Carnivorous Plants
by Walter Reeves
To native Atlantans of a certain age, the name brings it all back: Bestoink Dooley. Mild-mannered actor and local theater producer George Ellis adopted the personality of Bestoink Dooley to host “The Friday Night Frights” on television.
I occasionally attended sleepovers with school chums. The highlight of our evening was watching the black and white horror flicks hosted by Dooley..... and hooting at his loopy commentaries. He insisted that the carnivorous plants featured in “Return to Zombie Island” were real.
We watched as an undulating vine snatched an unsuspecting native guide into the trees before the brave explorers had stepped from their boat. A few minutes later, one of the adventurers stumbled into a cabbage-like plant, which engulfed and consumed him on the spot.
Were the plants real? The arched brows of our TV host indicated not.
But, on a smaller scale, carnivorous plants do exist... and they are great additions to your garden.
WHY EAT BUGS? It helps to understand why insect-eating plants consume living things rather than the fertilizer we commonly give “normal” plants. Most carnivorous plants developed in extremely nutrient-poor environments. They adapted to their surroundings by developing mechanisms for attracting and digesting mobile fertilizer: insects and other small creatures. Some plants have leaves covered with sticky hairs. Others entice insects into a pool of water from which they can not escape. Venus flytrap leaves snap shut like a mousetrap, capturing insects which land on its tiny hair-triggers.
PITCHER PLANTS One of the easiest carnivorous plants to garden is the pitcher plant. They range in height from thirty inches (yellow pitcher plant, 'Sarracenia flava') to barely six inches (purple pitcher plant, 'Sarracenia purpurea'). Their tube-like “pitchers” are simply modified leaves whose interior surface is covered with downward-pointing hairs. Once an insect crawls down the pitcher, it’s a one-way trip to the tiny pool of water at the bottom. Pitcher plants are reliably winter-hardy in an outdoor bog. They can be planted any time during the growing season.
VENUS FLYTRAP Although it is the most well known carnivorous plant, Venus flytrap ('Dionaea muscipula') is not the easiest to grow. Venus flytrap is a native southeastern plant but it is native to warm coastal swamps in North and South Carolina. They can not survive most Atlanta winters so consider flytraps as “annuals” among your pitcher plant “perennials”.
FEEDING Although carnivorous plants do use tiny amounts of nutrition from the soil, they should never be fertilized. You can hand-feed them if you like but keep these tips in mind:
- 1. Never feed with hamburger meat.
- 2. Beetles and grasshoppers are too large. They escape by chewing through the plant leaf.
- 3. Houseflies are excellent. Put a small piece of fish in a glass jar and wait for flies to appear. Capture them in the jar, then pop it into your freezer to chill them for a few minutes. Use a pair of tweezers to drop the hapless bug into a flytrap or pitcher. Wash hands afterward!
When I built a carnivorous plant bog for my son it raised my “coolness” level several notches higher in his eyes. Why not build a bog, install some carnivorous plants and spend a Friday evening watching it, with a bowl of popcorn to munch? It will be more entertaining than spending the night with adolescents..... and you won’t have to listen to hours of gross-out jokes before you go to bed!
BOG BASICS
SITE Carnivorous plants grow best in sunshine. A minimum size is three feet by three feet with a depth of eighteen inches. Larger bogs have the advantage of drying out more slowly and they are more attractive to backyard wildlife.
BUILDING Excavate your soil so that one edge of the hole is an inch or two lower than the other sides. This is where any excess water will drain out. Line the hole with heavy-duty (6 mil.) sheet plastic, leaving a 6-inch border of plastic all around. Cover the plastic edge completely with large stones. Mix gritty paver leveling sand (not play sand) and peat moss 50:50 in a wheelbarrow. Fill the bog half-way. Soak it thoroughly, then use bare feet to pack everything down. Place plants at least six inches apart.
PROVIDE WATER Natural rainfall won’t supply enough water to keep a bog soggy in the summer. Experiment by soaking it each week. To check, just scoop out a deep trowelful of peat mixture. If water begins to seep into the resulting hole, no water is needed.
OTHER BOG PLANTS
Many other plants feel right at home in a bog. Here are some to mix with your carnivorous plants:
Yellow Flag Iris
Sundew
Turtlehead
Astilbe
Ferns
Dwarf Papyrus
Dwarf Cattail
Dwarf Hosta
Dwarf Canna
Dwarf Elephant Ear
CONTAINER BOG
Don’t want to build a full-sized bog on your first attempt? Make one in a container instead! Use a sixteen inch plastic bowl (Pike Family Nursery has them in stock) and fill it with the sand:peat moss mixture described nearby. Install some of the smaller carnivorous plants and keep it in a sunny spot where you can keep it watered during the growing season. Plunge the bowl down to its rim in your garden for the winter.