Question
well, i purchased a small pitcher plan from Lowe's, hoping i could cut down on the occasional gnat and other small bug that seems to get into the house. it was the only one that didn't look as if it were already 80% percent on the way to being deceased out of the bunch they had. it was only labeled "pitcher plant - sarracenia." it was in a small plastic casing about 6" high by 3" across both ways. it seemed to want to be bursting out of its container, so i brought it home and repotted it to give it some more space. i put it in a sphagnum/peat sphagnum mix, as it instructed on the container. i trimmed all of the obviously dead pitchers off. it's quite small, maybe 3" high at best, with maybe 20-30 small pitchers, most of which look quite terrible by now. i put it out in the sun for parts of the day over the past week. i think my mistake may have been to not have a greenhouse-type environment for that first week to keep up its humidity. i went my the instructions on the container and kept it watered well, always from the bottom except for one day when i gingerly watered the top. i gave it a few hours outside each day to try and catch extra buge. the problem was, the soil seemed to get overly moist and the pitchers themselves (though they improved for the first two days with the humidity enclosure i made from an overturned tupperware 31-quart container) seemed to continually dry out. now even the (originally) best-looking pitchers are drying out and slowly turning brown at the tops. i wonder now if it even has enough access to get any bugs in there, much less if it has sufficient juice to kill one if it did catch it. i can post a picture if you want. i'm just hoping that i can save Henry! (yes, i already named him.) i plan on cutting the weakest and limpest looking pitchers tonight, to hopefully boost the healing ability of the remaining ones. let me know if you have some clues...

Answer
Hi Lincoln,

Your situation is not at all unusual when purchasing those terrariums.  Unfortunately, as a first-time grower, you've given yourself an incredible challenge and a very steep learning curve.  Ideally, you should develop your horticultural skills with healthy carnivorous plants first rather than learning how to grow them with weak and sickly plants.  I suppose it's like adopting a very sick dog as your first pet.  So at the outset, I want to warn you not to get upset if the plant dies.  Even with my skills, the plant may or may not make it.  

First off, ditch the instructions provided with the plant.  Those instructions are full of myths and will lead you down the wrong path.  For instance, it is an absolute myth that carnivorous plants need high humidity.  These plants grow perfectly fine without one, provided they are properly acclimated.  

From your description, your plant is likely a Sarracenia pitcher plant. You should actually grow this plant outdoors in full sun.  At our nursery, we grow all Sarracenia strictly outdoors.  These plants have never seen the insides of a greenhouse, much less a terrarium.

Now with that in mind, what I'm going to tell you to do will seem completely counter-intuitive and drastic.  But it's what I would do myself if I were given a plant as the one you currently have. The goal is to acclimate the plant to outdoor growing and to encourage new growth.  We are going to sacrifice the current leaves, and what we're looking for are new leaves.  It's still early in the growing season, so you should have a nice healthy plant by mid summer.

1. Transplant your plant in a regular plastic pot.  Get it out of the terrarium or whatever enclosure it's in and grow it in a pot like you would a regular plant.  Use a 4-inch pot.  The soil mix you're using is fine.  If you want to use a different mix, you can use 1 part peat moss and 1 part perlite.

2. Trim off all but a half dozen leaves.  Cut them off near the base of the plant.  With the remaining 6 leaves, cut it off the upper portion, about an inch.  What you're doing is reducing moisture loss through the leaves, but keeping some leaves for photosynthesis.

3. Place your plant in a saucer of water, and keep the water level no more than half way up the pot.  Use bottled distilled water if your tap water is high in minerals.  Make sure the soil is wet all the time.  

4. Place your plant in partial sunlight.  If possible, give it about four hours of direct morning sunlight with partial shade the rest of the day.  

In the next few days, you may see some leaf burn from the sudden sun exposure.  This is fine and normal.  Again, we're going to sacrifice the current leaves to help the plant develop new leaves.  

5. When you see new growth occur, place your plant in full sun, 6 or more hours of direct sunlight.  When you see two new leaves emerging, you can cut off the older leaves since they've fulfilled their purpose.  You see, what you're doing is letting your plant build up its energy reserves through photosynthesis.

Forget about bugs.  Bugs are not sources of energy for carnivorous plants.  All plants, both carnivorous and non-carnivorous plants, get their energy from sunlight.  Without proper sunlight, plants will not grow very well.

Bugs are actually forms of fertilizer.  Rather than getting fertilizer through their roots like regular plants, carnivorous plants get their fertilizer through their leaves in the form of decomposed bugs.

As a general rule among experienced gardeners, you should never fertilizer sick plants.  So in the case of a sick carnivorous plant, you shouldn't feed it bugs.  It's sort of like giving a double cheeseburger to someone with the flu.

As a reminder, your plant may die throughout the early stages of this process.  If it does, all that means is that it was too weak from the very beginning.  However, once you see new growth on your plant, you can safely assume that it'll pull through.  From that point onwards, all new leaves will perfectly acclimated to lower humidity and sunlight.  

I also recommend that you acquire another pitcher plant, but one that is healthy and already acclimated to outdoor growing.  That way you can gain experience on how to grow them.  You'll have a much easier time and fewer headaches.

If you have additional questions, feel free to submit a follow-up.  

For more information about growing Sarracenia pitcher plants and other types of carnivorous plants, read our care sheets online:
http://www.cobraplant.com/caresheets

Good growing!
Jacob Farin