FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Ladies and gents the tax return is in and it’s time to significantly expand my collection. I’ve got a list I’m planning to order here pretty soon and I’d like some opinions on my choices for my climate. First a little history on how I’ve done so far,right now I’ve got a few generic strand fly traps and one serracinia purpurea. I live in middle Tennessee southeast of Nashville, zone 7a so the plants did great outside. Though I admit I brought them inside the first week of January out of fear of losing them to forecasted teen day temps for more than a few days. That said they are happily coming out of dormancy on a warm sunny west facing window. I might continue the practice of bringing them inside for January-early March since that’s really when we have our coldest temps ie below 25-30F. Over all so far I’ve had great success with only one loss to a cat. With all that out of the way my cart currently consists of: serracinia flava, serracinia leucophylla, serracinia x scarlet belle, serracinia psittacina, Cephalotus follicularis, king Henry, dentate, akai ryu, drosera capensis, drosera intermedia, drosera filiformis, drosera rotundifolia. My concerns are mainly with the Cephalotus and some of the drosera, everything else seems like it should handle my climate relatively well.

Hey Mark, welcome to the forum!
Were you planning on putting your plants in a bog, or just separate pots or something? It might be a bit chilly for flytraps, pitcher plants (The Purpurea should be ok in those temps, do you know which variety it is?) and the temperate drosera. I'd recomend doing as you were, bringing your temperate plants inside during the coldest temperatures, or you could place them in an unheated garage or something. Drosera Capensis would not do well in 30 degree temperatures, I'd keep it inside during the winter. I don't know about Cephalotus, I've never grown the species, but it might not do well outside during winter. All your plants should do well outside during the summer though. Good luck!

CpKid wrote:Hey Mark, welcome to the forum!
Were you planning on putting your plants in a bog, or just separate pots or something? It might be a bit chilly for flytraps, pitcher plants (The Purpurea should be ok in those temps, do you know which variety it is?) and the temperate drosera. I'd recomend doing as you were, bringing your temperate plants inside during the coldest temperatures, or you could place them in an unheated garage or something. Drosera Capensis would not do well in 30 degree temperatures, I'd keep it inside during the winter. I don't know about Cephalotus, I've never grown the species, but it might not do well outside during winter. All your plants should do well outside during the summer though. Good luck!

I haven’t made a final decision on pot or bog but I’m leaning towards bog since I recently came across some rather large black plastic tubs used for watering cattle. Maybe 24” diameter and about 36” deep. I kinda wanted to keep my different species separate mainly because some will need to come inside and some won’t. I feel fairly confident that the serracinia I have chosen would have no problem staying outside year round where as capensis and Cephalotus not so much. I’ll probably end up with a mix of both, cold hardy plants going in the bog outside and more sensitive plants remaining potted for ease of movement. No I’m not sure what variety of purpurea it is I lost the tag. One other question I had was if I leave my plants out during fall and early winter and they go into dormancy, if I bring them inside to significantly warmer temps should I then keep them inside until spring when night temps are 40+ or would it be ok to return them to the outside once below freezing day temps are gone while dormant? I feel the need to put my plants outside right now to get more sun but night temps still hover in the low 40’s occasionally mid to low 30’s and day temps range from 50-70. I don’t want to temperature shock my tender new plants, or have a plant successfully go dormant and survive the winter just to be killed by my negligence right before spring. I don’t see any reason why My plants would suffer from starting dormancy outside then finishing dormancy inside. From what I’ve read dormancy is less about temperature and more about photoperiod.

That sounds like it would work for a bog, your vft's, sarracenia and temperate drosera should do well in that. I wouldn't recommend keeping your temperate plants indoors throughout the winter, or in 50 degree + temps. Yes, photoperiod is an important factor in dormancy, but high temperatures can also bring plants out of dormancy I'm pretty sure. Maybe you could insulate your bog, with hay or some other materiel. Your temperate plants would probably be fine outside right now, you may want to wait a bit to put your more tropical plants outside. I hope that helps.

FWIW, Cephalotus might have some issues with summer heat in TN if you plan on growing outside. While they're warm temperate plants, they're from a climate that does not get all that hot in the summer -- normal summer highs in their habitat are in the high 70s/low 80s, and night time temperatures are cool -- like the low 60s or colder. If they get high temperatures, they prefer cool nights (below 70). They're kind of like Darlingtonia in that respect, albeit somewhat more tolerant of heat.

bananaman wrote:FWIW, Cephalotus might have some issues with summer heat in TN if you plan on growing outside. While they're warm temperate plants, they're from a climate that does not get all that hot in the summer -- normal summer highs in their habitat are in the high 70s/low 80s, and night time temperatures are cool -- like the low 60s or colder. If they get high temperatures, they prefer cool nights (below 70). They're kind of like Darlingtonia in that respect, albeit somewhat more tolerant of heat.

This.

Optimal range is 40-80*F for cephalotus. Higher or lower and you will likely start running into problems. I just grow mine inside under lights.