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Sarracenia trouble

  • Thread starter Benj
  • Start date
I have some concerns over two of the sarracenia in my collection. First is the leucophylla. It is past mid June now and it still has yet to put up a single pitcher. I realize they put on their best show closer to the fall but this seems strange to me. It has only put up phyllodia. I got this plant around mid summer last year but since waking up from dormancy this year it hasn’t done anything impressive. It tried to flower but it just dried up early on.IMG_0967.jpeg
As for the other sarracenia I’ve had the same issue since I’ve had it. I got this plant as a free rhizome from a California carnivores order. Since the beginning it has put up some pretty cool looking pitchers but the problem is they’re too weak to stand up straight. They always end up flopping over without fail. I don’t know what to do with it.IMG_0968.jpeg
 
Has the sarrs been recently moved? Id say not enough light, but the currwnt photos show sun, how many hours do they get?
 
Has the sarrs been recently moved? Id say not enough light, but the currwnt photos show sun, how many hours do they get?
I moved them outside from dormancy around May 18th and they’ve been in the same spot since then. The sunlight starts hitting them around 8:30-9 AM until around 4:45 PM.
 
Mid-late May is really, really late for a season start, where in the country are you? Could be they're stressed from a late season beginning and haven't made the appropriate roots to deal with new summer conditions. A leucophylla not making any spring pitchers really isn't outside the norm though.
 
Mid-late May is really, really late for a season start, where in the country are you? Could be they're stressed from a late season beginning and haven't made the appropriate roots to deal with new summer conditions. A leucophylla not making any spring pitchers really isn't outside the norm though.
I live in Illinois about an hour southeast of Chicago. I put them under grow light in a room that’s not heated so they can undergo dormancy but not freeze as they would outside. I just upped the light time as the hours grew longer outside.image.jpg
 
My leuc has grown only one small-ish pitcher so far this year, but did bloom. Your leuc looks reasonably healthy but the other Sarr doesn't and not only because it's floppy. It looks a little withered and the color seems a little off, kind of like a person who is sick. If that were my plant, I'd pop it out of its pot to have a look at the condition of the roots. And by "pop" I mean gently slide out the potting mix + root mass with minimal disturbance.

FWIW, I grow my Sarrs outdoors year-round in hardiness zone 6A-B CT and they freeze solid every winter, but I prepare them for it. I dig up a small area, just deep enough so that the rim of the tallest pot is 1"+ above ground level and then I put all the pots in there, putting some dirt back beneath the lower pots so they also extend above ground level. Then I fill in around the pots to avoid leaving any empty space between them but without dirt spilling into the pots. Then I pile fallen leaves, pulled weeds, and twigs over them, aiming for a foot or so. That setup offers protection from the coldest cold (they've survived -10F) and it also buffers them from repeated freeze-thaw cycles, which might be equally damaging. I slowly uncover them in spring.

Depending on where you are, it looks like you could be a full zone colder than me, so YMMV. I think it's easier and more reliable, when possible, to adjust natural conditions as needed than to try to provide a suitable but completely artificial conditions.

A couple additional thoughts about over-wintering not-quite hardy plants under leaves in case you might be interested: First leaves are not all alike. Red oak leaves are awesome, curling up a little when dry and insulate like down in a sleeping bag without restricting aeration. Maple leaves are inclined to mat down into a soggy mass and can suffocate what's underneath. I lost my easy supply of oak leaves so I use a mix of less ideal leaves now, which is why I've begun adding twigs and weedy grasses to provide some structure.

Another thing learned from unfortunate experience is that snow can be an enemy, not always a friendly blanket providing additional insulation. Back when we tended to get a more persistent snow cover here, it dawned on me during an especially snowy winter that water from snow melting at the top on a warm day has to be percolating down and might re-freeze below. A little excavating found a couple inch thick solid mass of ice and leaves on top of everything. That was the only time I lost previously healthy CPs and hardy orchids during the winter. I started erecting a lean-to after that to keep most of the snow off. I keep far fewer plants now so don't do the lean-to anymore and instead just use my snow shovel to slice the top off of our increasingly rare snow accumulations.
 
Or, maybe it’s de-evolving back into a nonCP?
 
