Saturday 31 July 2021

Venus Flytrap - Low Giant

Last year I got a 'Low Giant' Venus flytrap.  This is a registered cultivar that was developed in Australia.

Low Giant seems like a good name for this venus fly trap.  It grew reasonably large traps, and the leaves stayed low to the ground.  The inside of the traps turned deep red which I quite like.

My plant attempted to flower in its first spring, but I cut off the flower stalk so it had more energy to put into growing leaves and getting strong.  I planted the flower stalk to use as a cutting, and it has produced some baby plants.  Not all of my VFT varieties are happy to grow from flower stalk cuttings for some reason, but this one threw several baby plants from that one cutting.  The original plant also divided.  

Over winter my Low Giant vft has died back a lot and looks terrible, which is actually a good sign of a healthy vft in my climate.  I often find the ones that die back in the frosts tend to come back strong in spring, while the ones that grow through winter tend to struggle or even rot when the weather warms.

Low Giant Venus Flytrap - note flower stalk cutting on the left

I was a little disappointed when Low Giant arrived as it was very small and I paid a lot for it, but it grew into a very colourful plant.  

Low Giant arrived bare rooted through the post, and like most Venus flytraps it coped really well being posted like this.  It arrived late winter, and had not experienced frosts before it arrived here, so it took a while to settle before it started to grow.

Below are some photos of its growth over the first two months:

Low Giant VFT the day it arrived
Low Giant after one week
Low Giant VFT - one month getting colour but not growing much
Low Giant vft ~ 2 months and still pretty small

The following is a description from the Flytrap Store:

The Low Giant Venus Flytrap clone is a spectacular plant that produces very large traps (rivaling even the B52) with broad leaves that grow prostrate (near the ground) year round in dense rosettes. It often develops a very deep red color in the traps.

 Predatory Plants has the following description:

Venus flytrap 'Low Giant' is an extremely vigorous clone with large traps. As this Venus fly catcher's name suggests, 'Low Giant' tends to grow close to the ground in a tight rosette.

While it took a while to do much after being posted and then hit with frosts, towards the end of spring/beginning of summer my Low Giant started to grow well.  From there it went from strength to strength and seemed pretty vigorous in my climate.

I grow a few different varieties of venus fly traps, some named and others from seed.  I don't have unlimited space, or unlimited water, so I can't grow anything that does not perform well for me.  So far Low Giant is performing well, is pretty vigorous, it has large traps, has nice colour, it divides, and it hasn't needed too much care from me.  While I think Low Giant is a good clone, at this stage 'Wally' is still my favourite venus flytrap. 

I plan to sell a few Low Giant venus flytraps, if you are interested keep an eye on my for sale page in late spring.  While I prefer pick up these things cope well being posted bare rooted pretty easily.  If you grow carnivorous plants and would like to swap, please let me know as there are a few carnivorous plants that I am trying to get.

1 comment:

  1. I wrote a comparison of venus flytrap varieties here: http://living-mudflower.blogspot.com/2022/07/venus-flytrap-variety-comparisons.html

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