Expert: Sarracenia Northwest - 4/5/2010

Question
I live in Walnut Cove, NC and my climate zone is 7. My concern involves my the flytrap which I purchased from you guys last year. Nearly all my sarracenia are developing their growing point and several have at least one flower bud (including my Judith Hindle...I think.). The flytrap however has had very small leaves with tiny, inactive traps and overall has been greatly reduced in size and has looked rather rough. I understand that this is normal during dormancy and that in some other variations of flytrap they even die down to just the roots or one or two leaves. Now that spring weather and April is in full force, my plants leaves are turning black at the tips and edges, and the traps which were once green are now dead. Is my plant simply clearing away old dormant growth before it puts out new growth or is it quitting on me? The base of the plant (where the leaves attach to the rhizome) is visible somewhat and it looks a nice, healthy greenish-whitish. I'm just kind of surprised by this and wanted to know if it's normal for flytrap leaves to die off before new growth begins or not..that and I'm new to seeing cps through a dormancy successfully. This will be my first though and for the most part I'm very optimistic.

Thanks for your advice on this,

Daniel L Bunton

Answer
Hi Daniel,

It's very normal for any leaves that were left from the previous season to die as new ones are preparing to grow.  You did the key thing, which is to look at the rhizome, and if it looks good, the plant is probably going to be fine.  It is usually late April to May before you see flytraps really take off.  They seem to need sustained warm weather to start their vigorous growth.  This is different from many Sarracenia and sundews that will begin growing in response to photoperiod even though it may be fairly cool still.

Good Growing!

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