Carnivorous exotica

'Himself' has always been fascinated by weird plants. It use to be the cactus family but over the last few years it's been the carnivorous group. Each year he would buy a fledgling Venus fly trap, nurse it along through the summer and groan when it died over winter. Then one year we went along to the Hampton Court Flower Show. In the marquee their was the stall with it's owner that put us right. Carnivorous plants need rain water! Tap water poisons them. They also need a special compost with no nutrition. Since then we've had these three plants for several years now. He brought these home from one of the Plant Charity stalls the English Nature office use to have each spring. The Sundew has grown really big and quite likes being dropped in the pond each summer. The gnats the fly around the pond stick fast to the gluey stems
Even the sarrecenia are growing bigger this year than they have done before. 'Himself' use to amuse himself by feeding them bluebottles. Now they just feed themselves.

A impromptu biology class. Jason shows Grace the gruesome contents of the sarracenia's trumpets and explains how the plants feeds. She's impressed but grossed out!