Carnivorous Plants for Your Garden? The Venus Flytrap and the Sundew

There are plants that eat other creatures? There's really nothing unnatural about it even though it sounds like some kind of experiment gone completely wrong. Carnivorous plants have been here on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years and there are even more than 500 different kinds. Their appetites can range from small aquatic organisms to everyday insects and spiders. Technically a carnivorous plant is labeled so because it not only has to attract, capture and kill other animal life forms, but then it has to digest and absorb the nutrients from whatever it has killed. Creepy right? Of course, but once again, it's a natural thing that's been happening long before we all got here.

The Venus Flytrap is the most widely known bug eating plant and has captivated people all over the world. They can be found in a region about 700 miles long along the coasts of South and North Carolina in bogs and wetland areas. Venus Flytraps have a taste for spiders, flies, crickets, slugs and even caterpillars. Although the Flytrap get a lot of it's nutrients like other plants do, through photosynthesis, they can't just survive on the environment alone because they can't make enough of the necessary building blocks for their growth. Which is where the living creatures come into play because they're a good source of carbs and nutrients that are missing from their environment.

So how exactly does the Venus Flytrap attract, capture, kill and digest their prey? For starters, the leaves on the plant secrete a nectar that draws insects near. Then, when the insect lands or even crawls within the trap it'll run into one of the hairs on the traps surface. Those "trigger hairs" act like a motion detector and tells the trap to close up quickly. It only takes bout a half second to close. Once it closes entirely, it forms an airtight seal so that bacteria can't get in and insect parts and the acidic digestive fluids can't get out. The insect is then bathed in and dissolved by the juices over a time of about five to twelve days. Depending on the size of the insect, how old the trap is and the temperature outside. When it's done, the trap opens and whatever is left of the insect, like it's exoskeleton, are left in the open trap to be blown away by the wind or rain.

Worried about being eaten by your Venus Flytrap? Well don't be because even if you were totally off your rocker and fell into a bed of venus flytraps, the most that would happen to you is that you'd crush some really pretty plants. They won't eat you or suck your blood like some kind of "Little Shop of Horror" mutant plant because their digestive enzymes are very weak and they can really only handle something the size of a small insect. Lucky you!

In order for you to have this beautiful but carnivorous plant in your garden, there are many things that need to be done. You can't just stick it in the dirt in your garden and expect it to grow, because it won't. First of all getting this plant requires a really great idea. Like getting them through a carnivorous plant society or a very reputable nursery. You can try contacting one of the few listed below:

U.S.A.

• International Carnivorous Plant Society at carnivorousplants.org
• California Carnivores at californiacarnivores.com
• Mean Plants .com at meanplants.com
• My Carnivore at mycarnivore.com

Outside of U.S.A

• Best Carnivorous Plants, Czech Republic at bestcarnivorousplants.com
• Borneo Exotics, Sri Lanka at borneoexotics.com
• Exotica Plants, Australia at exoticplants.com.au
• The Nepenthes Nursery, Germany at wistuba.com
  

Once you get them, you'll have to set up your terrarium or green house so that the conditions mimic the ones in which they naturally grow. It has to be humid, think the tropics and the Carolina's. The soil needs to be very moist and acidic and it has to be full of insects. If there isn't a natural supply of insects, then you can provide them yourself.

The Venus Flytrap is definitely a high maintenance plant. Not as easy as planting roses or building a water feature in your garden. You need to have the time, patience and the the OK not to have them completely visible because they'll be in the terrarium or greenhouse and not out in the open for all to see all at once.

On to the Sundew. It looks almost harmless with it's dew-covered leaves sparkling in the sun like a tiny cluster of diamonds. It's a great description of the beauty of this plant, isn't it? It may be a modest and harmless looking little plant, but it's still a fly-catching, blood-thirsty little thing nonetheless. They typically grow on the surface of marshes and bogs sometimes creating a patch of shiny red carpet when bunched together. A very pretty sight. There are seven species growing in the United States, some species in southern Africa and nearly fifty different species in Australia! They usually have several leaves that will form a sort of rosette with the shapes and sizes of the leaves varying by species, but the basic function is all the same.

All the leaves have trigger hairs that secrete a large drop of very sticky liquid substance at it's tip that attracts insects. This sticky stuff acts like a very powerful glue and prevents the insect from getting away. Then of course, when the insect struggles to get loose, the "hairs" on the leaf wrap around it, trapping it there. Eventually the sticky substance is replaced by the Sundews digestive juices. With this process, the insect is drowned, promptly digested and absorbed into the leaf within a matter of hours.

Once again these aren't plants that you can just stick in your garden, they'll need space in the humidity of the terrarium too. Sundews should be planted in direct or very slightly filtered sunlight. You'll need to keep their soil from compacting. To do this you'll need a mixture of Peat moss and Sphagnum moss and a little coarse builders sand. And the "soil" should be kept moist, but not soaking wet, at all times. Sundews will grow best at a temperature of about 70 - 100 degrees in the summer and 38 - 45 degrees in the winter which is their dormant period.

If you'd like to check out the Venus Flytrap or the Sundew and many of the other types of carnivorous plants that are out there, then you might want to visit a public botanical garden that have them on display. Listed below are a few locations across the United States.

• Carolina Beach State Park, Carolina Beach North Carolina
• Chattahoochee Nature Center, Roswell Georgia
• Biophilia Nature Center, Native Nursery & Bookstore, Elberta Alabama
• Webb's Mill Bog, Whiting New Jersey
  

Carnivorous plants really aren't that different from other plants. They just have some extra abilities that they use in a very interesting way. Survival of the fittest in a way. You should at least check them out. They won't bite. Well, OK... maybe they will.

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