CARNIVOROUS PLANTS SHOULD ALL BE PLANTED AND HANDLED THE SAME WAY:
If you are growing your plant in less than ideal conditions, or you just want the biggest traps possible, it's best to not let them flower. Try to cut the flower stalk off as soon as you notice it. Flowering robs the plant of precious energy that it could otherwise use to make itself larger or produce better leafs and traps. Water with pure water, either distilled, rain water, or tap water that has been standing for 24 hours. Plant them in a proper mix of nutrient poor medium such as peat, sphagnum moss, sand and perlite in some combination. Keep the soil damp at all times. If possible, keep the ambient humidity high, though this is not critical.
PITCHER PLANTS The pitcher plant’s prey-trapping mechanism features a deep cavity filled with liquid known as a pitfall trap. Whether the pitcher plants evolutionary origin is by foraging, flying or crawling insects (such as flies and gnats), all are attracted to the cavity formed by the cupped leaf, often by visual lures, plant pigments and nectar bribes. The sides of the pitcher are slippery and may be grooved in such a way so as to ensure that the insects cannot climb out. The small bodies of liquid contained within the pitcher traps are called phytotelmata. They drown the insect, and the body of it is gradually dissolved. This may occur by bacterial action (the bacteria being washed into the pitcher by rainfall) or by enzymes secreted by the plant itself.
SUNDEW A sundew plant has sticky hairs on its leaves which are coated with a liquid that gives off a scent that attracts insects. When an insect gets stuck on one of the hairs, the hair wraps around it, covers it with digestive juices, and the insect dies. You can buy domesticated sundew. If you buy them you have to feed them, and you feed them pieces of raw meat in addition to other live prey (feed sparingly). The sundews love sun, but don't overheat. It's supposedly said that the sundew can curdle milk, remove warts, and relieve coughs; some say the sundew can be used to go to sleep.
Hibernation: The sundew is a perennial; but to stay healthy, year after year, it will need an annual snooze at temperatures of 38 to 45 degrees F for 4 to 5 months. That's what winters are for. They can tolerate some freezing. Portions of the plant will die back to a winter bud. Seeds require cold treatment to germinate.
