Do Venus fly traps need meat to survive? This and other myths busted by a top plant expert

Jane Perrone is a houseplant expert, host of On The Ledge podcast and author of Legends of the Leaf and Houseplant Gardener in a Box. What she doesn’t know about this tiny carnivore is not worth knowing.

If you’re used to looking after easy houseplants such as spider plants or Swiss cheese plants, the Venus fly trap – or Dionaea muscipula – might not be for you.

“They’re not the easiest plants to grow indoors,” says Perrone, saying that majority of Venus fly traps purchased in this country don’t survive that long.

“Their needs are rather different from most of the popular houseplants we grow indoors. People think they can treat them like a regular houseplant, but that’s not the case. They need rainwater or distilled water, not tap water, and a special type of potting soil.”

As Venus fly traps originate from the coastal bogs in the States – particularly North and South Carolina – they’re used to having soil that’s constantly moist. They also need nice humid conditions to live in.

“Place them in your sunniest windowsill, or supplement their light with an LED grow light,” says Perrone.

She continues: “Flytraps should be sat in a shallow tray of water around 2cm deep from spring to autumn – keep them moist but not wet in winter.”

She says they need a little winter rest period as well, so during the colder months place them somewhere that’s brightly it, but cool, around 10°C (50°F).

While the John Lewis advert show Snapper creating confetti by eating paper and being tempted by the family dog, in real life Venus fly traps don’t need you to be their fly catcher, although they’re a great way to keep flies out of the house.

“They will most likely just catch the occasional fly in your home, which is absolutely fine,” says Perrone, who says they don’t need feeding daily.

“Strangely enough, in the wild, flytraps don’t eat many flies. They mostly live off a diet of ground-dwelling creatures such as beetles and spiders.”

After chatting to Perrone, I realise this big no-no is probably why our little Venus fly trap didn’t stay alive for long…

“Tempting though it is, never trigger the traps using your finger,” advises Perrone. “The traps only have enough energy to be set off two or three times, and they will die off pretty quickly if forced to close without a meal.”

My sister and I were guilty of putting our finger in the trap to see what would happen a little too often, although we did also scour windowsills for dead flies to feed it!

Perrone also says that while you can feed it with insects or flies, never give it pieces of meat – they might be carnivores, but they like their food to be alive.

She says: “The traps are specially designed to only begin digesting food that is wriggling and struggling in the trap, so anything dead will just end up rotting inside.”

While Perrone says the biggest flytrap on record was 6.1cm (2.4 inches) long, in reality they only reach a few centimetres tall, with perhaps a diameter of around 20cm (just under 8 inches).

“There are loads of accounts in popular culture of huge flytraps,” she says.

“Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a story called The American’s Tale about a man in Arizona who got eaten by a giant flytrap – but in reality, they are really tiny.”

Perrone loves the new John Lewis Christmas ad, even if it’s not wholly accurate.

“It’s part of a grand tradition of mythologising the Venus fly trap that dates right back to the mid 1700s, when British botanists first learned about the species, right up to Audrey Jr in the Little Shop of Horrors,” she says.

While you can grow your own Venus fly trap from seeds, Perrone advises avoiding the ‘grow your own’ kits and instead going to a specialist carnivorous plant nursery, such as South West Carnivorous Plants.

“The seeds need to be fairly fresh to germinate successfully,” she says. “I should also say that a Venus fly trap seed is way tinier than the acorn-sized seed shown in the John Lewis ad!”

You’ll also need to buy specialist compost and as with the fully grown plants, they will need to be kept somewhere warm and humid, and their soil kept constantly moist. Germination takes several weeks, and it can take a few years for a plant to reach its full maturity.