My leuc has grown only one small-ish pitcher so far this year, but did bloom. Your leuc looks reasonably healthy but the other Sarr doesn't and not only because it's floppy. It looks a little withered and the color seems a little off, kind of like a person who is sick. If that were my plant, I'd pop it out of its pot to have a look at the condition of the roots. And by "pop" I mean gently slide out the potting mix + root mass with minimal disturbance.

FWIW, I grow my Sarrs outdoors year-round in hardiness zone 6A-B CT and they freeze solid every winter, but I prepare them for it. I dig up a small area, just deep enough so that the rim of the tallest pot is 1"+ above ground level and then I put all the pots in there, putting some dirt back beneath the lower pots so they also extend above ground level. Then I fill in around the pots to avoid leaving any empty space between them but without dirt spilling into the pots. Then I pile fallen leaves, pulled weeds, and twigs over them, aiming for a foot or so. That setup offers protection from the coldest cold (they've survived -10F) and it also buffers them from repeated freeze-thaw cycles, which might be equally damaging. I slowly uncover them in spring.

Depending on where you are, it looks like you could be a full zone colder than me, so YMMV. I think it's easier and more reliable, when possible, to adjust natural conditions as needed than to try to provide a suitable but completely artificial conditions.

A couple additional thoughts about over-wintering not-quite hardy plants under leaves in case you might be interested: First leaves are not all alike. Red oak leaves are awesome, curling up a little when dry and insulate like down in a sleeping bag without restricting aeration. Maple leaves are inclined to mat down into a soggy mass and can suffocate what's underneath. I lost my easy supply of oak leaves so I use a mix of less ideal leaves now, which is why I've begun adding twigs and weedy grasses to provide some structure.

Another thing learned from unfortunate experience is that snow can be an enemy, not always a friendly blanket providing additional insulation. Back when we tended to get a more persistent snow cover here, it dawned on me during an especially snowy winter that water from snow melting at the top on a warm day has to be percolating down and might re-freeze below. A little excavating found a couple inch thick solid mass of ice and leaves on top of everything. That was the only time I lost previously healthy CPs and hardy orchids during the winter. I started erecting a lean-to after that to keep most of the snow off. I keep far fewer plants now so don't do the lean-to anymore and instead just use my snow shovel to slice the top off of our increasingly rare snow accumulations.
I think I see what you’re saying with its appearance, it does look a bit off to me as well. I’ll check out the roots and see what’s going on. About the floppy pitchers though, I had some guy tell me that’s something that can happen when you cross a purpurea with a tall sarr. Have you had any purp hybrids with the same issues? Do some of them just have less stability than others? It’s my first purp hybrid so I wouldn’t have any other to compare it to.

I live in Joliet, Illinois and it seems that I’m in zone 6A if I looked it up correctly. I would like to grow them outdoors year round just didn’t trust myself with getting them through the winter alive.
 
  • #10
If you're in 6A you're slightly warmer than me, and I keep Sarrs outdoors year-round presently. Still some losses even with the cover and mild additional heat I provide, but nothing even then like the rot I had when trying to overwinter in the basement. Conditions that promote fungus and rot are way more dangerous than freezes, and way, way harder to get them to be happy the following spring outside.
 
  • #11
If you're in 6A you're slightly warmer than me, and I keep Sarrs outdoors year-round presently. Still some losses even with the cover and mild additional heat I provide, but nothing even then like the rot I had when trying to overwinter in the basement. Conditions that promote fungus and rot are way more dangerous than freezes, and way, way harder to get them to be happy the following spring outside.
I haven’t had any rot or fungal problems the last 2 winters though it’s probably because I keep them a lot drier when they’re dormant. But I do think I’d like to try out outdoor dormancy, I just don’t know how much maintenance that requires. Since I’m away at my university during dormancy any complications would have to be dealt with by my brother.
 
  • #12
Little time or maintenance is required when my Sarrs winter outdoors, but the timing of what I do probably doesn't align with a university schedule if you're away for the entire semester. An hour or two is required in mid-late fall to put the plants where they'll spend the winter, an hour in the spring moves them back to their summer home, and no more than a cumulative hour is spent in between to add more or remove some leaves and, as needed, remove snow. So you might be doing the best thing for them now and you can experiment with wintering them outdoors once you return to the real world.
 
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