How to Grow Sarracenia to their best

Luckily, sarracenia are not that hard to grow. I find them easier to keep then my rose and vegetable garden. Sarracenia can tolerate dips below freezing in the winter, and over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. Since these plants are naturally from the South eastern USA. I have found all you need to do is try to copy the conditions that the plants would experience in their natural habitat. Here, in Sacramento, CA, I can grow my plants outside. In most places in the USA, as long as their growing conditions are met, these plants can happily grow outside.

Soil:

Yes, number one. Like other carnivorous plants "North American Pitcher Plants" need special soil that is low in nutrients and minerals and is a little acidic. The reason for this is where they are found in the wild "bogs" are very low in minerals an the soil is very poor. So they had too adapt to their environment. But remember for the soil. Low nutrient, and no Fertilizer what so ever unless you know how to grow these plants an how to "fertilize" them. The best thing too grow with them is Peat and Perlite mix, the universal soil for all CP's. You can grow them in Sphagnum peat moss, Sphagnum moss, silica sand, perilite, or mixes of these ingredients. If you have your plants in larger pots, you can use  orchid bark as a top dresser. 

Water:

Sarracenia need water that is pure, which means that it needs water that is low in minerals or have none at all. The best kind of water to use is distilled water, rain water, or reverse osmosis water. DO NOT use tap water, river, or well water, due to their high mineral content. To test your water quality, you can buy a TDS meter from Amazon  the ideal measure for sarracenia and most other CP's is 0-100 ppm. Sarracenias enjoy being waterlogged, they can survive being submerged in water, but that is not recommended due to rhizome rot. Best thing you can do is top water the plants, or if it is hot outside, keep them in a tray with a water level about a inch high.

Light:

These plants require full sun.This means 6 or more hours of blindingly bright sunlight. I would not use artificial lights as it just does not seem that right. If you use artificial lights or windows, your plants might not look as healthy or colorful as plants grown outside.

In terms of general cultivation techniques, soil, water and light exposure are the key things to consider. What is interesting here is that while Sarracenia in general need similar conditions, each species has subtle but important variations on the general theme. Understanding them and exploiting them given what conditions you can provide will give results. More generally, there is also a strong linkage between some cultivation concepts, such as watering, pot size and type and the tpye of soil you use. This means that a decision made early on regarding one of these parameters can and will affect how you need to treat your plants later on.