Cosmopolitan – Remarkable Raketeras
Meg Magazine – my very first feature!
The Keybie Cafe: Cuteness Overload Coming Your Way!
by When in Manila
To celebrate Science Month, Fyukinta’s Flants is partnering with Monster Mama PH to bring carnivorous plants into your science classroom! We’ll be giving one lucky class a FREE set of live carnivorous plants with a grow light and care sheets so you can watch them grow and document your learnings as you take care of them.
You can find Venus flytraps, sundews, pitcher plants, and more carnivorous plants here, all grown in my little garden in Marikina. I also have pots, Maxsea fertilizer, and even some non-carnivorous plants available.
I ship nationwide, and I’ll be happy to help you start your carnivorous plant journey with my free guides. You can find them at the bottom of this page!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask in a comment! For more information about growing carnivorous plants for the first time, you can check my care guide.
You can also message me on Facebook or Instagram. I post plant content every day about learnings, experiments, and just the regular progress of the plants in my collection.
If you’re looking for supplies like grow lights, water trays, plant racks, or even the parts I used to make my own sprinkler system, check my affiliate shop to find them all on Shopee!
If you haven’t seen them yet, I have other guides on how to grow other carnivorous plants like Venus flytraps and Byblis in the Philippines. Check here for all my guides!
2023 had a great start for Fyukinta’s Flants. Not only did we start the new year with a sale, but we also did something completely new: film a whole documentary!
Thanks to Rembrandt “Inoh” Olegario and his team (Harold Prince Zabarte and Marc Rosaceña), Fyukinta’s Flants got its own YouTube documentary featuring my garden and yours truly.
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The Venus flytrap is arguably the most famous carnivorous plant. It’s the classic bug-eating plant like Audrey II from The Little Shop of Horrors or the Chomper from Plants vs. Zombies, with a “mouth” and “teeth” that snap shut to trap prey.
Though this carnivorous plant is popular, it has specific needs different from non-carnivorous plants. Not providing these needs can result in killing your flytrap.
This guide will cover everything you need to know about growing the Venus flytrap in the Philippines:
• What is a Venus flytrap?
• Basic care
ㅤㅤ• Lighting requirements
ㅤㅤ• Water
ㅤㅤ• Growing media
• Feeding
• Dormancy
• Pests
Venus flytraps are small plants that grow from a white, bulb-like rhizome. Each leaf is composed of a heart-shaped petiole, and the actual “trap” at the tip is (sometimes) lined with eyelash-like cilia that cross together when the trap shuts to keep prey inside.
The trigger hairs inside the trap are sensitive enough to sense when a bug walks through but evolved only to shut when their prey moves inside. It takes a lot of energy to close a trap. In fact, a trap only has a limited number of times it can move and “eat” before it dies.
Just like how Byblis is named after a Greek figure of the same name, the Venus flytrap is named after the Roman goddess of love. Its common name is Venus flytrap, and its genus is Dionaea Muscipula.
Venus flytraps follow the same basic rules all carnivorous plants do. If you understand the basics, you can care for almost any carnivorous plant. These basics are lots of light, low ppm water, and nutrient-free media.
Venus flytraps, like most carnivorous plants, love sunlight. A plant that gets enough light will have smaller, colored leaves and larger, redder traps. The pic above, taken by #HappyFlanter @claudinesy, is a great example of how a flytrap acclimated to her sunny grow area, coloring and developing red traps.
This post below shows how my friend and #HappyFlanter Kayce’s D.M. B52 acclimated and colored in her indoor grow light setup, achieving deep red traps.
If your Venus flytrap does not get enough light, it will not get red traps. Less light produces broader leaves and smaller traps. Venus flytraps also won’t survive for long without enough sunlight. Light-deprived plants look like “vegetables”: very green, no other color, and very wide and leafy.
I live in a condo/a place without much sunlight. Can I still take care of a Venus flytrap?
You can, with the help of grow lights!
Grow lights also bring out the best colors in your plants, which won’t look as red or bright in just sunlight. This is especially true for red carnivorous plants. With strong grow lights, even a D.M. Sinagtala can achieve deep red colors, like Carnivorey’s D.M. Sinagtala below.
I bought my grow lights from Delponting, an affordable, trusted source for plant parents. Mars Hydro is another trusted source, though it’s pricier than Delponting.
All carnivorous plants, not just Venus flytraps, need low ppm water such as distilled, rain, reverse osmosis (R.O.), or aircon drip water. Do NOT use tap water, please. Low ppm water has little to no minerals, which burn a carnivorous plant’s roots. If you keep using tap water, your carnivorous baby will eventually die a slow death.
