Growing Some Carnivorous Plants in an English Garden

Insect-eating plants are now quite widely and inexpensively sold in garden centres, and it turns out quite a few do rather well without the need for a heated greenhouse or conservatory. My plants spend the summer outdoors from about late April through to the end of September, at which point they’re brought inside and put on an east-facing windowsill in an unheated room.

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Seedling Drosera and Sarracenia

These seedlings are about nine months old and were produced using a kit picked up at Oxfam of all places for a couple of quid. None of the Venus flytrap seeds germinated, but one Sarracenia germinated, and dozens of Drosera.

The Sarracenia is the small pitcher-plant at bottom left; it’s apparently some variety of Sarracenia leucophylla. The sundews are Drosera capensis, and by the following year these plants had produced flowers, and those flowers produced more seed, so now I have hundreds of the little blighters!

Seedling Sarracenia leucophylla

Here’s the pitcher-plant seedling at about ten months and moved into its own little pot. Compared to the sundews, the growth rate of this species is very slow, and even two-and-a-half years later, it was still quite a small plant, the tallest pitchers being about 20 cm tall.

Venus flytraps

The Venus flytrap Dionaea muscipula is probably the most loved carnivorous plant, but has a reputation for being difficult to keep. This hasn’t been my experience at all. This specimen has done extremely well so far, and has overwintered in an unheated room twice so far, and by its third year in my keeping was split into two plants successfully, one of which will be left outdoors all year to see how it copes. The other will be brought inside once the autumn nights get chilly.

Frost!

This Drosera aliciae was out outdoors just a little too soon in 2009, and a late frost did quite a bit of damage. The foliage died back almost entirely before it was brought back indoors to rest in an unheated room that was cool but not frosty. Once taken outside though it recovered quite rapidly, and by June there were plenty of new leaves. Note the stray Drosera capensis seedling at the front of the pot: they get everywhere!

More frost damage!

This hybrid butterwort, Pinguicula “Weser” was also put out too soon, and again, frost did quite a bit of damage. Some slugs also managed to get onto the plant, and they did even more damage. But the plant recovered readily enough once summer began. Yet more Drosera capensis seedlings can be spotted in the background.

Overwintering Sarracenia

Sarracenia purpurea is hardy in England, and I leave my specimens outdoors all year around. To be fair, they look very shabby by the end of winter, and the leaves generally die back through early spring. It seems to be safe to remove them, and by late spring/early summer there are plenty of new pitchers forming.

Creating a bog garden

Apparently many other Sarracenia are hardy enough to stay outdoors in Southern England if carefully mulched before it gets too frosty. With that in mind, I created this simple bog garden by filling a plastic urn with a mix of Mountain Gold peat and silica sand. The species included here are Sarracenia leucophylla, Sarracenia purpurea, Sarracenia “Wrigleyana” and one half of my Venus flytrap.

The bog garden two months later

Apart from all the weeds, the most obvious thing is how much redder many of the plants turn when kept outdoors exposed to direct sunlight rather than indoors where the light is filtered through glass. The Venus flytrap has done astonishingly well and seems to have tolerated being divided into two plants very successfully.

A Darlingtonia at Down House

Charles Darwin was fascinated by carnivorous plants, and there’s a surprisingly good collection of them in the greenhouse at his home, Down House. It’s well worth a visit.

A Nepenthes at Down House

Besides the plants in pots, there are plenty of tropical pitcher-plants in the greenhouse at Down House as well. These are said to be rather difficult to keep without the humidity a greenhouse provides, but they’re still fun plants to look at, even if keeping them isn’t an option.