Sarracenia, commonly known as Pitcher Plants or Trumpet Pitchers, can be wonderfully long-lived and straightforward houseplants to cultivate, gracing your home year after year. Alternatively, they can be quite demanding and short-lived.
The secret to which path your plant takes lies in following a few fundamental rules (you'll find the care instructions deeper in this guide). Get them right, and your plant will flourish; miss them, and you'll new houseplant will be gone within a few months.
Although the Pitcher Plant is more forgiving of poor treatment than their fellow Venus Flytrap cousin, they'll still die quickly and easily if you fail to give them what they need for any length of time on a frequent basis.
How do you pronounce Sarracenia? Say:
Sarr-uh-SEE-nee-uh
I won't sugarcoat it – they're not the simplest houseplants. But with a few minor tweaks to your usual plant care routine, you can absolutely have a vibrant Pitcher Plant thriving indoors with minimal fuss.
So why do they make good houseplants? There is no denying they're quite niche plants and don't appeal to everyone, they have a very carnivorous and "alive" look about them, with many varieties having blood red vein markings on the pitchers.
Insects, lured by the vibrant pitchers and enticing nectar around the slippy rim, will lose their grip and fall into the large, hollow tubes. Escape is almost impossible due to fine, downward-pointing hairs. Inevitably, the tiny captives succumb, and are slowly digested by the plant to provide essential nutrients for continued growth. For those curious about the biology and science this is a great article.
Some might find them gruesome, others utterly fascinating or even beautiful. Regardless, they're incredibly intriguing and make for truly distinctive houseplants. Their popularity simply boils down to being wonderfully different from the usual plants out there, which in turns creates interest and a passion for them.
Photo by Xscd.
When it comes to price and availability they're not cheap to buy or easy to find by any means but equally, they're not at the top end of the houseplant price spectrum or only purchasable from specialists. A good looking Pitcher Plant should probably be around the price of an orchid.
Sarracenia species are also starting to become much more common in the usual places you buy houseplants such as garden centres or even department stores.
You'll usually find a compact hybrid of Sarracenia purpurea, which tends to be one of the easiest Pitcher Plants to grow. Expect to find plants that look like the picture at the start of this article: lime green pitchers at the base rising towards the top the colours change to a shade between red and purple, some have veins or others might be lightly speckled instead.
TIP - The rhizome is the most important part of the plant. Even if all the pitchers go brown and fall off, if the rhizome is healthy then it can resprout replacement growth.
Do be cautious if buying from garden centers or department stores, as the care they're given while awaiting sale might not be quite right. Plants that haven't been treated well will swiftly lose their charm and often come with steep discounts. The rhizome, nestled just below and slightly above the soil, is the real heart of the plant. A tired-looking plant can still make a comeback if given the right care, provided its rhizome is reasonably healthy when you bring it home.
If you're serious about these plants then the specialists are the way to go. They'll label and name the variety clearly and will have grown them exceptionally well with expert knowledge and skill.
It's easy to catch the bug (pun intended) for these plants! If you want to expand your collection with other varieties and hybrids, you'll eventually need to seek out specialists selling or shipping to your area. Should you explore this path, the colors and varieties available are immense.
Hi, I'm Tom!
If you're like me and enjoy the challenge of growing houseplants and getting them to thrive, then Ourhouseplants can help. This website shares my knowledge and years of growing plants and provides (hopefully) helpful advice on properly caring for your indoor plant friends.
This is a sun-loving plant and it just can't get enough of it. During the growing season (April to October), your Pitcher Plant must get full sun, or at the bare minimum very bright light, for the pitchers to form and properly develop. South facing windows with full exposure would be this plants first and prime choice.
East and West may be suitable as a last resort, but it will need direct sun for at least a few hours a day. You may just scrape by with a bright location on a windowsill, but in almost all cases you'll need somewhere with direct sunlight exposure for a thriving plant.
If you only have space in a North facing room then a long term relationship with this plant isn't going to work out and you should look for something else to go in that room.
Pay attention because you need to get this right. There are two simple rules to remember -
If you water correctly there should, in theory, be a constant source of moisture around the plant which gives a natural buff to the surrounding humidity levels.
This means there is nothing additional you need do here unless you have a very dry home or place your plant in excessively dry air such as above a radiator. In this instance artificially raising the humidity level will be needed to prevent the tips of the pitchers from becoming crispy.
Pay attention, because you need to get the care requirements right
No fertiliser of any kind needs to normally be provided to your Pitcher Plants. They're experts at dealing with nutrient-poor situations and this is why they've evolved to capture insects.
All the nutrients they'll need will come from their own ability to trap pray within the pitchers and you don't need to give them anything extra. If you never get any insets in your home (lucky you!), then consider putting your plant outside for a few weeks or so during the Summer and they'll catch ample food during this time.
They like it warm to hot when in active growth so a typical home is perfect, and in Winter they like it cold. Really cold. Unlike almost every other houseplants they'll happily take mild frosts when dormant.
You seldom need to repot a Sarracenia into a bigger pot unless the container you're starting with is very small.
As a base guide, consider potting on once every 2 to 3 years and this is primarily to refresh the growing medium to ensure it holds water correctly as well as removing any build up of minerals that have occurred over time.