How can I tell if the water I use is safe for my carnivorous plant?
By using a TDS meter! This tool measures the ppm levels of the water or media you use. Just stick it in the water or low ppm water mixed with the media (for media testing). A reading below 50 ppm is good, but the lower, the better.
The water I use from both collecting rain and aircon drip is only 3 ppm. Some neps can survive higher ppm levels, so I use regular tap water on them, but not Venus flytraps or sundews. If you want to buy a TDS meter, you can check my online shop!
Should I use a water tray for my Venus flytrap?
Yes, this will make it easier to avoid making them dry out. My plant rack fits exactly two take-out trays that I use as water trays. Venus flytraps enjoy moist media, but to avoid overwatering, let the water tray dry out before refilling it again. This might change during the summer when it’s very hot or if you’re using grow lights like mine, which generate heat.
It’s best to observe for signs of overwatering: new traps that become black before opening. If you see this in your plant, just don’t water it for a few days until you see a new leaf.
Minerals kill carnivorous plants. That’s why you can’t use normal soil for your Venus flytrap or any other carnivorous plant. The correct media includes coco peat, sphagnum moss, or peat moss. This guide explains the different kinds of media and what they’re good for.
Just make sure that they don’t have any fertilizers, and make sure you use a TDS meter to measure their ppm levels first. When I first bought coco peat for my plants, it was at 300 ppm when I tested it. The only way to fix this is by thoroughly washing the media.
You can also check this helpful video guide from Carnibro on how to repot Venus flytraps, along with other carnivorous plants.
Why do I have to wash the media if no one in nature does so?
The natural habitat of Venus flytraps is usually by rivers or in marshy areas. These places constantly have running water that doesn’t allow minerals to settle. The media is naturally “washed” clean—which is why carnivorous plants like the Venus flytrap evolved to trap bugs in the first place! This doesn’t mean they like living in water, though: I let my water trays dry out for a day or so (if it’s not too hot) before I refill them.
They can’t get minerals from the soil, so their roots only developed to serve as an anchor (nothing more) that draws up water, and their leaves developed to get nutrients from bugs.
What kind of pot can I use for my Venus flytrap?
Because minerals are an issue, avoid anything porous: wood, unglazed ceramic, terracotta, cement, etc. If you want to keep it safe, use plastic pots or even Styrofoam cups. The same applies to the water tray. I’ve killed sundews before because I used a ceramic water tray when I first tried raising these plants. Do not repeat my mistake. D:
Can I use loam soil for my Venus flytrap?
Use loam soil if you want to kill your flytrap. Please read this three times. Please. May hugot ako dito.
Venus flytraps catch food when they’re outdoors, where bugs are free and many (sadly). They can eat any insect that triggers their traps if it is small enough to fit. A trap that eats a bug too big for it will turn black and die.
As a rule of thumb, food that is 2/3 and below the size of the trap is ok. Traps will also die after eating a certain number of times, but as long as your Venus flytrap is making new leaves, this is ok! Don’t worry too much about dead traps. New growth is key.
Some traps are so big they can eat little animals like tiny frogs or lizards. This is kind of gross but cool. Though they feed well, the dry carcasses of the prey stay behind. Nature washes these away with rain, but in this case, you’re the one who does clean up.
Since carnivorous plants evolved to eat bugs, they need to be fed, right?
I said before that you don’t need to feed your Venus flytrap or any carnivorous plant, but their growth is supported by eating. They can get their food on their own if they’re outdoors. For fun, you can also feed your flytrap live flies or bugs. If I swat a fly that’s still alive, I feed it to my flytraps.
You can also use Maxsea plant food, a kind of fertilizer good for carnivorous plants that I regularly use myself. If your plant is in a place where it can’t catch food or there are just no bugs, you can try feeding it yourself. Some growers also feed live flies, rehydrated bloodworms, or even moist plain fish food (the red and green pellets).
To feed bloodworms or fish food, moisten it until it’s squishy (but not too wet). Leave it inside the trap, then gently press the trap between your thumb and forefinger about 15 times. This will signal to the trap that the prey is inside. Check the trap later, and if it looks sealed and tight, then your feeding worked.
Just avoid feeding them meat or any human food. They’re plants, not animals, and they don’t need the same nutrients we do.
Can a Venus flytrap overeat?
Not really. As long as the Venus flytrap keeps producing new growth, you’re ok. Your plant will just not look as pretty because all the traps will die more quickly as the plant expends energy to digest food.
