Most of us have seen plants flower, and it can be quite exciting, especially if you don’t see this very often, or haven’t seen this before. We should think of plants flowering, as both a good thing, and a bad thing. I will explain why this is.
You have many varieties of plants that do flower, and some that don’t. However, when you do see a plant flower, in your home, it often means you are doing something to aid in making the plant reach this goal. In some instances, it can be on purpose, versus, unintentionally. If you have a grow light, which can aid in making plants flower quite easy and fast, you will see this happen very fast. For some plants, like carnivorous plants for example, look at the venus fly trap, when the plant flowers, it will result in something both good and bad.
The good first. What’s good about seeing a VFT flower, is that you will see a different phase that this plant will experience. It takes a bit for the flower stalk to form, and that results in the next section, the bad. The bad, is that when you allow the flower stalk to grow, and depending on how you are growing your VFT, it can grow very tall, or maybe a few inches tall; 2 to 3 inches tall. It doesn’t take much, but allowing the flower stalk to grow, will take away from the traps growing, especially to full size. In some instances, the traps will stop growing, or slow down significantly, until the flower stalk is removed.
Although I did discuss most of this in the previous journal, the emphasis here, is more about the use of grow lights to speed up the process. Under other conditions, natural without such use of grow lights, this will not occur as fast, unless they are by a sunny window sill, or getting enough sun light nearest to whatever window is bringing in that sunlight.
In order to have the VFT grow traps properly, you need to cut the flower stalk, but also remember, if you have a grow light, refrain from using the setting that leads to pushing flowers in plants like these. Now, it’s not to say that you can’t use the flower stalk for propagation, which you can. I haven’t been successful with this – yet, but when I am, I’ll discuss it here.
Can I say this about other carnivorous plants? Maybe. I have sundews that have this same issue, but in a slightly different set of results. The sundews I have that are flowering right now, are of the drosera spatulata variety – the spoon-leaved sundews. These I have separated in several pots, and what I see currently, for these, are most of them pushing flower stalks. Some are continuously growing, while the leaves aren’t developing dew, or are developing dew at a very slow rate. For many of the sundew plants, when the leaves develop dew, the stems holding the dew will change to a reddish color with the dew staying clear looking more like water droplets; not all of them are this way, but I’ll explain what I mean.
There are other types of sundews, like the cape sundews, where they have some that do the same as the others, while there are some species that don’t change from green to red. The dew will be the same where they appear similar to water droplets. I have the white form cape sundew, where its leaves stay green, and the stems holding the dew, stays white. The typical cape sundew, the stems will turn red around the leaves that stay green. Now, I haven’t seen the cape sundews create flowers just yet, but when I do, I’ll discuss it here.
THIS JUST IN: My cape sundews are starting to push flower stalks. It’s curly at first, but it’s likely to stretch out and show something. In its curled state, I’m still seeing some beginnings to a flower developing, so it looks like it’s going to flower on both of my capes.
Point is, the sundews may slow down their dew production, when pushing flower stalks. Some are capable of both, while others, not so much.
We also have this issue more with pitcher plants, but I haven’t seen this for myself; not yet anyway. This does not just affect the growth of pitchers, but also the development of digestive fluid in existing pitchers. When I see this, I’ll discuss what I find here.
Having flowers grow, is often a trade-off of producing dew, or traps, which can be bad on the surface. Removing the stalks can be a quick enough fix, so that we can see the plants grow like they normally would. It’s even better for propagation, if it’s possible. VFT flower stalks are good for propagation, whereas sundew or pitcher plant flower stalks may not be. This isn’t about propagation, so I’ll move on.
For some other types of plants, non-carnivorous, you may not see this problem. I haven’t come across plants other than carnivorous ones that I’ve encountered with this problem. My coleus plants seem to be just fine, and I don’t feed them anything like fertilizer either. I’ve had some tropical plants or those that are in that setting, which is my big terrarium, “the tank”, where this isn’t the case. As stated, this may be an issue with the carnivorous plants making their ability to capture prey, being compromised from producing flowers. Since I haven’t see this with other types of plants, that I know of, it’s not really a trade-off in the same way it would be for carnivorous plants.
