Expert: Sarracenia Northwest - 10/14/2011

Question
Hello,

I bought a P. primuflora plant from you a little over a month ago. The others butterworts I bought are doing great, but the primuflora isn't. A week or two ago, its larger, older leaves started shriveling up and the new growth was extremely stunted. Today, the larger leaves are dead and the newer leaves are now shriveling. I've had this happen to me in the past, once it starts happening I cannot stop it and the plant dies. I cannot figure out what is responsible for it; it just doesn't make sense that the others are all doing great except one. The cause I can think of is when I was unpacking it and taking the tape off it ripped the plant out of the soil. I put it back though and it seemed to do fine right after that, so I'm assuming if that were the cause then it would have died much sooner.

Conditions: It's in the soil you planted it in when you shipped it. I use water from a reverse osmosis filter. It's in a SE facing window sill, so it gets some direct morning sun and then bright indirect sun starting before noon. I'm near the coast in southern California, it has not been cold here, it's been pretty warm still.

Thank you,

Aaron

PS sorry if the quality of the photo is not good enough, I can take another with my better camera if you need it. But I thought this would suffice to show the jist of things.

Answer
Hi Aaron,

Thank-you for the photo.  That always helps.  

Unfortunately, your main plant already on it's way out, and you may not be able to do much about that.  You do have a small "pup" that formed from a leaf that you can still salvage.

Under the best of circumstances P. primuliflora is a fussy customer.  The problem is that it is so prone to root rot it can be difficult to maintain at the right moisture level to keep it wet enough, but not too wet.  It is, however, one of the easiest Butterworts to propagate, so it's one of the most commonly seen Butterworts for sale.  Jacob did a podcast a couple years ago that will give you some great information:  http://www.youtube.com/user/SarraceniaNorthwest#p/c/7C076C23FD3DFB68/13/2fMIi2f4

As you'll see in the video, a more mineral mix for the soil really helps, and I've personally had better luck when this plant is in larger pots.  Since you live in Southern California, there's also no reason why you couldn't have this plant outside all year.  Having the outdoors tends to keep some of the soil pathogens at bay from the stronger UV light.  I've had some take freezes into the low 20's here in Oregon, and I guessing you never see temperatures that cold.  Planting them with some taller Sarracenia to provide a little dappling of the sun can work quite well.  It's common to see pictures of them in the wild this way.  I've also found having them in live sphagnum(not dead or dried) can work well since live sphagnum has some strong anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties.

Hope this helps.

Good Growing!

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