By Lin­nea Cov­ing­ton, Spe­cial to The Den­ver Post

Many peo­ple have a glee­ful fas­ci­na­tion with car­niv­o­rous plants, be that a Venus fly­trap, pitch­er plant, mon­key cup or sun­dew. There’s some­thing mys­te­ri­ous and excit­ing about a silent organ­ism that can catch and digest an insect, and shop­pers are now adding this flo­ra to their pan­dem­ic plant collections.

“I def­i­nite­ly see an uptick in gen­er­al where all house plants are pop­u­lar, but with car­niv­o­rous plants there has always been an inter­est,” said Colette Haskell, a hor­ti­cul­tur­ist for Nick’s Gar­den Cen­ter in Auro­ra. “Most­ly it’s the nov­el­ty of it, and kids in par­tic­u­lar want to see some­thing get eat­en because, well they are kids.”

But just because these plants can feed them­selves, that doesn’t mean own­ing a car­niv­o­rous plant is easy in Colorado’s arid cli­mate. Still, despite the dif­fi­cul­ty keep­ing these crea­tures hydrat­ed and alive, more and more peo­ple have been drawn to them. Right now, gar­den cen­ters and spe­cial­ty shops con­tin­ue to stock these plants in order to keep up with demand. And, with a lit­tle knowl­edge and help from local, expe­ri­enced plant grow­ers and providers, get­ting in on the car­niv­o­rous plant game just got a lit­tle easier.

What kind of carnivorous plants can I buy in Colorado?

Many peo­ple rec­og­nize the Venus fly­trap right away, but it’s not the only car­niv­o­rous plant that’s easy to buy. There are around 1,000 species and sub-species of car­niv­o­rous plants, all com­ing from humid, bog­gy and areas with sparse vegetation.

“They are native to areas that are low nutri­ents in the soil, so they adapt­ed their diets to eat insects,” said Tama­ra Kil­bane, cura­tor of Aquat­ic Col­lec­tions at the Den­ver Botan­ic Gar­dens. “It’s a cool exam­ple of how plants can adapt to survive.”

RELATED: Find a large selec­tion of bulbs, unique plants at Den­ver Botan­ic Gar­dens’ Fall Plant & Bulb Sale

Even Col­orado has some native species, the Roundleaf Sun­dew, the Greater Blad­der­wort and the Less­er Blad­der­wort. Not that it’s easy to find them, and the lat­ter two grow in sub­alpine ponds and all are rare and often overlooked.

While get­ting actu­al native car­niv­o­rous plants proves dif­fi­cult, sourc­ing oth­ers isn’t so hard. In gen­er­al, the types you can buy in a shop or online vary from sun­dews to pitch­er plants to mon­key cups, and of course, the Venus fly­trap. Many of the vari­eties have more species with­in the genus, which give each plant indi­vid­ual characteristics.

Jere­mi­ah Har­ris, founder of the Col­orado Car­niv­o­rous Plant Soci­ety, has around 2,000 car­niv­o­rous plants in his three Col­orado Springs green­hous­es. Many are pitch­er plants, but he has some of all types from around the world. Har­ris got his first car­niv­o­rous plant when he was 5 years old. It was a Venus fly­trap and from there, he built a green­house when he was 12, and 20 years lat­er the gar­den grew into one of the largest car­niv­o­rous plant dis­plays in the country.

“It’s def­i­nite­ly been a fun thing to get into and it seems like house plants right now are more pop­u­lar than ever,” said Har­ris. “It seems with COVID and peo­ple being stuck where they are, I have nev­er seen more inter­est in car­niv­o­rous plants.”

As for the afore­men­tioned Venus fly­trap, it’s the only car­niv­o­rous plant that doesn’t have oth­er species. There is only one type, and it grows in North Car­oli­na and South Car­oli­na. It’s also the eas­i­est to find in com­mer­cial set­tings and is one of the only plants that are quick-mov­ing when feed­ing. Though, despite its pop­u­lar­i­ty (or maybe because of it), the Venus fly­trap pop­u­la­tion has dwin­dled significantly.

How do carnivorous plants work?

Unlike Audrey II, the mas­sive flesh-eat­ing plant in Lit­tle Shop of Hor­rors, you don’t need to feed these bug-munch­ing plants; they draw in and col­lect food all on their own. Each has a dif­fer­ent way of killing and con­sum­ing the insects, though all use a sweet-smelling nec­tar to draw bugs in and have diges­tive enzymes that get trig­gered once the bug is trapped.

A Venus fly­trap, from the fam­i­ly Droser­aceae, will lure the fly to its open “mouth” where the move­ment is trig­gered by small hairs inside. The plant then uses the long, fang-like appendages to trap the fly, not unlike a jail cell. The leaves snap shut about 30 sec­onds after the insect lands on the pad, one of the quick­est reac­tion times of all the car­niv­o­rous plants.

Don’t wor­ry, “There’s no need to fear them,” said Kilbane.”We bring fly­traps out when we have free days [at the Botan­ic Gar­dens] and let kids and adults alike acti­vate the plants, they could clamp on to your fin­ger and it wouldn’t hurt.”

From the same fam­i­ly comes sun­dews, which behave total­ly dif­fer­ent­ly. The jew­el-like beads of nec­tar bal­anced on the end of long hairs draw the crea­ture to feed, and then it becomes stuck as more of the hairs bend to hug the squirm­ing body. Slow­ly the plant curls the ten­ta­cle in to absorb the nutri­ents and in essence, eat the bug.

