Question
Hello! Recently i purchased 2 Sarracenia from an online carnivorous plant
nursery ( not Sarracenia Northwest). Well, when i finally got the plants they
seemed healthy on top(though they are dormant). While un-packaging i got a
bit careless and one of the plants popped out. Now all the other Sarracenia i
have had have always had white roots. This plant had dark roots that where
somewhat stiff. I know that's not a good sign, so i washed off all the old soil
and potted it into fresh new soil(1 part peat, 1 part perlite). Figured it might
still have a chance since the rhizome itself was white with a little bit of red to
it. Out of curiosity i decided to re-pot the other plant i got. This one also had
dark stiff roots, but i also found 3 fairly large worms. I have never ran into
this problem before, but i know worms enrich the soil they eat, so this would
be bad for cps, right? They are both different types of S. rubra. Their
rhizomes were about an inch and a half with roots about 3 inches long. Both
had dark stiff roots with healthy looking rhizomes. After my discovery both
were potted up individually into 1 gallon containers with a soil mixture of 1
part peat to 1 part perlite. Daytime temperatures have been in the 50's these
past few days and look like they might stay around that for the next two
weeks or so. I don't know if any of this information was helpful, but it doesn't
hurt to include it. I have bought from this nursery before and have never had
a problem, i tried contacting the owner but i haven't had any luck so i don't
know what's going on with that. Any comments or advice would be
appreciated. Thank you for your time! :)  

Answer
Hi Manuel,

Those roots being dark isn't a good sign.  Keep an eye on the plants as the weather gets warmer and watch for new growth.  They may still recover since Sarracenia are quite resilient.   The worms are more of a side effect than a cause of problems.  It sounds like the soil may have broken down in the pots with a combination of warm temperatures and the pots being kept too deep in water.

Keep trying to contact the nursery.  You need to let them know sooner rather than later that the plants didn't arrive in good condition so they can try and correct the situation for you.  If you're not successful in getting a response from the nursery you could consider writing a response on Garden Watchdog at: http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/  It's also great to report nurseries there when you get great service.

Good Growing!

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