Can a Venus flytrap eat me?
Only if its name is Audrey II and your name is Seymour. Or if it looks like a Final Fantasy Marlboro.
Seriously though, most carnivorous plants are small, and Venus flytraps especially. Big trap cultivars like D.M. DC XL, D.M. GJ Goliath, and D.M. Giant Peach can grow up to maybe two inches in trap size. Your Venus flytrap will not be able to eat anything bigger than its traps.
By the way, the record holder for the largest Venus flytrap is actually D.M. Alien.
What happens if a Venus flytrap bites me?
Nothing, but remember that a trap will close a limited number of times. If you’re always poking your Venus flytrap, you make the traps die quicker. You won’t feel anything if you try to touch the inside of a trap.
This is a hefty topic for an already hefty blog, but long story short, Venus flytraps are a temperament plant.
They expect to experience winter and spring—and which also means it’s not native to the very tropical country that is the Philippines.
I used to believe that they needed dormancy to be able to live for a long time. Lots of sources say that without dormancy, they last maybe 2-3 years, though I don’t know exactly how long.
This is actually not true.
To quote the International Carnivorous Plant Society‘s guide on growing flytraps:
“In spite of what many people believe, VFTs do not require a terrarium, nor do they require dormancy to survive long-term indoors. The plants only require dormancy if they are going to experience freezing temperatures outside. Putting an indoor plant in the refrigerator to encourage dormancy is a waste.”
However, sometimes a Venus flytrap enters a sort of “dormant” state (like the D.M. Coquillage above), which can be seen by no new growth for weeks. During this time, your flytrap will look ugly, but the rhizome will be intact.
When this happens, you can try repotting your flytrap in fresh media (I use sphagnum moss) to try to “wake” them up, like what I did with my D.M. Werewolf Spawn. I’m not sure why this happens, but it’s good to know our flytraps can survive with just proper care!
I also try to propagate through leaf pullings to make sure I always have a clone of my Venus flytraps, even if the mother plant dies for some reason. It’s hard to figure out why flytraps die if you think you’ve done everything right, but sometimes they just… do.
Even if carnivorous plants eat bugs, there are some pests even they can’t handle. This doesn’t mean that your garden is bad; pests can happen in even the healthiest gardens. One such pest is spidermites. These annoying pests make reddish-brown splotches on Venus flytraps.
You can treat pests with systemic pesticides, like Starkle G. I use it myself by sprinkling some inside the hole I make in the planting media before I stick the plant in. Starkle G doesn’t dissolve in water and is used just by sprinkling. It’s supposed to offer protection to your plants for 30 days or until the pink color fades.
There are also ready-to-use pesticides that can be sprayed directly on plants to help protect against pests as a preventative measure.
Mealybugs are another really annoying kind of pest because they can attack the roots of your plants. I usually check for them when I notice a plant isn’t growing new leaves or has too many dead leaves. They appear as fuzzy white fluff in the roots and have to be washed off.
My usual treatment for this includes sprinkling Starkle G into the media to kill these fuzzy annoyances.
How I put Starkle G when I repot
If you don’t want to use pesticides, you can also do a 24-hour bare-root soak. This means you uproot the infected plant and soak it in low ppm water for a full 24 hours. I don’t like doing this, though, as you need to acclimate the plant all over again, helping it readjust after having its environment drastically changed.
Soaking assorted flytraps overnight to get rid of spidermites
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If you have any questions, feel free to ask in a comment! And now that you know how to take care of Venus flytraps, check out my guide on how to propagate these amazing plants!
You can also message me on Facebook or Instagram. I post plant content every day about learnings, experiments, and just the regular progress of the plants in my collection.
If you haven’t seen them yet, I have guides on how to prepare for your first carnivorous plant and how to grow other carnivorous plants like Venus flytraps and Byblis in the Philippines. You can check here for all my guides.
You can also check what carnivorous plants and gardening items I have for sale in the links below!
I sell Venus flytraps, sundews, pitcher plants, and more carnivorous plants in my online shop, all grown in my own little garden in Marikina. I also have pots, Maxsea fertilizer, and even some non-carnivorous plants available. For grow lights, shelves, and even water trays I use, you can check my Shopee affiliate link collection.
I ship nationwide, and customers can enjoy free shipping and a loyalty card.
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What’s the deal with Maxsea fertilizer? Whether you’re in the Philippines or not, if you’ve been researching carnivorous plants, then you’ve probably read that you’re not supposed to fertilize them. This is somewhat true.