Mon­key cups and pitch­er plants both use lit­tle jugs of secre­tion to tempt prey. The pitch­er plant, which has hun­dreds of species and hails from the fam­i­lies Nepenthaceae­and Sar­race­ni­aceae, stands up, like a carafe placed in a pot, and tends to be longer than a mon­key cup. The mon­key cup plant, from the fam­i­ly Nepenthaceae, has the lit­tle jugs hang­ing down from the leaves. Both get filled with this insect-draw­ing liq­uid and once the crea­ture goes into the cav­i­ty, it is trapped and dis­solves in the fluid.

Blad­der­wort, in the fam­i­ly Len­tibu­lar­i­aceae, has about 220 species all with lit­tle flow­ers on top. It’s an aquat­ic plant that uses lit­tle hol­low sacks on the roots under the water to draw liq­uid in, trap­ping the bugs and then digest­ing them.

“Each plant will have hun­dreds of blad­ders that cre­ate a vac­u­um on either side,” explained Har­ris. “One side is a trap door that sucks in all the water [and tiny water crea­tures] and clos­es. It’s instan­ta­neous and each trap can trap dozens of water insects.”

How to take care of carnivorous plants

First thing, said Haskell, don’t take the plas­tic dome off your Venus fly­trap. Sec­ond, car­niv­o­rous plants don’t like fer­til­iz­er, they come from nitro­gen-poor areas and the soil that makes oth­er plants thrive will not work for these plants.

“When peo­ple think their car­niv­o­rous plants are dying they think they need to give it some Mir­a­cle Grow, but then they real­ly kill it,” said Haskell, who has hun­dreds of her own house plants at home. “It’s pret­ty dry in Col­orado, so we encour­age peo­ple to keep them in ter­rar­i­ums since a lot die on peo­ple because they don’t real­ize you can’t have them out in open air.”

Aside from a ter­rar­i­um, to help give a car­niv­o­rous plant mois­ture, Kil­bane sug­gests using the tray method when plant­i­ng. This involves a dish of dis­tilled water under the plant’s pot, so it’s con­stant­ly get­ting a bit of humid­i­ty. Make sure to only use dis­tilled water. Reg­u­lar tap or even bot­tled water has too many min­er­als in it, which can kill most car­niv­o­rous plants.

All car­niv­o­rous plants grow in bright, humid areas with­out a lot of oth­er plants to pro­vid­ed shade. They like poor soil and get most of their nutri­ents from the bugs that are caught, as well as lots of sun­light. But, one may won­der, how will my Venus fly­trap get a fly if it’s inside a ter­rar­i­um? They prob­a­bly won’t, but while the bugs pro­vide food for the plants, they aren’t nec­es­sary for its survival.

“They could go their entire exis­tence with­out eat­ing insects since they pho­to­syn­the­size like oth­er plants,” Har­ris said. “The insect helps it out-com­pete oth­er plants that don’t have that resource.”

Yes, added Haskell, you can feed a car­niv­o­rous plant. Just make sure to cap­ture live flies or small insects, oth­er­wise the mech­a­nisms used to sense prey won’t be trig­gered and your bug-hunt­ing will be for naught.

Where to buy (or see) carnivorous plants in Colorado

Before you buy, get a sense of what these plants look like by vis­it­ing the Den­ver Botan­ic Gar­dens. There are around 12 that are dis­played in grand ter­rar­i­ums spo­rad­i­cal­ly through the year. This includes the Giant Fork-Leaved Sun­dew, Red Mex­i­can But­ter­wort, Hardy Pitch­er Plant, Spoon­leaf Sun­dew, Venus fly­trap and many more. Find the first ter­rar­i­um when you enter the Orangery from Marnie’s Pavil­ion. And if you want to buy one, look for these types at the annu­al spring plant sale next year.

Some inde­pen­dent local shops also car­ry good bug-catch­ing car­niv­o­rous plants and offer a side of edu­ca­tion when you pur­chase. These types of plants can be found eas­i­ly online and often, com­mer­cial gar­den cen­ters car­ry at least one type, usu­al­ly the Venus fly­trap. As with all grow­ing things, it’s best to call ahead to make sure there are still car­niv­o­rous plants in stock before you ven­ture forth.

Bird­sall & Co.
2870 South Broadway
303–722-2535

This 35-year-old plant shop often car­ries some car­niv­o­rous plants such as Venus fly­traps, mon­key cups and oth­er trum­pet-shaped green­ery. Because the sup­ply goes quick, it’s best to check the stock before shopping.

City Flo­ral Gar­den Center
1440 Kear­ney St.
303–399-1177

Though the stock changes based on what’s avail­able, this Mont­clair shop car­ries a vari­ety of car­niv­o­rous plants.

Elliott Gar­dens
6321 Low­ell Blvd.
303–428-4043

Last we checked, the Berkley plant shop was out of car­niv­o­rous plants, but they do often car­ry them. This includes Venus fly­traps, sun­dews and pitch­er plants.

Nick’s Gar­den Cen­ter and Farm Market
2001 South Cham­bers Road
303–696-6657

Fam­i­ly-owned and oper­at­ed for over 30 years, this Auro­ra shop has every­thing one needs to start a car­niv­o­rous plant gar­den, such as ter­rar­i­ums, globe planters, moss and the plants themselves.

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