|
|
Post by sykosarah on Mar 2, 2014 5:04:22 GMT
a lot of people get excited over their plants flowering, but I find it to be annoying. especially with my venus flytrap, the darn thing has barely gotten out of dormancy and what does it do? before any traps open the thing starts shooting up a flower stalk. Ugh, last year the thing shot up 5 of them, two at the same time. looks like this year it's going to do that even more.
I have no plans of breeding it (it is just a typical venus flytrap) and while I find the flowers kind of neat, I know that allowing the flowers to develop takes energy away from the plant and stunts the growth of the traps.
I am getting tired of constantly having to cut down flower stalks, did I overfeed it last year? Also, can these plants overflower and be harmed by it? Or should I just let it flower once to get it out of its system? |
|
|
|
Post by tanukimo on Mar 2, 2014 5:35:19 GMT
Well if you feed it a lot it shouldn't be affected too much by flowering, so maybe you could just let it flower once. I know some CPs like Drosophyllum will keep trying to make flowers even if you cut them off until they exhaust themselves.
|
|
|
|
Post by sykosarah on Mar 2, 2014 6:15:12 GMT
alright, but not this time, it hasn't even opened the first traps yet, so it needs that energy... for traps, not jumping the gun on making flowers.
|
|
|
|
Post by hcarlton on Mar 2, 2014 6:45:07 GMT
If you don't want any new flower stalks, let it grow up until it's just about to open the first flower, the cut it. That way, it's basically gone through the process it thinks it needs to, but the cutting of the stalk won't trigger immediate production of replacements.
|
|
|
|
Post by sykosarah on Mar 2, 2014 7:06:08 GMT
thanks, that will be great not having to deal with that problem. It felt like fighting a hydra, every time I cut one off, another grew back in its place (and in one instance, 2, though perhaps those were separate individuals, that colony is at least 3 plants). it started out as definitely just 1 though, the thing just exploded with growth the first summer I had it. it more than quadrupled in size. it got so big I gave a cutting to a friend so that its growth wouldn't be inhibited by space constraints.
|
|
|
|
Post by sykosarah on Mar 7, 2014 21:13:31 GMT
There are now 3 flower stalks shooting up. FML
|
|
