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Sarracenia flowers

I know that a lot of folks clip the flower stalks on VFTs to enable the plant to focus its energy on trap growth and in most cases to avoid a dead plant. Is this neccessary for Sarracenias?
 
No it is not neccessary. Sarrs build up "energy" in their rhysomes and when enough extra energy is built up they will flower. Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Conversely, I have found that S. leucophylla does better without flowering. I had loads of flowers last year and a poor crop of pitchers. This year I chopped all the flowers off and have a much better show of pitchers.
Other sarracenia don't seem to suffer from flowering.
 
Interesting... at what point did you cut the flowers?
 
It is also a good idea to clip the flowers from recently divided plants. I have lost a couple of divisions by letting them flower the same spring I divided them.
 
I clip all of my flowers if I can get to them to do so.  Some plants I have were sent to me with flowers so there was no point to the exercise of removing them and I left them because at that point, the plant is photsynthesizing via the flower stalk as well as the pitchers.

It has been my experience that flowering can stress any newly transplanted or recently divided plant. I think it is just good practice for me to nip any newly forming flowers off as soon as I spot the stalk on any plant I recently purchased. They do use a tremendous amount of energy flowering whether they are a CP or a "normal" plant.

I don't have enough experience to be able to comment on plants that have been potted or in the ground at least one year as I have been nipping those off too as soon as I spot the flower stalk coming up. I miss a few here and there but have been pretty good at getting most.  I plan to continue to do so to insure energy goes to the creation of a healthy rhizome. I doubt very seriously if I will let any of my Sarrs flower until they look strong and healthy to me or rather well established. I have very few plants that are well established as this is only my third year growing CPs although I have been growing other plants for 15 years.
 
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