Carnivorous Plants! Oh My!

I have been researching how to care for Venus fly traps (VFTs) for about a year, and today my husband found one at Home Depot while we were looking at plants for our front yard. So, I bought a VFT and a pitcher plant to try out my green thumb. Before today the only plants I have ever tried to keep are a variety of succulents (relative to the cactus and impossible to kill) and a failed in-door herb garden. I am pretty good at following directions, so I am hoping that I have a touch of my father’s skills as he is a master gardener.

I have been waiting to buy my first VFT because I wanted to be settled (I am a military wife and we finally moved to a permanent duty station) and I knew we would eventually end up in southern California, where I have read, has a great climate to grow VFTs and other CPs (carnivorous plants). San Diego has an average humidity of 63% but never drops below 50% which, I have read, is the lowest VFTs can tolerate well.

I have read some posts from people living in southern California that leave their CPs outside all year, and this makes me hopeful, because a terrarium would die under my care I think and they are pretty expensive to set up.

So today I brought my VFT and Pitcher plant home and took them out of their clear plastic boxes. I flooded them with distilled water (watered close to the soil) and now they sit outside in a pie dish filled ½” with distilled water, on top of my recycle trash can (so the dogs don’t mess with them). And now they are waiting for tomorrow’s sun filled day!

The VFT is green all over, with the slightest tinge of orange-red in the middle of the traps. I read that they will redden up in sunlight. The pitcher plant is all green and the pitchers are very small, I looked up its genus, but it could be one of many species and I don’t know how much bigger they will get or what it will look like fully grown. I believe the pitcher will not change in appearance, but only in size.

Both types of my CPs need as much direct sunlight as possible. I can give them 10 hours of sun where they are sitting now. I worry because they have not been in direct sun atleast for a few days at the hardware store (they were in the full shade of the registers in the nursery) and the VFT is almost fully green, indicating that it has not seen full sun in a while. I have read a few posts in the past about getting them used to sun, starting with one hour of sun the first day (then shade), and then working up one hour a day until they are used to full sun every day. I don’t know if I should do that, so after I post this I will be looking that up. I also don’t know if I am supposed to fill the pitcher plant’s pitchers. They are empty and dry now, and I have read on a few different web sights that you should fill them 1/3” with distilled water when you first get them, but I do not know if that information is correct for my particular species and have not found it verified on many websites.

After the novel I just wrote, here are the pictures of the plants taken in my kitchen before putting them out. It is dark outside now and darker in my kitchen so sorry for the poor quality. Tomorrow I will take some outside in the bright sun.

This last picture is of the largest pitcher. It is as long as my index finger, but not as big around.

Tomorrow I will post some pictures of my succulents!