Growing Juvenile Plants
Juvenile Sarracenia can be raised in a terrarium under lights for two to three years before they need to join the adults and start the cycle of seasons. When the Sarracenia seedlings have about 5 leaves, they can be transplanted into pots with the plants spaced about 2 cm apart or 9 to a standard 8.5 cm (3 inch) pot. If you use long fibered sphagnum, it should be chopped into 1 cm or shorter lengths so the plants can be transplanted later without breaking the roots. The pots should be put into a terrarium under 4 fluorescent bulbs or the equivalent. The lights should be on for 16 to 18 hours per day and it is a good idea to line the outside of the terrarium with aluminum foil or mirrors to maximize the amount of light the plants get. As the plants grow too large for the community pots, you may want to transplant the larger ones individually into 5 cm (2 inch) pots.
If you have a greenhouse that stays between 15° to 32°C (60° to 90°F) year round you can push your Sarracenia there as well. At higher latitudes they may need some supplementary lighting in the winter to keep them from going dormant. The plants benefit from being bumped up into larger pots sooner. They can go immediately individually into 5 cm (2 inch) pots and after a year into 8.5 cm (3 inch) pots.
The tricky part of growing Sarracenia indoors or a greenhouse is how and when to acclimate them to life outdoors. Too early in the spring, the cold nights could trigger dormancy and halt their growth for a few months. Too late in the spring or early summer, the heat and intense sun could burn off all their foliage. Sarracenia are very tough plants and they should recover quickly. But you put all this effort into getting your plants full grown as quickly as possible and don't want to blow it after so much effort. Plants can be set back a year if the acclimatization goes wrong.
