Nature and Gardening

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All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.

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Would a venus fly trap help deal with house gnats? (self.greenspace)

submitted 1 year ago by kbyanyname to c/greenspace

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I've got several small houseplants in my home office, and I really like having them around. I'm still pretty new to taking care of them altogether, though, and we've gotten dozens of tiny house gnats now. I've put up sticky traps and tried to use some pest control in the potted soil. But would a small venus fly trap be able to help here?

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[–] cassetti@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

There are a few plants that would help with your savage garden desires.

Check out pitcher plants for example. These plants use a pitcher of nectar water to attract bugs who get stuck and slowly dissolved in the water - any captured flies act as fertilizer for the plants.

Alternatively look up "sundew" plants - They are essentially leaves with sticky "dew" that catches bugs which land on the surface of the leaves (and slowly absorbed the fly - some varieties will even curl up around the bug to digest it faster)

Both of these plants grow best in a "bog planter" (imagine a mini swamp on your desk) - with a tray of water constantly full to keep the soil "damp" at all times. I ended up 3D printing my own bog planters for my pitcher plants. My Sundew died, but I need to buy another one - I enjoyed growing them.

[–] kbyanyname 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh this sounds like a lot of fun. I'll have to look into these!

[–] Sabata11792@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Pro tip, you need to use reverse osmosis purified water. They are very sensitive to chemicals and tap water will kill them quickly. If they are not a tropical breed, you will need to toss them and the seed in the fridge over winter to keep them alive and allow them to flower the next year.

[–] cassetti@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Oh yeah, very good points. Although I'm lazy with my purple pitcher plant. It gets tap water from the hose because I never have enough quality RO water to keep them from drying out and they seem to be doing fine in my climate.

But totally I'm pretty sure my sundews died from not using adequate RO or distilled water.

[–] Sabata11792@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I had a huge fly trap I been growing for years. Watered it with tap water once or twice since I was out and lazy. It never recovered.

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