You’re not supposed to fertilize them because they get their nutrients from the bugs they catch. However, there’s a kind of fertilizer that you can use, just in tiny amounts: Maxsea fertilizer.
It’s like a vitamin for carnivorous plants: you don’t need to use it, but when used correctly, it provides a great boost for any carnivorous plant’s growth.
This guide aims to help you understand what it is, where you can buy Maxsea fertilizer, and how to use it for your carnivorous babies.
It will cover the following:
Maxsea fertilizer is a water-soluble blend of seaweed and primary plant foods designed to be readily absorbed by plants.
What I and many other growers use is Maxsea All Purpose 16-16-16 plant food.
According to its label, it’s designed for all-year-round use on all plants and is an ideal formula for the growth cycle of annuals (plants that only live for one year).
If you want to use it for regular plants, you can!
Make sure that you mix only one-fourth (1/4) tsps. worth of the fertilizer into a gallon of low ppm water (rain, distilled, or aircon water are examples).
What I do is use a thoroughly cleaned and repurposed fabric conditioner gallon container, then mix in 1/4 tsps of Maxsea using a measuring spoon used for baking. I shake the container to mix, then fill a spray bottle with the diluted solution.
If you want to get properly diluted Maxsea that’s ready to use instead of mixing it yourself, I still have Maxsea for sale in convenient ready-to-use 250ml spray bottles in my online shop.
You can also buy the powdered version on Shopee.
Take note, I don’t measure ppm when I dilute Maxsea, so if you ask me how much ppm the solution should be, I don’t know. As long as you use 1/4 tsps per gallon, you’re ok!
Spraying fertilizer onto just the plant itself (leaves and stem) is called foliar feeding. Like in the video below, I just lightly mist my plants, not too close, not too far. Don’t overthink it!
It won’t harm the plant if a bit of the Maxsea touches the media. I just eyeball things and sometimes top water the media to help avoid Maxsea buildup, which sometimes causes pesky algae. I also spray inside one or two of the pitchers of my nepenthes and sarracenia.
Sometimes I use a dropper or pipette to apply a bit of Maxsea on a leaf of seedling venus flytraps, drosera, or juvenile pitchers.
You can overdo Maxsea if you’re not careful, which is why it’s recommended to only spray it onto your carnivorous plants twice a month. I spray mine every other Friday, and I know some who spray every payday.
As long as you remember not to overdo it, you’re ok! If you’re in doubt, less is more.
Using Maxsea can definitely speed up the growth of your carnivorous plants. Still, keep in mind that by nature, carnivorous plants grow slowly. Some grow even more slower than others, depending on their cultivar (like D.M. Korean Melody Shark). Annual plants like byblis grow quite quickly and grow even bigger with Maxsea, but this is because their lifespan is only one year.
Observation is key in checking the growth of your carnivorous plants. However, if you think your plants aren’t growing, try to take pictures every week to track them. You’d be surprised at how much they can grow without you noticing, and more so with Maxsea!
You can also message me on Facebook or Instagram. I post plant content every day about learnings, experiments, and just the regular progress of the plants in my collection.
If you haven’t seen them yet, I have guides on how to prepare for your first carnivorous plant and how to grow other carnivorous plants like Venus flytraps and Byblis in the Philippines. You can check here for all my guides.
You can also check what carnivorous plants and gardening items I have for sale in the links below!
I sell Venus flytraps, sundews, pitcher plants, and more carnivorous plants in my online shop, all grown in my own little garden in Marikina. I also have pots, Maxsea fertilizer, and even some non-carnivorous plants available. For grow lights, shelves, and even water trays I use, you can check my Shopee affiliate link collection.
I ship nationwide, and customers can enjoy free shipping and a loyalty card.
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If you’ve tried searching for the right soil, potting mix or planting media for carnivorous plants, you’ll see a wide variety of suggestions. Coco peat, perlite, peat moss, sphagnum moss, and silica sand are just a few of the options in different guides.
However, it can be challenging to find the right planting media if you’re new to the hobby, especially in the Philippines.
Many local gardening shops aren’t familiar with carnivorous plants, leading to using the wrong media—which very likely kills your plant.
This guide aims to help you understand the kinds of planting media most local growers use and identify the kinds you shouldn’t ever use. Hopefully this lets you grow your bug-eating plant babies with peace of mind.
It will specifically cover the following:
• What kind of plant media to use
• Different kinds of plant media
• Coco peat
• Where I use it (pros, cons, and where to buy)
• Peat moss
• Where I use it (pros, cons, and where to buy)
• Sphagnum moss
• Where I use it (pros, cons, and where to buy)
• Additional planting media: perlite, silica sand and coco cubes
• What kind of pots are best to use?
