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Sarracenia Hybrid (Newbie)

Hey there,
I'm new to the forums and new to carniverous plants and I figured it was about time I started to learn more about my pitcher plant.

My fiance bought it for me from (of all places) a supermarket about a year ago now, it was a token of love as I dislike flowers (i'm allergic) and he knew something as wierd as a carniverous plant would make me happy.
Anyway, a year on the once tiny little thing is HUGE. It lives in our bathroom window and i'm no expert, but it looks happy enough... I think.

It does however seem to be getting too big for the tiny little plastic pot it came in. So my question is, what should I do? Should I leave it be or risk repotting? how do you repot them?

Is there anything I should be doing to promote it's health and growth?

Here's a picture taken about 8 months ago, i'll try to take a more recent picture some time today.
Bitey.jpg


The bowl it's in now resembles much more of a swamp, it's rather well.. boglike to be honest and it's roots are starting to force their way out of the pot.

Anyone know what species this is either? It's some sort of Hybrid according to it's tag but that's about all I know.
 
It looks like a Purp x Minor, and nice looking at that! Since it is right in the middle of their growing season, I would probably just wait until early spring before I would repot it. Don't want to put it through any unnecessary shock. All you have to do to repot it is pull it out of the pot that it is in and put it in a bigger pot with peat and sand or peat and perlite or peat, perlite and sand, whichever you choose. You can get some of the old peat off if you like as well.
 
Looks like Sarracenia x catesbaei (flava*purpurea) or a complex hybrid of catesbaei. It looks like it would color up nicely outdoors. The purpurea in it is what has let it grow ok in lower light.

Go up at least one size pot with a 50/50 mix of peat moss and perlite/sand. Make sure the peat moss and perlite does not contain fertilizer (read the back of the package). If sand use washed horticultural sand, play sand, or silica sand. Silica sand can be obtained from sand blasting (16 mesh) or pool/spa supply stores.

You usually repot Sarracenia any time, but the best time is usually late winter or early spring. This is when they should be coming out of dormancy and begin their active growth phase.

You can wash away the old soil if you wish, gently removing as much as possible by hand then gently swish the root ball in a bucket of purified (distilled, rain or RO filtered) water. Or just repot it as is. If the plant has grown this well for a year your water and soil should be ok.

If you do expose the rhizome you may see that it could be divided into one or more parts. Gently work the rhizome to see where the division areas are and cut the rhizome with a knife or snap it like a raw potato and plant the divisions in seperate pots.

Sarracenia tolerate some root crowding so you can leave them until the roots are literally bursting from the pots.
 
It looks like a Purp x Minor, and nice looking at that!

Or that too. Best to just say "unknown hybrid". The flowers could give a better idea but flowering could be a few years off yet.
 
Well, it looked healthy all those months ago. It's very very red now, is that normal?
bitey3.jpg

bitey2.jpg
You can see a little damage from something (likely a wasp) on one of the stems which has caused it to deform a little
Bitey1.jpg

bitey4.jpg

Who'd have thought it was meant to be summer aye? I'm in the uk so yes, it's raining.. again.
(ignore the duckies and scissors and nail kit, we keep a lot of junk on the windowsill evidently.. lol)

The roots are indeed trying to escape the pot, when I lift it out of it's bowl there are some coming out of the holes in the bottom of the pot and trailing into the water itself.

The other problem we currently have is that several of the pitchers are begining to brown around the tips of the hoods. Is this just normal dying down or sun damage? Should I do anything about it or just leave it?
Biteydamage.jpg
 
Yes, it does look healthy and with surprisingly good color. And it looks more like x catesbaei from the more recent photos. It would probably get an even darker maroon in full sunlight outdoors.

How many hours of direct sunlight is it getting near the window?

Oh, if and when you divide the rhizome make sure each division has a growing point and a good root system.
 
I thought the hoods were a little too rounded for Catesbaei, but who knows with hybrids aye?

well it's a south facing window so we get a fair amount of dappled sun through it. I'd say 8 hours at least? I'm not entirely sure. Depends entirely on the time of year, in winter we get next to no light with sundown at 3pm but summer it's certainly still nice and bright on that side of the house till rather late.

Should I do anything about the browning pitchers or just leave them? and should I try to repot/seperate it? it's getting rather er.. massive.
I'll see how it is come early spring, I wonder if it can get much bigger in the pot it's in now. Oh dear, it's gonna take over! (lol)

I wish I could give it some outdoors, but the uk really isn't the best environment for the poor things. It's cold and wet and especially up north where I am, prone to flooding. Oh well.
 
Yes, difficult to say with hybrids, it could well be x swaniana (purpurea x minor). The last photo looks more x catesbaei from the biggest pitchers, but the others look more x swaniana ???

