Dionaea outdoor winter hardness?

[flytrapguy]

What is Dionaea outdoor (in ground) winter hardness?

I know in their native habitat, Dionaea grows in USDA cold hardness zones 7b and 8a which have a yearly average low of 5°F to 10°F (7b) and 10°F to 20°F (8a). Could Venus fly traps grow in zone 7a here with a yearly average low of 0°F to 5°F, but most winters actually only have a brief low of around 5°F to 10°F. The record low ever here was about -15°F in 1966. Otherwise the climate here is exactly like Fayetteville, NC except the winters can be a little colder like I explained above.

I have a small spot in the woods with a stream that has some natural sphagnum moss (100% sure) growing in and around it. The spot is open with mostly full sun, I would guess it would get maybe 5 to 7 hours of full direct sun. Could a Dionaea live though the winters here in this spot? When my Dionaea 'B52' starts dividing (That I bought from Conners), that's what I'm planting in the spot.

Also having little spots of natural sphagnum moss, does that mean the soil in those exact spots are nutrient depleted or depleted enough for Dionaea? I don't want to kill my Fly trap by it being in nutrient rich forest soil.

Thanks

[mmlr38]

I've heard of growers in Calgary, Alberta keeping their plants outside year round. Obviously it gets very cold there in the winter with fairly long stretches of below zero temperatures. However, they cover their plants with pine needles during the coldest months. If you're going to cover it during the coldest months, it would probably survive, but if not, I don't know that it would survive temps between 0°F and 5°F if the temps were to stay there for a few days. It might survive one day at that temp.

I haven't read much in the way of anyone studying exactly how cold of weather Dionaea can stand and for how long.

[unstuckintime]

In my experience, Dionaea do not grow very well in pure LFS; they grow slowly and lanky and just do not look as impressive as they could. But, that sounds like a PERFECT place to grow Darlingtonia. You would need to look into it, and probably would have to cover them up for the winter in some way, but, the environment sounds perfect for them.

[flytrapguy]

Thanks both of you I found these links that say hardy to zone 7 and even zone 6 which I thought was interesting:

www.floridata.com/ref/D/dion_mus.cfm
www.pitcherplant.com/flytrap.html
www.pitcherplant.com/care_sheets/flytrap_care.html

So I get the impression that they die back all the way to the ground in the colder zones, and in the warmer zones they stay evergreen to partly evergreen though the winter. And in zone 6 they most likely need to be covered with leaves etc. but in zone 7a and higher they could possibly live though the winters uncovered, and sprout back from the bulb the next year.

If it does get down to about 0 to 5 degrees here it's only for about 1 night. But the lowest it usually gets each winter is one or two nights of around 10 degrees.

If they do not do good in LFS it might do good beside the sphagnum moss bunch and not in it, I don't know, might have to experiment.
I'll have to look into Darlingtonia some more, looks interesting.

[marcel]

I am in zone 8 here in Europe and they are doing fine outdoors. I do have them growing in living sphagnum and that helps them through the winter.
They may not be the showiest of plants, but they survive fine.
Main problem is that our winters are rather wet and cold + wet, that they don't like so keep them a bit raised in the bog and search a balance between not to wet and drying out.

[chloroplast]

Many factors other than temperature influence whether a cold-hardy plant can survive your winter.

An example are cacti that grow in the Andes, where temperatures get much colder and snowfall is higher than in New England. You'd think that they'd easily survive my winter (zone 5a), well, you'd be wrong. Temperatures here occasionally get warm in the winter causing rapid snowmelt. This, when combined with the richer soil that retains water longer, results in the soil being too wet for too long. The result?: the plants rot.

That's not to say that it's impossible to grow these cacti in my area; rather, it's not a "given" and some fine-tuning is required to make it happen.

That said, I keep my VFTs in a cold-frame greenhouse between 30-50 F in the winter. If you want to experiment, that's fine but I would do it with only a few of your most typical plants.