• Can you mix these different media together?
• Planting media you shouldn’t use
• Are you ready to grow carnivorous plants?
Please note though: this is not an exhaustive guide on planting media. This is to help newbies understand the basics and allow them to experiment with what works for them based on my own experience and research. Everyone’s garden is different, and many factors are involved when it comes to getting the best results, including the kind of plant you’re growing.
Venus flytraps, pinguiculas, sundews, and nepenthes (pitcher plants) all have varying needs, and even different varieties of the same plant can have opposite needs (like Mexican vs. tropical pings). There is no universal “best media for carnivorous plants” or special formula. To really know what the best is, nothing can beat research and your own observation.
Carnivorous plants grow in nutrient-poor media. This is how they became carnivorous in the first place; they evolved to take their nutrition from the sun and bugs. Their natural environment is usually very wet and frequent rain or running bodies of water constantly wash nutrients away while keeping their media loose. Because of this evolution, minerals and stronger fertilizers will burn their roots, which are only meant to take in water and provide anchorage.
The media options I’ve listed below are commonly used, and honestly, they’re often used out of preference. They all have their own advantages and disadvantages. While some are better for specific kinds of carnivorous plants, you ultimately choose what to use based on the type of plant you have and what you have available.
Commonly used, coco peat or coco coir is different from peat moss. Coco peat is a more sustainable natural fiber created from coconut husks. Peat moss is created from dead fibrous material formed when mosses and other organic materials decompose in peat bogs.
There are also sustainability issues surrounding peat moss, which isn’t considered a renewable resource due to the long period of time it needs to break down into the final product.
I use coco peat mixed with perlite for my byblis, and for most of my sundew seed propagation tubs. This is because I can see seedlings better in coco peat, and it forms algae less easily.
Pros
• Easy to source
• Less susceptible to algae
• Affordable
Cons
• Usually needs heavy washing with low ppm water
• Dries out easily
• Builds up minerals faster
Where to buy
• Washed and ready to use coco peat
• Perlite
Sphagnum peat moss, or just peat moss, is a dark, broken-down version of sphagnum moss. It’s the decomposed version of sphagnum moss, with the acidity that carnivorous plants love but when with a faster tendency to build up more minerals over time. This can be easily addressed by flushing (or top watering) regularly and discarding the run off.
This is what most growers abroad use due to its affordability and accessibility. It’s much cheaper than sphagnum moss, and plants are given good growing conditions by getting repotted every year in fresh rounds of peat moss and perlite. A good mix recommended by growers like Sarracenia Northwest is 50/50 peat moss and perlite.
I like using peat moss for sundews and pitcher plants. It’s also good for community pots for either since it’s more affordable.
Pros
• Cheaper than sphagnum moss
• More acidic than coco peat
• Easy to repot plants in
• More water retention than coco peat
Cons
• A little more expensive than coco peat
• Can get messy when rained on
• Builds up minerals; requires regular flushing
Where to buy
• Peat moss
• Peat moss with perlite (25g)
Sphagnum moss comes in dry and live options, but hydrating dry sphagnum doesn’t bring it back to life. I use a lot of it myself, so I usually buy it by the sack.
This can be more challenging to find if you’re new to the hobby due to how sphagnum moss is often mistaken for or considered synonymous with java moss (see pic below). They’re not the same, and java moss can’t even used for carnivorous plants (I think due to acidity). They’re used interchangeably in most gardening stores because they’re both used for orchids, and most stores aren’t familiar with carnivorous plants.
Sphagnum moss is grown in cool, shaded areas with higher than usual humidity, and is colored a light tan when dry. You can also buy live sphagnum moss to use as a nice topping for pitcher plants, though I don’t encourage using it for flytraps or sundews since the moss can easily overgrown these smaller plants.
I like using sphagnum (sometimes mixed with perlite) for my Venus flytraps and my sundews. This is because sundews can handle being overwatered, but they are in higher danger of drying out. Flytraps can get overwatered but are more sensitive to ppm levels.
Most growers also have great success using sphagnum moss to propagate leaf cuttings from sundews and pullings from Venus flytraps. You can learn about propagation in my flytrap guide.