By this point in our article, you should know already that these plants are used to a lack of nutrients, and this extends to the type of growing medium they live in. You must not use any normal houseplant compost or, as someone once asked, "dirt from the yard".
There are lots of different mixes you can use or create yourself, but if you're very new to these plants and don't want to spend a long time researching growing mediums, just pick up or order some compost that's labeled for carnivorous plants.
Photo by Noah Elhardt.
You can try propagating Pitcher Plants from seed, but this needs two different parent plants and a considerable wait (3 to 5 years!) for the plant to mature enough to produce pitchers. Instead, it's usually much more efficient to use the rhizome - this is the main part of a Pitcher plant and truly holds the key to easy, successful propagation in most cases.
All you need to do is split a mature rhizome in half (or even smaller if you want more than two plants). It's best to wait until early Spring when new growth is starting so it's easier to handle and gives you a good view of where all the bits and pieces are.
Try to make sure each split of the rhizome has a few new leaves forming and some roots to give the plant the best chance of establishing. Pot up using carnivorous plant compost and treat like you would an adult plant.
With warm temperatures, excellent light levels and ample water these plants grow really fast. Several new leaves / pitchers forming each week is not unheard of.
There are many varieties and hybrids which all have different growing traits. In general, your plant will be classed as either a tall or short growing variety. Most shop or store brought Pitcher Plants will be the short fairly compact growing variety and they'll unlikely to reach more than 25cm / 10 inches. The tall varieties grow considerably higher, up to 100cm / 3.5 ft although they normally need full outdoor exposure and for that reason tend not to make good houseplants.
Given a Winter Rest (see below) come Spring the plant will come back to life and shortly after "waking up", it will often produce some interesting complex looking flowers that rise high above the plant and last for a few weeks.
These die down and are gradually replaced by the pitchers. On our own plants' flowers have also appeared in mid to late Summer if they've been treated well. They're sometimes scented although at times the smell can be unpleasant. If you find it too overpowering then you can simply cut the flower stem off.
Pitcher Plants are non-toxic to cats, dogs and people.
Many houseplants benefit from a winter rest, but for Pitcher Plants, it's absolutely essential for their long-term health and longevity. If you skip this resting process, your plant will gradually weaken and eventually perish. Good news: the winter rest is super easy to do!
High Light Levels Direct sunlight for at least a few hours a day is needed.
Heavy Watering Try to ensure the plant is sitting in water constantly.
Warm Temperatures Normal to warm indoor room temperatures are required when it's growing.
Feeding No fertiliser should be provided at any time - it creates its own by catching and digesting "prey"!.
Crispy Leaves / Pitchers.
This is caused by one of two things - firstly Sarracenia loves the sun, but if it's not used to intense sunlight then the leaves / pitchers may burn and crisp as you can see in the picture below.
The second and more likely cause is that you've allowed the soil to dry out too much during the growing season. No Sarracenia species is forgiving of its watering requirements. You must supply a constant source of water around the roots during the growing months.
In either case hopefully, you've spotted the damage and corrected the problem before it became too bad. If it's very disfiguring you can cut the damaged pitchers away and new growth will eventually fill the space.
Only producing leaves not pitchers.
If the light levels are poor then this could be the result - Move to a sunnier spot. If you're noticing this towards the end of Summer then it's probably normal. The plant knows the Winter dormancy is coming so it conserves its energy by creating more simple leaves rather than the more complex pitchers.
Give it the Winter rest and the pitchers will be back next Spring.
Pitcher Markings are fading.
You must provide high levels of sunlight to keep the markings. If the light level is too low, over time existing pitchers will develop a washed out appearance and new pitchers will either be completely green or only mildly marked.
Should I feed my Pitcher Plant with dead insects?
No. The plant is adapted to capturing live prey itself. And they can catch a lot over a growing season. If you feed the plant with dead insects then it could cause issues in the long term, for example, the insects might be dead because they were poisoned which you're now spreading into the plant.
If you really do have an insect free home and no access to put your plant outdoors occasionally then a weak houseplant feed once or twice a year might be worth considering.
Pitcher Plant not entering dormancy.
It's not known for certain exactly what triggers Pitcher Plant dormancy, the general view is that it's the combination of lower light levels with falling temperatures.
So in most cases, if your plant fails to stop growing as you approach Winter then it's likely because it's too warm in your home still.
The dormancy is essential for the continuous long term health of your plant, so if it's not happening naturally move it to a cooler spot to force the process to start.
Aphids.
Pitcher plants are quite hardy when it comes to pests and diseases, but they can be weakened and damaged overtime by pests that live on the plant. For that reason, Aphids can be a problem and if you notice them you should take action.
Over the last 20 years, Tom has successfully owned hundreds of houseplants and is always happy to share knowledge and lend his horticulture skills to those in need. He is the leading content writer for the Ourhouseplants Team.
Credit Sarracenia pitcher close up shot - Gallery - Geoff Gallice
Credit Pitcher Plant Sarracenia leucophylla - Article / Gallery - Xscd
Credit for the Pitcher Plant rhizome and the annotated diagram of a pitcher - Article / Gallery - Noah Elhardt
