Expert: Sarracenia Northwest - 6/22/2010

Question
Hello,

Please excuse me for this type of question I know you don't enjoy answering these but I need help. About two questions ago you gave me the adress for a forums to help me with these questions but my account is stll waiting for aprovel. My question is about the Cobra Plant I was wondering what do you think about one growing in Florida? I read they like cool nights but Florida isn't having cool nights...  I would really love to have one of these amazing plants in my collection but if you could tell me if or not this is a wise idea.

Thank You, Justin

Answer
Hi Justin,

What this really comes down to is how much money your willing to spend, and how much trouble your willing to go through to grow these.  Here's what your up against.  Many, many cp growers in the Eastern U.S. have tried to grow Darlingtonia with limited success.  The warm summer nights and the humidity seem to be the biggest obstacle.  Darlingtonia are not bothered by high daytime temperatures, but then need a nighttime cooling.  Once temperatures cool in the fall it's less of an issue.

Here's a couple ideas.

1.  I remember a few years ago Susan Farrington at the Missouri Botanical Garden reported good success by growing Darlingtonia in styrofoam ice chests.  What she would do is plant the plants in them, then cut holes in the lids for the leaves to poke through.  The ice chests had holes in the bottom for drainage.  In the morning, cold water was flooded into the units with an ice cube or two put on the soil during the heat of the day.  It sounded like this method worked well, but it's a bit lacking on aesthetics.

2.  You could plant them the way we do in low, wide beds or trays, but have a chiller for a water drip system.  With this method you get to spend some money.  You could retrofit one of those little cube refrigerators (the small ones many college students use in dorms) to hold a coil of hosing.  With a small pump you could put drippers on the soil bed.  This way they would get that constant cool water and oxygenation like they are used to in nature.  Since I'm not sure what your water situation is like, one way to accomplish this would be to have a small R.O. unit purifying your tap water, going through the refrigerator, then on to your plants.  The R.O. discharge could go to garden and yard plants.  $$$$$$$$

In Florida, I would definitely wait until late winter to try any method.  You would want to start when your weather isn't super hot yet to give the plants time to establish.  One thing this year that became painfully obvious to us is that establishing new root growth after transplanting is what often makes or breaks Darlingtonia.  We lost roughly 25% of our plants after transplanting.  Also, they don't take well to division the way Sarracenia do.  Best results come from waiting for stolon offshoots, or grow them from seed.

One other suggestion I have is to see if you can get some live sphagnum moss and use that for your planting medium.  Darlingtonia seem to do very well in live sphagnum since it acts like a natural root cooler, and helps ward off certain pathogens.

Hope this helps.

Good Growing!

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