Now these are fascinating things. They don't naturally grow around my part of the world, but there are plants that can survive being kept by people as long as they are looked after properly.

I used to have a couple of pitcher plants, a sundew and a venus flytrap, although that was a while ago and I didn't know how to look after them properly. I recently thought I'd get another venus flytrap, so I went to the best carnivorous plant people in this country and bought one of their special kinds; a "south west giant" hybrid. It's big. I also know how to look after them properly now and it seems to be doing fine!

So does anyone else have a fascination with these kinds of plants?

Apparently the two main reasons venus flytraps especially die are:

- Giving them tap water - they prefer rain water, and
- Keeping them out in winter - they need to be able to die back when it gets cold.

So watch out for these if you have one!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivorous_plant

This is an interesting subject, I didn't you could buy these kinds of plants from shops and keep them at home. I live in an ideal place to, always got moths and flys about and Middlesbrough is the rain capital of the UK, after Manchester. You just need to keep your fingers crossed that your plant doesn't one day start to sing asking you to feed it fresh human bodies.

Hahahaha, and the dentist was so cool!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOtMizMQ6oM

The leader of the plaque, that's one epic line. Steve Martin brilliant in this movie, probably my fav performance by him along with The Three Amigos. You've made me want to watch the film and I'm cursing myself for not having it on DVD, I'll need to pop into HMV and see how much it is.

Probably about £3... you don't have to pay much for it now.

How much does a venus flytrap cost ? Is the plant bought entirely or just seeds ?

Well you can get both, but it is much harder to (and takes much longer) to grow from seeds.

A venus flytrap in a garden centre will usually be somewhere around £6, but I wouldn't advise getting one from a shop like that. They are all half-dead and had all their energy wasted by kids triggering the traps.

If you wanted to get a good one, this is the site I recommend:

http://www.littleshopofhorrors.co.uk/

My first contact with this kinda plants was Mario Bros, so when i met their real life counter parts i was kinda disappointed. But now i think they are really cool, but having one is out of the questing since i know it will die for carelessness.

Written by Fhuesc on 11.09.2009 at 06:24

My first contact with this kinda plants was Mario Bros, so when i met their real life counter parts i was kinda disappointed. But now i think they are really cool, but having one is out of the questing since i know it will die for carelessness.

Yep, they're cool and everything but I know that if I had one it would die too. It's still be interesting to have one someday. For now, I just stick to see Discovery Channel/Animal Planet/NatGeo documentaries and shows of them in action

I never got fascinated by those...maybe in some b-class sci-fi horrors, where they are big, can move and are eating people

I'm scared of them since I used to play Crash Bandicoot.

I wouldn't have the faintest clue how to keep such a thing but it sure would come in handy during the summer to get rid of all those annoying flies.

I got one for about one or two months ago. Her name is Petunia

I got it from a garden center and she was perfectly fine so I guess that there wasn't many boys who saw the plant. It has grown very well. And yeah.. I use rain water as well.

It's so awesome to put an insect there and see how the insect moves inside the leaf.

After a couple of attempts, I've finally just fed mine a wasp! Hopefully it'll enjoy that!

Written by Baz Anderson on 11.09.2009 at 20:16

After a couple of attempts, I've finally just fed mine a wasp! Hopefully it'll enjoy that!

It's fucking annoying when you try to feed your venus and the little bastard moves just when you are about to put it on the trap and you miss and the trap closes...

Written by X-Ray Rod on 12.09.2009 at 01:03

It's fucking annoying when you try to feed your venus and the little bastard moves just when you are about to put it on the trap and you miss and the trap closes...

Haha, well it depends what strategy you use. It can certainly be tricky business getting a live fly (or wasp!) into a trap.

Lately the most successful method I have had is trapping the fly in a (Wacken 2007) cup and bit of (congratulating moving house) card. From there I quickly move the cup over a trap and put the card below it - so the trap is inside the cup with the fly. From here just wait really, if the fly isn't near the trap then shake it a bit to get it moving. Eventually it'll go in.

I did that with the wasp twice but failed today. The wasp was much bigger, probably double the size of a normal fly, they are a lot stronger, and also more swift. The third time I thought I'd switch strategy - so I got the good old tweezers out, grabbed the wasp (still alive of course) by a wing and put it in. Even then it nearly got out so I had to poke it back in.

I'm pretty sure it's dead now though. The trap has sealed and will be starting the juices shortly. The drama of having one of these plants! Hahaha.

Written by Baz Anderson on 12.09.2009 at 01:13

I'm pretty sure it's dead now though. The trap has sealed and will be starting the juices shortly. The drama of having one of these plants! Hahaha.

Pura drama indeed. I once put what I thought was a normal fly. and efter some days I start to see that the leaf doesn't look good at all and I'm kinda worried but I thought that it was better to wait a few days and see what happens next.

After some more days the leaf is black at some places so I cut it and saw what was inside:
The fly was dead of course and the juices did some effect on it. But the fly was a fucking female and I saw a lot of little white things moving around.

Oh dear!