6 replies to this topic

[alanbower]

Hi everyone....got a question opposite from last years...DARN it's cold...will they survive....
This year my problem is that we have had a stupidly mild winter. Don't think it's even gone below freezing here!

I have a fair selection of vft, drosera and sarracenia. They are all UK hardy and went nicely to sleep last year and survived (in general) the harsh winter we had.

This year however NOTHING has gone to sleep! Most pitchers are still green and healthy. And sundews still putting out (as it were..) At this time of year I usually have my dead pitcher cull and cut them back with a view to split and repot in march or so. Shoud I still do this? Wil the lack of dormancy have an affect on them!?
HELP!!
Thanks in advance for the (usually very speedy) replies!

[mantrid]

dont worry about it. these things have happened millions of times to these plants in the wild since they came about. they are evolved to deal with it. they havent always had humans pampering them :)

[petesredtraps]

You're plants are still dormant ,you should have noticed that although there may be very little die-back ,they have none the less stopped growing. Savage winters don't do anything beneficial for a plant, except stress them or kill them.

[James O'Neill]

A couple of S. alatas are still producing pitchers from the rhizome. But most of my stuff is indeed dormant.

[alexa]

Its not only temperature that triggers dormancy. Photoperiod, the amount of time that the plants are in daylight is just as, if not more so important. The shorter days and longer nights will have sent your plants into dormancy, don’t worry if your plants have not died back, its not a sign or dormancy anyway.

Regards
Alex

[Alexis]

Our mild winter weather is quite cool for the SE USA. In fact 70F days are frequent and the odd 80F winter day isn't too unusual. It's 74F in Perdido, Alabama today for example, although it was below freezing at night last week.

[Hermes]

It doesn't have to get to freezing for plants to go into dormancy.  They can go into dormancy as low as 10C.  Because of this fact, I've switched my indoor dormancy method from using the fridge to keeping my plants on the window sill behind the curtains.  I've had much more success with the window sill than the fridge and all my plants not only go dormant, but they also have a lot better survival outcomes.