I think you're thinking in terms of tropical fish. Typically, with fish, you use tap water, which usually has Chlorine. Letting it sit allows the Chlorine gas to evaporate. For most CP's, they live in nutrient poor conditions. Not only will the Chlorine kill them, so will the minerals in tap water. Evaporation concentrates the dissolved minerals. Rain water doesn't need to sit. It's normal for the media to smell. Not a problem. As long as the plants are green, they are okay. If everything turned brown, then I'd worry! Maryland, depending where in Maryland, may be too cold to leave outside for the winter, without mulching. I live in the Buffalo, NY area. so I take my plants to a co-worker, and he keeps them in his windowed garage for the winter. That works for me. Are you near the coast or near the mountains? That makes a difference.

The advice of not letting your VFT flower is always suggested because most people are not experienced or are new in growing CP, so these people barely have their VFT thriving. Flowering takes a lot of energy and if your plant is week, it can die. But if you have your plant growing very vigorously, theres no problem. I always let them flower, never had problems. When I was a beginner, of course I lost my pants until I was told to cut them off. Now I have no worries letting them flower. I had one VFT grow a flower stalk this late of the year but once I started to induce dormancy, the stalk aborted and died. That VFT is now dormant. To induce dormancy, just place it in a cool part of your house and give it less light. Now, most summer leaves will die and stop functioning, also your VFT will start to produce some smaller traps with sluggish movement if you trigger them. Those are winter leaves. Once the plant is dormant, cut down on the amount of water, just keeps its media moist to keep the bulb from drying out. I keep my dormant bulbs in a pot and simply place it in the coolest room next to a window. They will receive some sunlight but its not enough photoperiod to break their winter dormancy. I always let my VFT grow on the same media for 2 years before transplanting them on a fresh media. Or you can dig out your bulbs after it has become dormant, cut the old leaves to avoid rot, wrap it with moist LFS moss to keep the bulbs from drying out, place it in a Ziploc bag, and then put it in the fridge (not the icebox!). Always check now and then to make sure you keep the LFS moss moist but not wet and you can check on the condition of your bulb. The bulb should be white and crispy. Come spring you can plant them on fresh media to begin its new growth season. Good luck!

I got my Venus flytraps in and they were potted in perlite and sand and some vermiculite and other junk- probably sphagnum peat moss. I pulled media away from the roots and found that every plant had some really bad roots in that mix, so I put them all in the re-wetted sphagnum moss I used to grow my orchids in and all the venus flytraps are growing new roots and they look SO much better. The roots were all black and rotted looking, but each flytrap had a new root or 2 that were coming out when I saw the corms after rinsing them off. I figured the sphagnum moss would keep the roots moist but give good air flow and it seems to be the best thing for them so far as each plant has grown very well despite getting sunburned badly. I guess I lucked out since it was so close to dormancy the plants recovered leaves quickly and new traps also. Even the tiny VFT 'pink ' is starting to grow new trap leaves but all of them are going dormant and I can tell as the leaves take minutes to close instead of seconds now. The traps are large, but the leaves are small and very full and the color on most is still green as we have had snow here now for the past 3 days and all the new growth has missed the full sun since I was afraid to burn them again. I recommend potting in the re-wetted sphagnum moss or long fiber sphagnum moss that lowes or home depot sell- just make sure it is all fertilizer free with no additives as that can kill carnivorous plants. Also, I use rain water to water my carnivorous plants and they do better from rain water than distilled. You can re-wet the dried out sphagnum moss by soaking strands in a bin or bucket of rain water then layering them on top of each other in the pot. Once you have wet moss about half way up the pot, I put the corm or bulb in the middle with roots draped in a circle to keep from damaging them and then trying to stick the new roots right into the wet moss so they grow better. I drape more moss around the sides of the bulb in a circular motion so it is nested in the middle of the pot and so far, that has worked well for me. Last thing- you can sometimes get sphagnum moss to start growing if you let the pot sit in rain water when the plant is actively growing- they normally grow nested in a nice sphagnum moss bog which will keep the environment more close to what they are used to. I have new sphagnum moss growing in the wet dead stuff in the pots and I hope it grows big enough to keep the cp's roots moist and help them grow vigorously.

You may be a "good gardener" but that doesn't count for much at all for Venus flytraps that require a different care. If you have read the previous posts, VFT must have dormancy or they will become weak and die. Most of the answers of how to take care VFT have been answered in previous post but here it is. The growing media for VFT is one part sphagnum peat moss and one part perlite. Make sure the ingredients have no additives like fertilizer or wetting agents. Chemicals will kill your VFT, the media must be chemical free. Make sure it is sphagnum peat moss and not mulch peat or some other form of decorative moss. Don't buy premixed potting soil either, even if it contains sphagnum peat moss and perlite as one of its ingredients. Premixed potting soil contains additives that will kill your VFT. Do not use tap water or drinking water; both will contain mineral or salts. Using distilled water is best choice, followed by Reverse Osmosis water, and finally rainwater. Be careful with rainwater, as it can become contaminated from particles in the air. Keep the media wet but not too water log, that is easily done by placing it on a water dish. This are sun loving plants so make sure to put it in a protected but bright spot in your house. Don't worry about humidity, they will adapt quickly and as long as you keep their media moist, they will do just fine. But your plant may have been growing covered by a cup so you have to harden it first. For that, lift a corner of the cup a bit. Keep an eye for wilting. In a few days, lift the lid a bit more; it should be hardened in about a couple of weeks. Don't feed your VFT! Since it will be too weak to digest prey, normally most stores or wholesale nurseries don't take good care of them, unless it is a dedicated nursery that specializes in selling CPs. It takes a lot of energy for a VFT to move and digest a prey and that will cause sudden death to VFT. It will take a month for it to recover and it is better to let it go dormant once it does. The dropping photoperiod and cooling temperature will naturally trigger it into dormancy. The plant will slow down its growth and produce smaller sluggish closing traps. Cut down the water and only keep the soil moist just enough to keep the bulb from drying out. I personally put the dormant plant in a dark cool place for about 4 months. By spring, placing it in a warm bright spot will awaken your plant. You can feed VFT once it recovers to observe its trapping mechanism but make sure you give only insects smaller then the trap. Over feeding it will kill the leaf, too large a prey that doesn't allow it to seal the trap will cause rot and kill the trap. Teasing the leaf to close without prey will weaken the plant in time and cause sudden death. It has to restore the energy it expands closing the leaf. Don't feed beef to it because the oil on the meat will cause rot and kill the trap. It is better to let the plant capture its prey naturally. But like I said, it is better to let your VFT go dormant and wait for next year. Good luck!