pictures – Page 22

How to keep your venus fly trap happy (and alive) – by flora-file

After my post about cutting the flower buds off when a venus fly trap flowers, I got some questions about how to care for this plant, and specifically people asked how I could possibly keep one alive for ten years. Just follow these handy dandy tips to keep your venus fly trap chomping small invertebrates for years to come.

Sunlight – Unfortunately this plant is not a houseplant. It needs direct sun to survive, hopefully about 8 hours a day. Mine lives on my patio and gets a few hours of direct light in the morning, and then bright indirect light (which is different than shade) for the rest of the day, and it seems to do fine. Plants that don’t get enough light tend to have elongated leaves, stretched out by the plants hopeless attempt to grow toward some source of light. Happy plants have short leaves and lots of traps. They still need light to photosynthesize no matter how many flies or spiders you feed them.

Distilled or Purified Water – These plants are very sensitive to minerals dissolved in water, especially the fluoride and chloride found in most tap water. Not even spring water is okay, as it contains trace minerals that may be detrimental to the health of the plant. Rainwater will probably work, as long as you don’t live next to a coal burning power plant or some other source of gross air pollution. This may be the most common form of venus fly trap neglect, as people that have killed their fly trap have usually not followed this important rule.

Peat Moss or Coco Coir substrate – The venus fly trap is a bog plant that naturally grows in mucky, nitrogen deprived soil. The whole bug eating behavior arose from the need for additional nitrogen that was severely lacking in the soil. Both peat moss and coco coir have extremely low nitrogen content, making them suitable for the needs of this plant. I used coco coir when I repotted mine a couple years ago, and it worked great. Coco coir is much cheaper than peat moss, and also a better choice environmentally.

A steady diet of…nothing! – Don’t give it fertilizers or chemicals, no Dr Shultz or Miracle Grow. And don’t feed it hamburger either, that’s just wrong. If it is healthy it will catch bugs all by itself, almost like its evolved to catch bugs or something. Keep the substrate constantly moist. I keep mine in a container that doesn’t drain and keep it in standing water constantly. Whatever happens, don’t let it dry out.

If you follow these simple steps your fly trap should grow old of the bulb and long in the tooth. I’m not saying this is the only way to take care of your fly trap, but its how I take care of mine. And after 10 years its still working. Good luck, and garden on!

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Hello? Little human? Okay I kiss you now.

Fun fact: the cat is checking the baby’s mouth to see if it is still breathing. Were it not breathing, the cat would commence to eat it.

FUN FACT

Omfg

That’s just blatantly untrue. While cats have been known to eat human corpses, it’s generally only when they’re starving and have no other food source.
Seriously, quit demonizing cats.

Nose touches (as you see here) are a cats way of saying hello. It’s a friendly greeting. It’s NOT checking for breath.

Laying on a human (as you see here) is literally cat cuddling. Thats it.

We have literal records of cats going out of their way to save the lives of children from various dangers, from fires, to dog attacks, to choking to death. Its very easy to look up.

The only cases of cats eating their humans, have always been when their human died and it has been several days without the body being found. Amazingly this tends to line up with the cat not being fed and therefore STARVING.

It’s also a common thing among most pet animals too? Like sorry, your dog will do it too. Hell, ever heard of the the Donner Party? Humans aren’t exempt. When faced with survival, you try and survive.

STOP DEMONIZING CATS FOR BEING ANIMALS.

(And I mean, all it takes is a quick google search to figure this out, but no lets spread misinformation about innocent animals?)

If you actually truly believe cats are out to get you, and are cold and not affectionate, or whatever else people use to justify demonizing cats… You need to actually look up cat behavior. Your cat who ‘ignores’ you? More often than not is just respecting your space. Your cat who lashes out? Probably not feeling safe in their environment. Your cat brings you gross things? Trying to look after you.

Cats aren’t dogs. They have a set way of communication, and while they can learn dofferent expressions of affection, it will always be less evident than with dogs (who are particularily malleable to human behavior.) This doesn’t mean they are any less loving or capable of bonds.

All it takes is a quick google search to figure out why your cat does what they do. And literally, no cat intrinsically wants to eat babies.

are you kidding me, cats are super protective of small children. they’ve been known to attack dogs, snakes, alligators and grown-ass men if they thought a child was in danger. a stray cat in russia saved an abandoned baby from hypothermia by cuddling him, alerted people to his presence and tried following the freaking ambulance that took him to the hospital. they are very sweet and patient with babies and there are tons of adorable videos out there to prove it.

IF I EVER HEAR ANYONE TALKING SHIT ABOUT KITTIES I SWEAR

“cats are not dogs”

And there’s the rub. People have issues with cats because they’re mad they don’t act like dogs. They are a different animal and they relate and communicate differently. That doesn’t make them worse pets or evil or something.

^^^

Cats are good and pure creatures, dammit

Actually true fun fact! Cats who live with humans see those humans as colonymates! Cat colonies communally raise kittens. So if a cat’s human has a baby, the cat considers themself an automatic co-parent. So as far as that cat is concerned, that baby is its baby too. That cat is cuddling with and doting on its kitten.

Oh my god, that last fact is so fucking cute