Question
I'm planning on starting a bog in a year or so and I plan on including your variety of darlingtonia. I will use live sphagnum, peat, lava rock and or gravel. I live in zone 7 in Walnut Cove, Stokes county, NC. Stokes co. has a small mounain range running through the upper middle of it which makes it unique, it is also about 45 minutes from the foothills of the mountains. Could this possibly be a help to my location? I've done some research on the climate of my city. My primary concerns are the heat. This is why I'm greatly relieved to hear about the tougher mountain variety on your site. For a while I thought that only the coastal variety was possible to grow. In and around Walnut Cove the hottest months of the year are July through mid September. The high averages in the high 80's to mid 90's. Frequently there are heat waves but the worst is throughout August. The nightime lows during these months are between the lows 60's to the high 70's. I plan to use drip hoses around the cobras to keep them cool during these days. One more thing. Here in the south the words heat index are regarded with dread because of the humidity. So if it's a 94 degree day and it feels like 108 do the plants feel the same thing? Do they even register the heat index like humans do? If so I fear my chances of growing this grand plant are doomed. Please reassure me that this is not so. Also if you could evaluate my local climatology and tell me what you think my chances are of growing this plant in a bog garden I'd be grateful to you. I love you guys and I love you even more for carrying this brand of Cobra. May you receive pulitzer prizes to flaunt in the face of the other lazy ignorant bums to stupid to carry this variety. Thanks and the best of luck to you guys!! (Sorry about my long letter.)

Answer
Hi Daniel,

The interesting thing about the mountains in southern Oregon is that the humidity is lower there than on the Oregon coast.  So this variety will grow well in lower humidity.  During the day, the humidity averages about 40%.  Naturally it increases at night as the temperature drops.

The heat index is primarily for humans since we produce heat.  The heat index reading is the temperature that our bodies perceives as we radiate heat.  The higher the humidity, the less likely heat will dissipate away from our bodies.  Hence, the temperature will feel warmer than it really is.

Plants don't produce any heat, so the heat index doesn't apply to them.  However, the higher humidity and hot weather will cause the heat to hang around longer during the night.

The key to growing Darlingtonia is keeping the soil aerated and providing cool nights.  Even though the mountain variety is much more heat tolerant, it still experiences cool nights.  If the nights are consistently warm, the plant may struggle.  

It has to do with respiration rate exceeding photosynthetic rate.  Respiration is the building of plant tissue, while photosynthesis is the making of sugar for energy.  Both respiration and photosynthesis increase when the temperature increases, but respiration happens both day and night while photosynthesis happens only during the day.  

Cool nights will slow down nighttime respiration, so Darlingtonia will be able to maintain its supply of energy.  If the nights are warm, respiration rate will continue to be high, and the plant will exhaust its sugar supplies.  Early signs of exhaustion are smaller pitchers.  If the nighttime temperatures are simply too high, the plant can't make enough sugar to keep up with its metabolic demands.  In this case, the plant will collapse suddenly.

That's simply the nature of mountain species.  They survive in the mountains because the nights are much cooler.  I don't have any experience of growing this variety in your region or conditions like it.  It's the first time we're releasing this variety, so we don't have any reports from growers from other parts of the country.  We're keeping tabs on who purchases the plant, so we'll be surveying them in early fall.

If you're the adventurous type, you could experiment with the plant and see how well it grows for you in your region.  Otherwise, you could wait until next season when I'll have more information from other growers.

Thanks for your comments.  We want our customers to be successful growers, so we do what we can to improve the quality of our plants.

Good growing!
Jacob Farin