Pros
• Retains water well
• Some washing might be necessary
• Can be grown in the right conditions if you start with live moss
Cons
• Much more expensive than coco peat
• More likely to form algae
• Often mistaken for java moss by gardening or online stores
Where to buy
• Live and dry sphagnum
• 5kg wholesale moss
These options are more amendments to media, added for better aeration or drainage for certain plants to encourage them to thrive better. These are also all optional—you don’t necessarily need to use them, but some growers have better growing results with them. It’s ultimately up to you.
Perlite is a white, highly porous, and light media addition that aerates other media like coco peat, sphagnum moss, and even gardening soil for regular plants. This helps keep media loose, draining and uncompacted.
Perlite is optional, but I personally prefer mixing it into my coco peat (and layering into sphagnum for venus flytraps) for aeration purposes. You can buy perlite here.
Silica sand is sometimes used for sundews (mixed with coco peat) or pinguiculas/butterworts (mixed with other rocky media like perlite, akadama, and coco peat.)
It’s fast-draining, compact and helps prevent overwatering for Mexican pings like Moranensis or Sethos in particular. They especially like rocky mixes.
You can buy silica sand here.
Coco cubes are often used for nepenthes/pitcher plants to maintain an airy mix. Most neps, especially highland neps or Truncatas, prefer a light mix that doesn’t get soggy. Chunky coco cubes ensure that their roots don’t rot by keeping the planting media from getting compacted.
I’m not sure if media mixes for other plants would benefit from coco cubes, but like with all media options in this list, always ensure that it’s washed with low ppm water to flush minerals out. You can buy coco cubes here, but it still needs to be washed to lower ppm.
Does the kind of pot you use for your plants matter? Yes! Personally, I use small net pots (like in this photo) for juvenile plants, or small sundews like D. Burmannii.
For my personal collection, I use these tall square plastic pots. This specific design has thinner plastic than other varieties, but it helps me save space since I can group my plants together. A tall pot also helps the roots of venus flytraps grow deep, which in turn helps the plant grow bigger. I transplant smaller plants into taller pots when they get bigger.
Some growers do, depending on their setup. The mixes vary on how much a certain carnivorous plant needs. Taking into consideration what each media option can give, you can experiment yourself.
Do you need more moisture? Try to incorporate sphagnum. Do you need a drier, more draining mix? Stick with coco peat, or even add rocky, non-absorbent amendments like silica sand, perlite, pumice, and other chunky media options (as long as they’re all thoroughly rinsed).
You can buy a 500g or 250g full potting set with perlite, sphagnum moss, and an optional TDS meter and pots from my supplier.
Some people line the bottom of their pots with sphagnum moss to keep peat moss or coco peat from leaking out when the pot is watered. I also do this, but keep in mind that keeping media constantly wet like this can build up bacteria. This will lead to your media potentially smelling like sewage, and adversely affecting your plants. You can mitigate this by letting your pots dry out and watering only when necessary.
Since carnivorous plants grow in nutrient-poor media, you unfortunately can’t use most media meant for regular plants. This means no garden soil, vermicast, or any potting mix with a fertilizer like Klassman and other pre-packaged gardening media.
However, there’s a way you can tell if your media is ok for sure, since some growers are able to use pre-packaged gardening media with enough washing. The best way to know if your media can be used—and the best tool you can get to help your carnivorous plant hobby—is a TDS meter.
TDS stands for Total Dissolved Salts, and a TDS meter measures ppm levels or parts per million. To put it simply, it tells you how much minerals are in your media or your water. As long as your level is below 50ppm, you’re ok! The lower, the better. Our aircon water is at a happy 3ppm, and I’ve been using it on top of collected rainwater. Some growers even found out that their water refilling stations have ppm levels below 15, giving them more options.
A TDS meter also lets you know if your media has mineral buildup. For example, I check my water trays once in a while and find that the levels rise sometimes. In cases like that, I flush them by watering from the top with low ppm water until the levels lower. It’s much easier than eyeballing things.
I hope this guide helps, but please note again that this guide is not exhaustive. Even though I’ve been growing carnivorous plants for a while, I welcome new insights and experiences since I’m constantly learning too.
You can also message me on Facebook or Instagram. I post plant content every day about learnings, experiments, and just the regular progress of the plants in my collection.
If you haven’t seen them yet, I have guides on how to prepare for your first carnivorous plant and how to grow other carnivorous plants like Venus flytraps and Byblis in the Philippines. You can check here for all my guides.
You can also check what carnivorous plants and gardening items I have for sale in the links below!
I sell Venus flytraps, sundews, pitcher plants, and more carnivorous plants in my online shop, all grown in my own little garden in Marikina. I also have pots, Maxsea fertilizer, and even some non-carnivorous plants available. For grow lights, shelves, and even water trays I use, you can check my Shopee affiliate link collection.
