Caring for your carnivorous plants whilst you’re on holiday

It’s nearly time to go on holiday, but your carnivorous plants can’t come along! If your family, friends or neighbours can’t look after them whilst you’re away – or simply don’t want to look after carnivorous plants – read on to find out how to ensure they can look after themselves…

Carnivorous plants have significant water requirements. When you’re away, the main problem is, of course, the soil drying out! Here are a few simple ideas to prevent this.

• Use large, deep saucers – filled with water before you leave – and place the pots inside them. It’s better for the soil to be damp than dry! This applies to Dionaea, Sarracenia, Drosera and Utricularia…
• Place everything in the shade to minimise evaporation of water from both the saucer and the growing medium. This won’t cause any problems for the plants whilst you’re on holiday. An alternative to moving them is to use a shade net.
• Set up a drip irrigation system… useful for Nepenthes and any carnivorous plant that doesn’t like having its ‘feet in water’, as well as in terrariums.

How do you make a drip irrigation system?

The drip system, ideal for small pots, is a system that allows continuous irrigation of the growing medium from a container acting as a water reservoir. To make one, you can use any plastic bottle with a cap, but ideally you should use a 5-litre demineralised water container – or even two, depending on how long you’ll be away and the volume of growing medium to be watered.

Fill your container or bottle. Take a strip of gauze and place it over the opening. Screw the cap on more or less tightly, turn the container upside down, and watch as the gauze soaks up the water and then drips…

The principle is this**:** the tighter the cap is screwed on, the slower the flow. To avoid having to unscrew the cap every time you want to top up the water, you can cut out the base of the container beforehand (the part that faces upwards once it’s in place).

Ideally, test the setup over several days before setting off, so you can adjust how tightly the cap is screwed on based on the flow rate, ensure the water doesn’t stop flowing, and check the cap doesn’t fall off… in short, that the setup is reliable and will allow you to enjoy a stress-free holiday!