Expert: Sarracenia Northwest - 2/1/2011

Question
Hello, I have read this answer on these threads on the website stating its oh k to skip dormancy for young seedlings of carnivorous plants the first few years before it affects their health. What I wanted to know if these baby plants were kept under full growing conditions during the winter artificially, how long would it take plants to mature? I would guess it would take less than three years as it is in the wild. Do you have any knowledge about this?

Best Regards.

Answer
Hi Cody,

Although we haven't played with this much ourselves, most growers report that about two years the plants will grow with constant temperature and photoperiod.  After that the growth gets very slow and even stops with no dormancy.  It's almost like the plant's internal seasonal clock starts to kick in as they get older.  This is also going to vary quite a bit from different species of Sarracenia, to Flytraps, to Sundews.  Venus flytraps and hardy sundews tend to do very badly without the dormancy.  You often loose hardy sundews if they don't form the winter resting buds. (Hibernacula)

Cautious fertilization is a better course of action to speed up growth.  A recent article in the ICPS journal showed a great method using Osmocote in the June 2009 "Carnivorous Plant Newsletter".

Good Growing!

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