when you want to put your Venus Project into dormancy and these three factors are temperature light and watering as you can see this is our Venus flytrap it's looking okay but this is going dormant you can start going dormant when all of these leaves started up black and they start dying like you can see see here we have lots of these small little traps but you don't see any or many new traps like that one right that's the only new developing track that we can see and that shows that the plant is slowing down not making the traps or the old traps are dying and this means that it's going dormant you know its dormancy and not getting sick because obviously it's becoming awesome slash fall if you're American and essentially this is what your plant will start to look like in some places it was super cold all the neeeews will die off and will go completely black on the top and that's many for the much colder climates share in Australia I expect the plans to stay with some green views on top because it is warmer but this will be my first dormancy here in Australia so let's start looking at those three factors are spoken so firstly let's look at lighting for these cars my pants grow outside and they get about eight hours of Sun lights in winter which is well basically autumn at know they still get about eight hours of direct sunlight and essentially what I'm trying to say whether this is that you mustn't move your plants from outside if they're living outside leave them outside there was thirty good dormant by themselves because what happens is that in winter time naturally this less sunlight and that is called a photo period so the photo period has decreased and the plants pick up on that and they realize hey there's less cymatic means it's becoming winter it's time for us to go to sleep send the kids off to the nanny and we can just relax and sleep or hibernate you know just like a bear would if you're living in a very cold climate slack that's a north Scotland some way like super super cold or Canada like where the day temperatures are still below freezing do not leave them outside then you want to bring your plants inside put them in an unheated room or in the basement somewhere that it stays very cold but that it is more than freezing if your plants constantly receives less than freezing temperatures what happens is that the media and the water in the media freezers and unfreezes and freezes and unfreezes and this kills the rhizome of the plant because when freezing the water molecules basically make little char Edge's and will puncture their Azzam and it just it kills upon so be very careful with that but if you're staying in a climate where the winters are more than zero degrees celsius then it is perfectly fine to leave a plant aside and I actually do recommend that it's best to look at where you are living in the world and if you aren't very sure about your dormancy requirements you can always check online or you can send me a message and I'll be happy to help you now this is slightly different if you're living in a climate which is more tropical for example I have some plant friends who live in India and the Philippines and those places they are obviously always warm and tropical and that is quite difficult to grow a Venus flytrap because obviously they don't really get a winter and it doesn't really get that cold and the photo pear doesn't change much what I would suggest for you is that you still leave your plants outside when your winter season comes around and it gets a little tiny the colder you may notice your plants start to regress when you see that bring your plant inside so it gets less Sun not what you then need to do is that you should either put your pots like this with a zip lock bag and put it in the fridge in the lettuce draw the fruits and vegetables or whatever you put it in there and you literally leave it in the fridge for about four weeks and that will give it a dormancy now I am very bad with fridge dormancy because I've never done it before but this is what I read up on and this is what I've heard and this is what I know about if you're letting someone with no winter when it should be winter time bring it inside put it in a ziplock bag with the pot back this put it into the drawers for four weeks you can also unclutch your plants take it out take the soil off or you can use some soil is actually recommended to leave a little bit of soil so it can stay humid in the bag put them in the bag close there's a block and put it into the fridge as well for four weeks and then after the four weeks take them out because you know basically after four weeks it's coming into the spring /summer again if you're in a tropical place so you take them out put them back up and put them straight back outside and if you need more help with fish stormy seas as I said do some research online or you can message me I'll be happy to help now this kind of ties back in with what I've been saying I was talking about sunlight and temperature as I said they need to experience colder temperatures in winter so if they're growing actively between 32 celsius and 20 Celsius and summer in winter time they should really be R to be experiencing 18 degrees Celsius max and down to zero degrees Celsius at not the Sepideh recommended temperature in this range which will allow them to stay dormant during winter time obviously as I said it's too cold be careful and if it's too warm use the fridge method and also remember that if you are keeping them outside leave them where they're growing and they'll go dormant naturally you don't have to worry about reducing the