Question
I recently purchased various Sarracenia plants from Sarracenia Northwest. I live in Western Oregon (Zone 8a) and the plants are outdoors in full sun (what little we are getting these days) in trays of water. I also have two rescued VFTs in pots with the original potting mix.

I love the quality of the plants you sell and want them all to survive the winter in great shape.

The plants are in 3" or 4" pots and I am concerned that the pots may be too small to overwinter safely. I don't want to bury them in mulch/compost if I can avoid it.

I was wondering if I should re-pot them now to 5" to 8" pots or just place the existing pots in larger pots filled with the 50:50 mix of peat/perlite - then re-pot in the spring?

Thanks in advance.
Bill

Answer
Hi Bill,

Transplanting them to larger pots is a very good idea.  You could also put them together in a larger planter.  The plants are dormant now so they won't be disturbed much.  Most of the North American carnivorous plants are not that sensitive to transplanting anyway.  The only thing you don't want to do this time of year is division of Sarracenia.  That is best done in the spring.

Since your are in Western Oregon, the only concern for your plants in the winter is if we get an Arctic front that moves in and causes our temperatures to drop into the low 20's and teen's at night.  No matter how you have your plants potted you need to then bring them into a shelter of some kind, or cover them with black plastic until we are back to regular winter rain, then take the plastic off.  Bringing them into a garage or shed will work too.  You also want to make sure the plants are on the ground, not up on a table, shelf, or deck.  The ground contact gives them just that extra little bit of heat to survive a hard cold spell.

One special note on your Venus flytraps.  If you got these in a store recently, they are not acclimated to winter yet.  You can put them outside, and as long as we are only having rain, your fine.  Protect them well if you get a frost.  You could also just overwinter them in a cold windowsill until late March, then put them outside to stay.  If you have them indoors, or if you store them and other plants in a place like a garage, be sure to spray liberally with a fungicide.  We show you how to do this in our volume #1 DVD.

Good Growing!

Jeff Dallas
Sarracenia Northwest
http://www.cobraplant.com