Carnivorous plants

 The horticulture agent at the extension office invited a speaker in to give a talk on carnivorous plants...or plants that get their nutrition from trapping and digesting bugs.

The gentleman on the left was the speaker and the grower of all these carnivorous plants there on display.

He was answering questions from the very interested young teenager there in the center  before the class.

I walked up to the front too, to get a closer look.

There were a lot more types of plants than I expected to see and the talk turned out to be really interesting.

He presented a slide show and a hand-out booklet and had so much information to share.

The session lasted for over two hours and I think he could have told us more if he had more time.

The plants are somewhat high maintenance and need lots of sunlight and must be kept moist with distilled water.  No nutrition comes from the roots so they need to be where they can attract bugs. 

I thought it might be fun to try one of these plants so I was happy to hear my name drawn for one of the door prizes...a Venus Fly Trap.

This one had the bonus of another small carnivorous plant also growing in the same container.  (you can see it in the photo above in the right front of the container). These tiny pink blooms are from that one.

The Venus Fly Traps are nursery grown now but there was a time in the past when the native ones were getting endangered by too much harvesting.

Somehow, we had one for a very short time when I was a kid.  Of course we couldn't leave it alone and eventually killed it by trying to get it to eat chunks of greasy hot dogs.

Let's see how long I can keep this one alive.  Rain water is okay but I did go ahead and buy some distilled water. 

I'll keep it outside so it should have enough bugs to eat.