Question
My tropical pitcher plant lives in a terrarium that makes dead pitchers hard to prune off, so I'm afraid to cut them. It it okay to leave them on it?  Thanks.

A trap is dying on my Paradisia Venus Flytrap when the rest of the plant looks perfectly healthy, including the part that attaches the trap to the petiole.  Will I harm the plant if I cut a green part of it when I cut off the dead trap?

Thanks.

Answer
Hello Bill,

Most Nepenthes (Tropical Pitcher Plants) are able to live open pot and adapt to lower humidity levels. There are only a few species that absolutely cannot seem to adapt and require terrariums or green houses. If your species is one that is more adaptable, you may consider repotting it some time as an open pot plant after slowly adapting it for several weeks to your home humidity levels. That would make it easy to trim and prune as needed.

There is nobody in Borneo or Mt. Pinatubo to trim off dead leaves, so I think leaving them there will pose no major problem. Just keep an eye out for mold in that terrarium (that is the main reason trimming dead leaves is a good idea in closed environments with plants). Mine grow open pot in 40-50 percent humidity and I quite often forget to trim and prune them for months. They have a number of dead pitchers and leaves as well as vines entwining my lighting system now.

You can clip the entire leaf off down to the soil surface on your Venus Flytrap and it will not harm the plant in the least. It is usually best practice to simply clip off the dead part and leave the green for photosynthesis. The traps tend to die back and the petioles tend to remain green for a few weeks afer.