Question
This is my first winter with my CP's..i watched the podcast from sarracenia northwest and they said at this point in their dormancy to trim off the old leaves to allow light to hit the new leaves that will come up in the spring...so i did on the sarracenias (purple, minor, and flava) but they didnt say how much to trim off..i basically took scissors and gave my pitcher plants a buzz cut..is that tooo much?
I didnt cut off anything from my VFTs because i had already cut off the dead leaves earlier in the winter and the few leaves that were left were green..just not opened all the way. Did i just kill my plants or did i do well?

Answer
Hello Matt,

Sarracenias often let most of their leaves die back and start growing winter leaves that look like flattened and curly pitchers to some extent called phylodia. They are basically to capture late winter light. The best bet is to cut back all the tallest leaves about half way or so. The lower sections will mostly live and give the plants some leaf surface to work with after winter.

Sarracenia purpurea can merely just be clipped back to remove dead or dying pitchers. The pitchers that remain alive should be left there for next year as they tend to grow rather more slowly than most other Sarracenias and have low lying leaf patterns anyways. If you clipped off the pitchers and left a little greenery around the base of the plant it will be fine, but it will be a while before you see another pitcher fully form.

It is unlikely that you have killed your plants with a little clipping and cutting. A cow is likely to do more to these plants in nature and they would survive that and grow new leaves. Don't worry. The main thing is to ensure that they get the equivalent of full sun next spring so that when they come out of dormancy they will immediately have plenty of light to gather the energy they need to grow.

Christopher