My Carnivores I

So this post is a little indulgent; I want to show our collection of carnivorous plants. As I mentioned earlier, one of the first things that sparked my love for plants comes from when I was little (about 7 or 8). In one of our school book orders we had a book covering several types of carnivorous plants. I loved that book to death (until I lost it). It's been so long ago now that I don't remember what plants it covered, but to the best of my recollection, it talked about sundews, cobra lilies, butterworts, flytraps, and bladderworts. I thought it was amazing to think that some plants “ate” like animals. As a plus, some of them even moved! To an 8 year old, it's pretty amazing to think of plant moving fast enough for us to observe. Today I'll be talking about our current collection, as well as growing tips and thoughts about certain plants in relation to ease of growing, usefulness as a bug trap, etc.

Let's begin with easy plants and move to harder. Remember that this listing is going to be somewhat subjective. I might have an easier time growing certain plants than others, and a harder time than others for “easy” plants.

One more thing to note. These plants all have very specific water and soil requirements. The reason that carnivorous plants are carnivorous is due to a lack of nutrients in the soil that they grow in. They do not consume for proteins or fats, they consume only for the minerals that are absent in their soil. By growing a carnivorous plant in soil that has added nutrients (like regular potting soil) you will kill the plant. Most of these grow in bogs or other very unique places that have no minerals in the soil due to constant flow of pure water. Whenever you repot, you need to get a special mix of soil first. Either buy it premixed or mix it yourself, but look it up beforehand or you will regret it. When watering, remember too that most of the plants on this list require “pure” water. The dissolved solids need to be less than 50 parts per million(ppm). In Oregon, where I live, this isn't usually a big issue, most water sources are already less than 50.

Sarracenia

Sarracenia are a superbly easy and useful plant to grow. They are native to the United States and Canada. Often when you hear the term pitcher plant, this is what people think of (or perhaps Darlingtonia). They form trumpet shaped leaves from a rhizome, ranging from clusters of ground pitchers to pitchers that grow to 3 or 4 feet. You should absolutely do research about the variety that you're thinking about bringing home. They require full sun (which means at least 6 hours of direct sunlight every day) and need to be in standing water at all times. Let me clarify with standing water: however tall your pot is, the water should come up about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way up the side of the pot. These plants are very, very simple to grow, I have one plant, S. leucophylla. It's a gorgeous plant, sadly it doesn't look quite as well due to it going dormant for the year, but during the growing season it is beautiful. Sarracenia also catch a lot of bugs. No carnivorous plant will completely take care of your bug problems, but these will capture hornets, flies, grasshoppers, mayflies, and anything else that decides that it needs to see what's down the rabbit hole. They also have some of the most unique looking flowers of any plant I've seen.

Sexy Sarracenia flower (photo credit to Noah Elhardt and Petr Dlouhy; taken from Wikipedia)

Venus Flytraps (Dionaea muscipula)

Flytraps seem to be everyone's favorite, since they have moving parts. They are likewise very easy to grow, and grow in the same habitat as Sarracenia. The same restrictions apply here, low ppm water, full sun, and keep the pot in standing water, halfway up the side. They do not catch as many insects as Sarracenia, but do very well. Kids love them, their moving traps look like little mouths. It's important to know that each trap can only work about 6-10 times before it falls off, and it take a lot of energy for the trap to function. If you do have children, just don't let them set off the traps constantly, it will hurt the plant over time. It's also important to note that the way most people see Venus flytraps for sale in stores is actually about the worst possible way that you can grow them. The plants do poorly in terracotta pots and do not grow well indoors, furthermore they do not require high humidity to grow. If you do get a flytrap this way, you should slowly acclimate it to lower humidity by cutting holes in the plastic pot cover, adding about one a week until the inside and outside humidity is the same. They should also be set outdoors in standing water like the Sarracenia.

Sundew (Drosera sp.)

Sundew (temperate) are the most successful carnivorous plant in the world, they live on every continent except for Antarctica. This means that it is especially important to know where your sundew is from. Their care will change slightly depending upon where they are native to. In terms of temperate sundews, treat them like Sarracenia and flytraps, full sun, standing pure water. They, like the Sarracenia, are excellent bug catchers. I once overheard someone saying they were like fly paper. They trap their prey with sticky “dew” that they excrete from special hairs on their leaves. When a caught bug squirms, they generally get caught in more hairs, which slowly pull them down to the surface of the leaf where they are digested.

Butterworts (Pinguicula sp.)

Butterworts (temperate) are a bit different in care to the others. They, like the sundew are found nearly everywhere, but they have wide, almost succulent leaves. They don't care for sun quite as much as the other plants, are more permissive of water with greater than 50 ppm, and don't need to be in as much water either. It is important to know whether or not your butterwort is temperate or “tropical”, as they have slightly different needs, most specifically in soil. Most are tolerant to 2-4 hours of direct sunlight per day, followed by bright or dappled light for the rest of the day. I imagine that properly tuned shadecloth would produce great results as well. I only have one temperate variety, the primrose butterwort, Pinguicula primuliflora. It's a bit temperamental and very sensitive to fungal infections, which is why you should let the soil get almost or slightly dry before you water it. They are tolerant of drier conditions. For me, it seems like keeping it in a water tray and “bottom” watering it is the best method, filling it up just enough for the soil to become moist at the top.  You can top water it, just be careful to drain it's water tray afterwards. You do not want them sitting in water like the other three, doing so will kill the plant.  If there is excess water in the tray after watering, it'd be good to empty it.  In the photo above, only the lower left is temperate, the others are all "tropical".

Next time I will cover the “tropical” carnivorous plants that I have: Nepenthes, Cephalotus, tropical sundews, tropical butterworts, and Heliamphora.

As a side note, I apologize for my long absence. This has been a very intensive and busy term of school. As winter break approaches, my posts should become more regular. Thanks for the understanding!

For awesome carnivorous plants, check out Sarracenia Northwest! At the time of my writing, their cold hardy plants (Sarracenia and flytraps) are all on sale. Much of the information I've given today I've learned from them.

http://www.cobraplant.com/

Wikipedia is another, always wonderful resource, here are their pages for the plants I've covered today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarracenia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Flytrap

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosera

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinguicula

All the photos here are mine, except where noted. They are all under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.