the indoor garden during winter

It's snowing again today in Minneapolis. It's expected to continue for only a few more hours.

Indoors, on the other hand, looks different. I've debated with myself whether to lower the thermostat below its usual 19C/66F constant setting. I have fish (unheated) and plants (many tropicals) to consider. The cat and I have electric blankets and pads to keep us warm regardless. This old, drafty house burns a lot of natural gas for heating during half of the year.

The Christmas cactus is blooming, 3 weeks before winter solstice. I wonder if it'll bloom again 3 weeks on the other side of this dark reminder of waning daylight hours? In the background of the first picture, you can see Hope attempting to nibble on a leaf. She eats a lot of plant leaves this way.



I've mentioned many times that I dislike the box elder bugs that swarm everywhere, and I wish I had a new way to eliminate them. They're still in my house. The cold hasn't complete halted them in slumber yet. So I recently bought a Venus Flytrap on a whim at the hardware store. The leaves don't seem to attract the bugs at all, but when I place a captured box elder bug in it, it closes immediately and eventually digests it.

The plant itself isn't doing very well.  Back to that indoor room temperature topic.  Maybe this one needs higher temperatures?  It's supposed to prefer indirect lighting, but maybe the sunlight is just too short here in this northern latitude?  Maybe I should try to find a local sundew instead?  I know there are sundew varieties that are native to the swamps of Minnesota.  (We're upscale here and call them marshes.)  Or maybe a pitcher plant would actually attract the bugs?

I'm new to biological deterrents and am open to suggestions, if you know of anything that would help against this particular pest.