Question
Hi I recently sent http://www.cobraplant.com a question about what kind of plant I have. Jacob responded that I have a Sarracenia purpurea and went on to say' "It looks like it was kept in very poor light conditions, however.  Although it would prefer to go dormant this winter, it's too late to acclimate for outdoor growing.  For now keep it indoors in a very sunny south window."
My first quest ion is: Will it really survive not going dormant this winter?

I built a plant growing stand. It has four 23watt compact fluorescent bulbs that are the equivalent to four 100watt incandescent bulbs.
See it here
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/7492/pb120118fy4.jpg
http://img91.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pb120119ok2.jpg
As you can see it has mirrored surfaces. Is'a all mirrored except the bottom. As you can see there is a cape sundew there. I got it from wallmart and it looked close to death. After 2 weeks in there it has grown 11 leafs that are covered with dew. This stand is in my room which has no windows. Will this work for the Sarracenia purpurea?

Also, I had been growing venus fly traps in there that seemed to flourish. The pots started out as plants from wallmart. Each one had two flower stalks and all the traps were green. None of the leaves were long and skinny, they were all short and squat. After bringing them home and putting them in my light stand they proceeded to multiply, overflow the posts and produce 5 more flower stalks each. It wasnt until I raised the plants about 6 inches closer to the light that they started to turned red. My questions are: Why did they multiply like crazy and produce hundreds of traps but not turn red until I raised them? Why are the leaves short and wide instead of long and skinny? And why did they appear to do so well without turning red?
Thank you.
Erin

Answer
Hi Erin,

Yes, the set up you have will be fine for growing Sarracenia purpurea throughout this winter.  In spring, make sure to acclimate your plants for outdoor growing.  In general, we're staunch advocates of growing US-native carnivorous plants outdoors. Nine times out of ten we see people fail growing them indoors unless they resort to having an elaborate system such as yours.

The Sarracenia and flytrap will do fine for the winter inside under this type of lighting.  Just make sure they're allowed to experience a dormancy next winter.

The redness you see in your flytrap develops when the light intensity increases.  Because we grow our flytraps outdoors in full sun during the growing season, they all have bright red traps.  Think of it like having a nice suntan.

When plants are grown in lower light intensity, they don't develop the redness.  Because the light intensity is lower, sun-loving flytraps will produce larger leaves to increase photosynthesis.  As light intensity increases, leaves become shorter and smaller because the plant is capable of doing photosynthesis much more efficiently.  So lots of big leaves on a flytrap isn't necessarily a sign of optimal health!

By the way, photosynthesis is the process in which plants produce sugar, which they use for energy production.  This is why lots of people struggle growing US-native carnivorous plants indoors.  They are really sun-loving plants and require full sun during their growing season.  Our rule of thumb is this: if you can successfully grow a tomato plant in your home, you have sufficient sunlight to grow Sarracenia and flytraps as well.  Otherwise, keep them outside and let them experience the season.

For more information about growing carnivorous plants, download our care sheets at:
http://www.cobraplant.com/caresheets.html

Good growing!
Jacob Farin