I ship nationwide, and customers can enjoy free shipping and a loyalty card.
ㅤ
I’m sure you’ve heard of carnivorous plants like the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) or pitcher plant (Nepenthes), but you might not have heard of Byblis, the carnivorous rainbow plant.
This plant is known for its ability to catch mosquitoes and other small insects. It’s not as common as other carnivorous plants, but’s not a difficult plant to raise.
This guide will cover:
• What is Byblis?
• How to take care of Byblis
ㅤㅤ• Light
ㅤㅤ• Water
ㅤㅤ• Growing media
• Feeding Byblis
• Propagating Byblis
• Growing Byblis from seed
• Additional Byblis research
• Ready to grow Byblis?
Byblis is native to Australia, sometimes called the rainbow plant because of the way its sticky, sparkling mucilage-covered leaves and stem can look in the sun. It attracts mosquitos and fruit flies, which die after getting stuck in shimmery glue. They’re then digested by enzymes for nourishment. Byblis also grows pretty purple flowers that close in the evening and last for a few days.
The Latin name “Byblis” itself comes from Greek mythology: Byblis was a woman who fell in love with her twin brother Caunus. There are different versions of her story, but Byblis ultimately gets rejected. Her endless tears lead her to be transformed into a fountain, which sparkles—kind of like the plant’s sparkly goo.
The variety I raise the most of is called Byblis guehoi, one of the eight recognized kinds of Byblis. Though they look like sundews (drosera), which are another kind of carnivorous plant with similarly sticky leaves, Byblis are unique and more related to butterworts (pinguiculas).
Byblis plants are generally easy to raise, as long as some simple points are kept in mind. All you need is a lot of light, the right planting media, and lots of water.
Like most carnivorous plants (and plants in general), Byblis plants need sunlight. Direct sunlight is great, though for Philippine summer heat, it’s best to gauge it. I’ve had success keeping them in full sunlight, but on a water tray to keep their media wet.
If you notice the tips of your plant’s leaves turning yellow and then brown, it could be sunburn; try moving it to bright shade. Though they love light, it’s possible that the summer sun can be too hot. If your plant isn’t growing any taller after a week, it likely needs more light.
Most growers eliminate this problem by raising their plants with an indoor setup; they use regular grow lights positioned close to the plants to give them their sunny needs.
Byblis will grow leaves that are bushier and more flowers given enough sunlight, but they don’t change color like other carnivorous plants usually do.
If you’re going to keep your Byblis in full sun, make sure they’re standing in a water tray or cup of low ppm water (you can check the ppm levels of water using a TDS meter). The Philippine heat gets merciless and your rainbow plant may wither due to dehydration. This is actually the reason I keep their potting media wet; it’s safer for them to stay moist while they’re out in the sun. Otherwise, more mature plants will be fine without water for a day or two when the weather isn’t as sunny.
Make sure to change the water in trays to avoid mosquito larvae, since some smarter or luckier mosquitoes just won’t choose to land on the Byblis before laying eggs. If you keep the pots in cups though, you won’t have this problem. I’d still recommend changing the water once in a while to “flush” the potting media though.
Unlike other carnivorous plants, I discovered that Byblis guehoi can live for a time on regular tap water of up to 129ppm. However, this is only for emergencies. I would recommend using only low ppm water like rain, distilled, or reverse-osmosis water (RO water, which drips from your air conditioner or pools from the condensation of a cold drink) from the top to “flush” out potential mineral build-up. It’s best to do this as often as possible when you have this kind of water available.
I keep water containers full of rainwater and aircon water collected to keep costs low and try to avoid buying distilled water.
For growing media, I use thoroughly rinsed cocopeat mixed with perlite or sphagnum moss. Both share the property of being mineral-free while lacking any nutrients; these burn the roots of carnivorous plants, which adapted to nutrient-less soil by consuming insects.
If you’re not sure if you can use a certain media, check my carnivorous plant media guide, which also has links to where you can buy all kinds of planting media.
This also means that Byblis and other carnivorous plants do not need and should not be fertilized. The only fertilizer recommended at all is Maxsea, but even then, it has to be very heavily diluted (1/4 of a teaspoon to a gallon) and is only lightly misted on a carnivorous plant like Byblis every two weeks. You can check my Maxsea fertilizer guide for more details on how to use it.
Like most carnivorous plants, Byblis don’t really need to be fed. Just leave them outside and they’ll catch bugs on their own. However, for faster growth, you can use Maxsea fertilizer like I mentioned above, or even fish food like flakes, pellets, or blood worms. You can find details on how to do this here.