It seems happy where it is so leave it be.

Leave the browing pitchers as is or trim the brown part off. It will look worse trimmed, I would leave it be.

You may have to place the pot into a larger one for the time being to keep it from tipping over.
 
Might be an idea actually, i'll keep an eye on it and if it starts looking unstable i'll get it something to sit in for a while till i'm ready to repot.

You're right, the hoods DO look like Swaniana only with a more prominant dip in the center. Strange. It's likely to be a hybrid of so many different things that identifying it's parents will be near impossible. It's got red from somewhere, Swaniana type hoods and features of a couple of others breeds too. Ahh the wonders of Hybrids. Still, it's pretty.

thank you so much for your help! When it hits spring i'll be full of questions about how to repot/seperate etc and full of fear of killing the poor thing.
 
  • #10
best just to label it "Unknown purpurea hybrid". looks like a very nice plant and your lucky to be able to get that kind of color on a windowsill!!
Alex
 
  • #11
It's looking good to me. It's definitely getting enough sun if it's that red.

You can leave it in the pot if you wish, but it might be even happier in a larger pot (and look a bit better). You can repot into an Irish moss peat / perlite mix and split it with scissors if you wish. Maybe put the spares on ebay?

It's not a catesbaei - it's a Dutch tissue cultured hybrid which is very common in garden centres. It definitely has purpurea and minor in it, but possibly something else.
 
  • #12
I think actually I may have found a likely suspect for it's breed. Sarracenia x catesbaei x alata, has the very distinctive wide hoods with that dip... hmmmm.
http://www.karnivores.com/img/catesbylata.jpg

But the red colouration...

thank you Alex! it is a remarkably red plant, i'm not sure what I did to achieve that. A shere fluke I assure you, but not bad for a first time. The side against the window is so so vivid. Fingers crossed it continues to thrive with my minimal attention, i'm so scared to do anything to it for fear of damaging it. (i'm a wuss, I really am)
 
  • #13
Wow! That looks very nice! I'm surprised. Most peoples' first CP is a Wal-Mart Venus Flytrap. I'm impressed! You have a green thumb to be sure, you should grow more... addicting little hobby.

Yeah. Definitely something with purpurea in it. It's impossible to tell I'm sure... Sarracenia don't have huge roots so repotting may not be an issue even though the plant looks like it dwarfs the pot and might just burst loose at any moment. Repotting does aerate the soil though. I would also say repot in early spring. It looks like a near mature plant. And even though you're allergic to flowers it might just do that! They are beautiful though. Don't worry, they lose their petals in 10 days or so... or whenever they are successfully pollinated.
 
  • #14
Yeah, it's odd really. It's about a year old.. maybe a year and a half.. least that's how long i've had it. Who knows how old it was when my man bought it. I'm tempted to buy another as a test subject and attempt repotting that before tackling Bitey here (yes it's named Bitey.. heheh, our bonsai is Bubbles) just to see how it goes.

Yeah, the flowers do look pretty, i'd love to see what colour they'll be. Red or yellow? oooo

I'm sure when it does flower i'll have a heck of a lot of questions about what to do with it. I honestly am a complete noob when it comes to CP care. I've put a jug outside to catch rainwater as i've read all over the place that tap water is bad (ooops) so we'll see how that goes. Anyone else got any tips? dos and donts?
 
  • #15
does it go through dormancy?
 
  • #16
Well whatever you are doing I would keep on doing as it seems to be right :-D

Don't fertilize the plant.

Don't skip dormancy.
 
  • #17
How do I stimulate domancy and when should I do that? Our house is always a constant temperature so I don't think it gets the chance to realise "hey winter!". Any suggestions? What sort of conditions does it need to go into dormancy and how do you care for it while it's dormant? when should this happen.. etc etc.

cheers guys!
 
  • #18
If you don't have a greenhouse, I'd place it outside in early November. Put it somewhere sheltered, out of the wind, and it should slow down growth. Then bring it back inside in late February. Consider wrapping the pot in bubble wrap.

They can take being frozen, but a larger pot would just insulate the roots a little more.
 
  • #19
Hmmm, I don't know if we have anywhere appropriate. We have the worlds smallest garden here honestly, heh. No porch either alas. hmmm... only place I can think of is the coal bunker but that doesn't get any light to it.
Bubble wrap? er.. ok... i'll give it a go.
 
  • #20
Very nice looking plant. I would repot it, particularly in the winter, when it is dormant. You could do it now, but I would coax the entire contents as one unit and place in a deeper and wider pot. I would also have it in a container that is deeper and can hold more depth of water.
 
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