Who had a venus fly trap as a kid and thought it was the coolest thing ever? I know I had one! There was nothing more exciting than putting your finger onto the "trap" and watching it close. Little did we know, this was actually not a great thing to do to the plant - no matter how fun it was. Keep on reading to learn about care of venus fly traps. Note: we unfortunately no longer have a source of venus flytraps after some changes to import laws.
Depending on where you bought your venus fly trap, it may or may not be in a tube (seen in the photo on the left). It will still have a pot with some very mossy looking soil in it. Venus fly traps will not be in potting soil, or black earth. They will be in some sort of mixture with moss and perlite. The odd thing about these unique little plants is that they do not need, or want, extra nutrients. The last thing you want to do is fertilize yours!
Watering
When watering, ensure that you are using a small amount of distilled water. You want to use distilled water, that comes bottled from the store. This water will be nutrient free, have no chlorine, or other minerals that may aggravate the plant. When watering ensure you are watering on the soil mixture only, and not getting water on the "traps". Water it at least once a week, ensuring the soil stays moist. You do not want the soil to dry out, but you also don't want to soak the plant in water 24/7.
Do not Touch the Traps!
As I had said above, we all know that venus fly traps close when you touch them. This is how they gather their nutrients! Not from our fingers, but when a fly or bug ends up inside the trap, the plant will close around it and stay closed until it has digested its prey. The reason we do not want to touch them, is because it will mistake the sensation of our fingers for a bug and close. The plant is then putting out energy to digest something that isn't even there. Imagine if all we did was work out and not eat! We would not be doing great. The same thing goes for this plant.
I hope you are now well equipped to take care of your venus fly trap!