One plant can be cut as it grows longer to produce more. Byblis grow into long stems that eventually need support through sticks or frames because can’t support their own weight.
When I have time, I avoid this and trim off the top when they start falling over. Once they do fall over, they start growing in an upright direction. Sometimes I chop them up after they grow over 2 feet long.
A cutting should ideally be around 2-3 inches, with the first inch cut free of leaves before being planted. If your Byblis grows several inches like in the above photo, you can make several cuttings (cuttings don’t have to be just from the top.)
There are two ways to make cuttings: by rooting them in low ppm water first, or by planting them directly in carnivorous plant media.
For the second method, make sure to thoroughly soak the media and poke a hole into it first; don’t just stick the stem into it, or you may risk stressing the plant and causing it to die before it roots. Keep cuttings wet after planting to encourage rooting. If your cuttings have flowers, they’ll still bloom too. The more they eat, the faster they also grow.
Once cut, the main plant will begin growing offshoots from different parts of the stem, right above a leaf. Sometimes they grow multiple offshoots.
These offshoots can be made into new cuttings once they’re long enough, though it’s perfectly all right to simply let them grow out. You can have a bush’s worth of Byblis this way.
If you notice the base of your Byblis growing brown and wood-like, it’s a natural thing that happens over time. If you leave it alone, though, your Byblis has a chance of dying. It can easily be saved by cutting it where the weak brown and healthy green parts meet and planting the green part as if you were propagating cuttings.
The following links are the best propagation guides I’ve found and used, with pictures on how to make cuttings as well as how to save a woody Byblis:
Recently, I’ve been able to grow Byblis aquatica from seed too! Byblis seeds don’t germinate easily; they need to be exposed to smoke since their natural habitat exposes them to forest fires to stimulate growth.
You need to be able to expose the seeds to smoke, which I do by putting the pot of seeds into a bigger plastic box with a lid. I burn a paper ball on a plastic bottlecap, blow it out to make smoke, and put the bottlecap in the middle of the pot (where there are no seeds). Then just close the plastic box and let the smoke fill it up.
Research is key in raising carnivorous plants! Though growing conditions are slightly different in other parts of the world due to the weather, there’s still plenty to be learned from more experienced growers.
If you want to learn more about Byblis, the International Carnivorous Plant Society has a great video all about Byblis and how to grow it!
If you want to read up on Byblis or other carnivorous plants, I recommend these pages:
I really hope that this guide encourages you to try growing Byblis, or other carnivorous plants! As long as you follow their requirements, you’ll find that they’re pretty easy to grow. For more information on Byblis, check out my other Byblis guide featuring questions I get the most often from new hobbyists.
You can also message me on Facebook or Instagram. I post plant content every day about learnings, experiments, and just the regular progress of the plants in my collection.
If you haven’t seen them yet, I have guides on how to prepare for your first carnivorous plant and how to grow other carnivorous plants like Venus flytraps and Byblis in the Philippines. You can check here for all my guides.
You can also check what carnivorous plants and gardening items I have for sale in the links below!
I sell Venus flytraps, sundews, pitcher plants, and more carnivorous plants in my online shop, all grown in my own little garden in Marikina. I also have pots, Maxsea fertilizer, and even some non-carnivorous plants available. For grow lights, shelves, and even water trays I use, you can check my Shopee affiliate link collection.
I ship nationwide, and customers can enjoy free shipping and a loyalty card.
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This love month, help the homeless dogs of the Mandaluyong pound when you buy keybie accessories, or when you commission a keybie of your furbaby!
We’ll be donating 50% of all proceeds from this campaign to help fund the Mass Vax Drive 2019, which will get over 70 impounded dogs vaccinated with 5in1 and protect their health as they wait to be adopted in forever homes.
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Hi guys! This is just a PSA, since I’ve been using this courier for my international deliveries.
Xend, a large local courier service that I’ve relied on for years, is undergoing internal problems. They involve labor issues with their delivery riders, who went on air to express their frustrations about unpaid benefits and salaries. This resulted in legal action against the company.
What this basically means for many online businesses like me is that we’re out of a viable international shipping option for the time being. I rely on Bluebee Express for my local deliveries and I’m very satisfied with them, but they’re unable to cover shipping outside the Philippines.
As I have pending international orders (that are already packaged and awaiting delivery), I’ve been searching for alternative solutions so I can somehow get these keybies to their destinations. So far though… the alternatives are nowhere near as affordable.
