Sarracenia Purpurea

[JMurphy97]

I was looking in some books and found that this plant grows in Northern America and Eastern Coast. Would I be able to grow this year round outside in Wisconsin? Does anyone here have any and do it?

 

[Est]

S. purpurea is a pretty hard one, I'm not sure how much frost they can take though. I know that they can freeze pretty nicely and thaw out just fine. However, I think that in your area that you'd probably want to throw the plant in to an unheated garage or something of the like for winter. You probably get a good amount of snow in the winter, eh?

 

[Gawd_oOo]

Sarracenia purpurea subsp. purpurea grows native all over Wisconsin, and into Canada.

Given enough bio-mass around it, it will survive out winters just fine. I just got some at the begining of fall. So they are getting a cushy indoor dormancy this year, but they will be planted in my yard in spring, and left to fend for themselves. However I should mention that I do have a small natural bog in my yard. Sphagnum mat and under lying peat. That is where I am going to plant them. The spag seems to stretch out as winter approaches, and catch much leaf litter. I think that will provide plenty of insulation for the Sarracenia purpurea subsp. purpurea to survive winter.
If I didn't have the natural bog, I would just cover them with 1-2' of leaves, and then uncover in spring.

 

[PoWeRPSUHort]

4-6 inches of pine needles is more effective than leaves I have found from experience with my man-made bog in central PA. Plus, they burn off much easier than leaves so you can give your pitcher plants that annual burn which btw REALLY helps with growth.

I have have purpureas that wre blocks of ice; they don't care one bit about cold. The worst that will happen is that their leaves may be deciduous in VERY cold winters

 

[Bugweed]

RIGHT!

 

[jimscott]

Check this topic out. It's a gem!

WildBill's recipe for successful outside cultivation

 

[Brian_W]

I agree with what the others have said.  I lived in Northern Michigan before, and it was very cold in the winter.  There were plenty of purple pitcher plants growing in the local bogs.

I think the real trick is to find S. purpurea ssp. purpurea comercially.  Most CP nurseries are located in warmer areas, and they usually only carry S. purpurea ssp. venosa, which isn't as tolerant to cold weather.  I know of one nursery in Oregon that carries ssp. purpurea.  

Here, check out this link to see S. pupurea in Michigan...covered with snow! :
Brrrr...

 

[Drosera36]

I have one S. purpurea that I left outside in it's pot (without any insulation) and it had 3 inches of snow on it and it's pot and the liquid in it's pitchers were frozen solid! But now it's in my garage, and has thawed out and is slowly growing.

 

[RL7836]

I agree w/ most of what's been said except:

Quote[/b] ]If I didn't have the natural bog, I would just cover them with 1-2' of leaves, and then uncover in spring.

Fallen leaves tend to form a fairly impervious layer over your plants and, depending on the conditions, may smother them. Another grower who had a number of rare VFT cultivars lost all of them the year he decided to cover his bog w/ leaves.

As PoWeRPSUHort recommended, pine needles (or maybe straw) are reasonably ideal as they provide dead air space which helps insulate your plants w/ out completely cutting off air exchange (although that does sound like a dichotomy...

)

 

[herenorthere]

Leaves aren't all the same. Maple leaves are plant killers because they mat down and suffocate whatever's beneath them. Oak leaves, on the other hand, curl up and will stay loose, especially is you keep snow off them. I have a supply of needles from a white pine and leaves from a pin oak and consider the leaves to be a better blanket.

 

[nepenthes gracilis]

In most natural bogs, Sarracenia are in the open so viturally no leaves are present for any sort of insulation, not even pine needles. I just let the snow insulate.

 

[PoWeRPSUHort]

I used to do that, but found that the pitcher quality in the following season was better after application of the pine needle mulch coupled with a spring burn.

 

[herenorthere]

It all depends on where you are and what's available.  Dustin can probably count on a good snow cover, but I'll usually have little or no snow on the ground at least a couple times every winter.  So snow works well for Dustin and I use leaves from the pin oak in front of my house.  And rig up a little lean-to to keep the snow off those leaves.  If an oak tree weren't so convenient, I wouldn't drive around looking for one; I'd experiment with pine needles from the back yard or maybe do something completely different.

 

[Gawd_oOo]

Quote[/b] ]In most natural bogs, Sarracenia are in the open so viturally no leaves are present for any sort of insulation, not even pine needles. I just let the snow insulate.

Oh come on. you must have quite different natural bogs by you..
First off they grow mixed in with grasses and sedges, and grass mats down just as much as leaves from trees.
The locations I have found Sarracenia purpurea growing have had a good amount of trees and shrubs near by or directly by them. Most of the time the trees are white pine or black spruce, but also swamp white oak, black maple (i think its black other wise its green) shrubs are the dogwoods, buckthorn, all of the bog berries.

Just a quick look at some pictures... These are the ways I have seen them. Not my pictures, just browsing google images..
http://www.jakobaxelsson.se/images/plants/sarracenia_purpurea_1.jpg
http://cricket.biol.sc.edu/herb/SS/Sarracenia_purpurea3.jpg
http://androsace.com/data....ea.jpeg

 

[herenorthere]

The plant community depends on a bog's successional stage.  I knew some bogs in Maine where S. purpureas were growing with little sedge growth and no trees or shrubs nearby.  But it's only a matter of time before those bogs will be filling with the plants you mentioned.

 

[nepenthes gracilis]

Quote[/b] ]First off they grow mixed in with grasses and sedges, and grass mats down just as much as leaves from trees.
The locations I have found Sarracenia purpurea growing have had a good amount of trees and shrubs near by or directly by them. Most of the time the trees are white pine or black spruce, but also swamp white oak, black maple (i think its black other wise its green) shrubs are the dogwoods, buckthorn, all of the bog berries.

Grasses will decay before the onset of winter. Almost all Sarracenia bogs I've been too are fairly open expect for cranberry plants and some shrubby stuff, but those little leafes have no insulation factor whatsoever, remember, a bog is a "microclimate". It is its own little world in essence. Most of the trees you mention aren't in close vincinity to the bogs acidic range, just on the margin of it, only trees I'm familar with are all the needle leafed ones which ALWAYS surround a bog.

 

[Gawd_oOo]

What?
Grasses don't decay before winter. In bogs they get matted down and take decades to fully break down, this is how peat is formed.
That is why at the wetland plant nursery that I work for we have to trim all are plants down to 4 inches, so they don't mat down and smother them selves, ofcourse we grow them at alot higher density then found in the wild, and wild there are other plant types mixed in that may have stronger stems and help everything else from smothering other plants.

And all the trees I listed grow in bogs side by side with pitcher plants, you can see in the pictures I posted Leafed trees growing with the pitchers.

 

[nepenthes gracilis]

Well I've never seen a pitcher plant with grasses matted down all over it. I do agree, most grasses do get matted down, but they also decay. Digging down into the live moss and on top, you'll find many grassy material that is half decayed.

 

[herenorthere]

It depends on the bog.  The classic floating bog will have CP's and other small bog plants growing in sphagnum floating over water without any trees, shrubs, or grasses.  But the pond will fill and other species will invade and Sarracenias will find themselves losing out to grasses, shrubs, and trees.  Anything that increases sedimentation or adds nutrients will accelerate the process.