amount of sunlight that they have if you're living outside because that becomes really difficult to actually track and nearly impossible to make less sunlight if you're living outside so as I said don't really worry about that too much so next up you have to look at watering in summer they are actively growing they are growing a lot they're using a lot of water it's very warm so obviously in summertime we have quite deep water trays for our kind of response so they can use as much water as they want however in winter time as I've said they go to sleep they don't need as much water so obviously they will not require as much water that you would usually give them in summer time so what you should do in winter time with watering is that when you have them in the water train and you watch the water depletes usually you had way it's about one to three days before be watering their tray again in summer time well now in winter time you should rarely leave about 3 to about a week depending on how cold your temperatures are the best way to really tell that I've experienced is that you can look at the media so this is just peat and some sand in this mix and you notice that the top of this plants here you can see how dark the pitas and that shows that the peat is really hydrated and that they have enough water to last them about two or three days without having do to add more water into the trail but in winter time obviously because it's much cooler it takes longer for the water in the peat to evaporate so this means that you are watching the Pete you should be able to tell when they need to be watered again now as I say this may be a little bit tricky but you need to just know your plants and understand when you should watch them monitor them if you see that in one day that they need more water and it's winter time order them again don't be scared to watch them just know that they take a little bit less water than what they do in summer another thing that you can do is that instead of giving them super deep water trays like you wouldn't summer give them about half the amount of water that you that you would give them in summer this means that they're getting less water but you can still top water they trains like you usually would if it was summer and by that I mean instead of waiting three to seven days you can still watch them within one to three days of the trade being empty and that covers the three basic things that we need to worry about during dormancy but I will talk a little bit about some extra fats in wintertime that traps will become much slower than in summertime and in some cases they may not even close at all now I'm not sure the real reasons why they become so slow and inactive like this in dormancy people don't really know why I didn't need the dormancy but just know that the traps become super slow and don't feed as hearts and if you see that you try feed your plants or you see that there's an insect in the trap and it doesn't close this is very normal during the dormancy time and there's nothing to be worried about another great tip a part wintertime and dormancy is that it's the best time to repot your inner spark traps because they are steeping at this point they are inactive any root disturbance easy disturbance ease disturbances will be felt less then if you had to do it during their growing season in spring and summer so in the middle of winter or very early spring that is the best time possible that you can repot your beans matchups and even other plants such as sarracenia check them out at the old media separate them or you don't have to separate them either and then put them with new soil in a new pot and they won't even realize it so by the timing time comes around they can just start growing without even having to worry or stress about being in a brand-new environment another tip about growing your venus flytraps is that obviously as I've been talking about the good dormant and winter and this means you have nothing to grow during winter so what you should do is that you should get more carnivorous plants Windsor growers there are such African drosera species which grow in winter as well as shubra Strasser trois Sura that all grow actively during winter and go to sleep in summer we actually have some tuberous drosera in our collection that are growing now really really well and what this means is that you are not gonna be bored during winter time and you actually have some other plants to look after while these guys go to sleep and now our last tough about dormancy not really so much dormancy but around springtime reemergence of the plant is that they will most probably make a flower stalk now you may be confused as to what is a flower stalk and what is a trap many people think that these traps are flowers so the answer to that is obviously no these traps are not flowers because they don't make seeds they trap insects these are just modified leaves the flowers of the venus flytrap is a like a little stalk that literally shoots up like a rocket straight up the middle and it's very very different to the traps when you see this the best thing to do if you don't want seeds is to cut it off and stick the flower back in the ground so that you have the chance of making a new Venus flytrap from that flower the reason why I tell you to cut off the flower is simply because the flower takes are lots of energy out of the plants and it may in some cases kill your Venus flytrap because it's putting all over to energy into making a flower instead of growing I hope this was informative for you guys and I hope to see you next time bye [Applause] you