Good To Have Around

[newnandawg]

Don't know if you have any carnivorous plants sitting around but they do a
good job in helping with the fungus gnats. Maybe if you zoom in you can see
the plants having a snack.

[COGardener]

I too used Sundews, made a world of difference. I also have a venus fly trap, and I'm planning to add a couple picture plants shortly.

[cis4elk]

How do they do with our dry air? What do you do to keep them happy, is the water pan with some rocks underneath them enough?

[figgrower]

I was just looking into this yesterday. Wellspring Gardens has several carnivorous plants available for low prices.

[COGardener]

Wellspring is were I got mine.

[newnandawg]

I have had eight different varieties and I believe the Sundews do the best job for me. Plus they easily reproduce.

[greenfig]

How easy is to take care of them?
Any special conditions required?

[DBJohnson]

So...what if you don't typically have a lot f flying insects around during most of the year? Will this things starve? Will they attract, catch, and eat wasps and hornets?

[COGardener]

You can put them outside over summer. Or bring insects to them. Or feed them a dilute fertilizer.

[DBJohnson]

. o O ("....Feeed me, Seymour! Feed me all night long!")

Yeah...couldn't resist the Little Shop of Horrors reference.

[newnandawg]

Very easy to take care of. I have mine sitting on decorative rocks from Home Depot, in a plastic saucer from Home Depot. You can use rain water or distilled water but not regular faucet water. I keep the water where the plants can get what they want from the bottom. The sandy soil mixture should stay wet. In the summer I move them outside in the shade where they can get rain water and insects. You can also give them insects ants etc. I keep them under the same lights as my cuttings. T-5 from HD.

Google raising carnivorous plants. You can order them from the Internet

[don_sanders]

How many plants might be recommended to make a dent in fungus gnats? Say for every 1.5' x 4' shelf?

I only have one fly trap so it hasn't really made a difference with fungus gnats but it is gratifying to see them eaten.

[newnandawg]

Don, on a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood I have three saucers with three 4" plants in each. Additionally, I place several yellow sticky traps out. When watering, I use Gnatrol and water from the bottom only. This three prong attack helps keep the fungus gnats under control by killing the active adults and also the larve.

[don_sanders]

Thanks. I'm using gnatrol, sticky traps, sand, and putting up barriers like nylon around the drain holes. It's helped quite a bit but I haven't eliminated them completely yet. Part of that has to do with some pots that I really can't water so can't get the gnatrol in there well. Gnatrol seems to work very well and seems to help the most for me as long I can water well. Much better and more convenient than mosquito dunks. The fly trap was just because it was interesting but maybe I should get some more carnivorous plants.

[COGardener]

Along with carnivorous pants, last year I was luck enough to find a just hatched nest of jumping spiders.... I relocated them to the humidity bins and allowed the tiny army to "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war". Between the plants and spiders, I never saw another gnat.

[DaveL]

Oh man Scott, the spiders would not wash with my better half. I would find my entire collection outside laying on the snow.