Question
Sarracenia gone green.
Greetings,
1) Sarracenia purpurea
2) When I acquired this Sarracenia, it had three small red pitchers. The new growth are these massive green pitchers, is this normal, a mutant, or something else?
3) 5-8 hrs of sunlight (brightest spot I have in my home). Using distilled water. 1 part peat moss, 2 parts perlite. I've been adding water to the pitchers as well, they didn't seem to be producing much if any of their own fluids.
4) Indoors, zone 6B.
5) Photo attached!
Love your videos! Thanks!
AnswerHi Lindi,
Thank you for providing all the information and photo. It helps me out a lot. Your plant has the classic signs of insufficient light. The plant really need lots of intense sunlight to bring out the deep red colors. When grown properly, the pitchers are stout and richly colored. You'll also feel lots of rigidity in the pitcher. When grown in low light, the pitchers are elongated and poorly colored. They'll also feel soft to the touch. Your plant is a perfect example of before and after.
This happens a lot when growing Sarracenia in the home. It's not always possible to give these plants the type of sunlight they require during the growing season. The rule of thumb is this, if you can successfully grow a tomato plant, you can successfully grow a Sarracenia. That's how much light they need.
Since you've seen our videos, you probably already know that we grow all Sarracenia strictly outdoors. Only in rare instances when we want to force plants out of dormancy early for an upcoming show would we grow them in a greenhouse. But 99.99% of our Sarracenia are strictly grown outdoors. Right now the plants are dormant. In the height of summer, our plants will typically get 10+ hours of direct sunlight.
Since you have your plant indoors, you'll need to wait until you're past the risk of frost before acclimating your plant to outdoor growing. For you, it may be mid May.
I recommend taking a a look at our Sarracenia in our photo gallery for an idea of how we grow these plants:
http://www.cobraplant.com/gallery
I also recommend reading our care sheet on Sarracenia:
http://www.cobraplant.com/caresheets
For a step-by-step guide on how to acclimate your plant to outdoor growing, watch Volume 1 of the Grow Carnivorous Plants DVD series:
http://www.cobraplant.com/DVD
Good growing!
Jacob Farin
