Cutting back my Pitchers...

[Bryophyta69]

Whats Up All!!
Well my Pitchers are starting to Wake up, Thanx to my Harbour Freight Cold Frame Greenhouse. Anyway I was doing some dividing and was cutting back dead leaves. Can you cut these back too much??

 

[Not a Number]

If the leaves are dead, no, unless you cut into the rhizome. Even then that might lead to a new growth point.

 

[Bryophyta69]

Yeah I have a lot of Pitchers with Half brown leaves, so its cool to cut all these off even with it flowering??

 

[richs]

Definitely! I'm up to my ears right now in Sarracenia and Dionaea, and I cut back all dead leaves and phyllodia. If you're going to bare root them, I usually pull back the dead remains from previous year's growth (when the leaves and remnants are left behind and brown, they usually pop off by CAREFULLY pulling back on them, away from the rhizome) just so mealybugs and the like have one less place to camp out at! As the plants begin to actively grow, I just systematically cut down all old growth - also, as I groom them, I try to keep the growth points and the top of the rhizome clean and cut back and weed out any material that would grow over or cover the growing points.
Hope this helps out!

 

[Baylorguy]

I had a similar question about Phyllodia. The concensus was if phyllodia are still mostly green, leave them on to assist in photosynthesis. I already got rid of all my pitchers though... they were looking a bit rough

 

[joossa]

If a leaf pitcher completely brown, I prefer to "peel" it off of the rhizome at the leaf base (when repotting).

Other than that, I only cut off brown portions. Yes, this means sometimes cutting pitchers halfway, which will sometimes also make dead bug bodies spill out. Hehehe.... Anyway, I keep the old pitchers until the the plant is back in action in spring.

Also, keep in mind that you don't want to cut off healthy foliage from any S. purpurea or S. psittacina and some hybrids that contain these as they are usually slower growers and utilize old leaves in early spring.

 

[Joseph Clemens]

If it's dead and brown, I say get rid of it, it can hide or perhaps even cause problems. If it's alive and green it certainly has benefit for the plant.

Apparently some growers remove phyllodia and old leaves while they are still alive, others leave them until they are dead and brown. Personally, I like to leave everything that is alive, until after it is dead, but there have been a few times when I've trimmed off older green leaves to access and treat pests hiding in the leaf axils (connection between rhizome and leaf petiole) or when an infection of the rhizome seems likely or is actively happening.

 

[Bryophyta69]

Sounds like some good tips! thanx guys