Darlingtonia death/disease

[stephend007]

I have a huge problem with one of my Darlingtonia about a week ago. I walked out and found most of the pitchers dull green and shriveled. The pitchers used to be over a foot tall.

That plant died within days. Now another one is showing early signs of these symptoms. I've posted images at the following address: http://carnivorousplants.homestead.com/DarlingtoniaDisease.html

Symptoms:

1)Pitcher color dull green
2) Pitcher shriveled.
3) Pitchers still well connected to plant.
4) Tan rust color at the base of the pitchers, but still firm



The first plant is a runner from another plant. The pitchers on the runner were as big as the pitchers on the parent. The runner was still connected. And a smaller plant I believe on the same runner in between the parent and that plant seems to be doing fine.



The pitchers seemed to be well connected to the parent plant. There MIGHT be a little rot going on as it was kind of rusty looking at the base. I haven’t pull of any healthy pitchers to look at what they would look like. I haven’t found any signs of a pest digging into the base. I pulled up the plant and roots and everything seemed healthy. It’s not in a pot so its hard to lift and clean off without a major disturbance. I killed a plant earlier this year by not replanting it carefully enough. I don't know if I finished off the first plant by diging it up or not.

Really disappointing as I had two decent sized plants within a foot of each other and it was filling in nicely.

Any suggestions on what to look for and do?

Stephen Davis
www.carnivorousplants.homestead.com

http://carnivorousplants.homestead.com/DarlingtoniaDisease.html

 

[ALLOSAURZ]

Was that plant, planted in regular dirt in your lawn?

 

[ALLOSAURZ]

Nevermind I looked at your webpage and now I understand. Awesome looking bog it fooled me for a second. I originally thought you planted your plants straight into the lawn with your grass hehe. I dunno what went wrong with your Darlingtonia though. What was the temperature like around the time your plants keeled over? If it was too hot that would have contributed to it.

 

[Starman]

Hmmmmm.................how hot was it? If it was hot, the soil would have heated up to a dangerous level, this would have killed your plant. Roots of the cobra plant have to ALWAYS be kept cool.

 

[stephend007]

temperature was moderate. It's well shaded too. I've never lost one in the 4 years I've been growing them, and we've had much hotter temps than this. It was probably in the 70's or maybe 80's, but it cools way down at night. I have a temp guage in the pond and the high this year has been 70 degrees, and it will drop to 64 or so at night. Air temps are higher and lower of course.

Thanks for trying to help.

Stephen

 

[jimscott]

Try PMing Bugweed. He is very knowlegeable about pitcher plants.