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Sarracenias leaf pullings or cuttings


Richard Hole

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Hello

I am in the process of dividing and Sarracenias and doing leaf pullings.

I have a greenhouse with 50% white Solarweave plastic. In the greenhouse I have a mister that cuts on when the gauze on the balance arm loses weight due to the evaporation of water on it so the mister goes off many times a day. It is only a light fog that lightly dampens the leaves.

With Sarracenia leaf pullings would it be much of an advantage to grow them in this misted greenhouse or would they grow just as well in my other greenhouse that is also covered in 50% white Ssolarweave plastic but does not have the mister going unless the temperatures go above 30 degrees?

Would I have to use fairly young leaves or ones that have not fully developed or would older leaves also work provided they are still green?

Should I cut most of the leaf off and when they are planted have the leaf standing vertically if they grow that way? Sarracenia psittacina would be placed almost horizontally.

Would I only bury the very base of the leaf where it attaches to the crown so that the bottom of the stem may only be about half and inch below the surface of the soil?

Is rooting hormone much of an advantage?

I also read:

"Not all Sarracenia species propagate via leaf pullings either. Sarracenia purpurea and Sarracenia psittacina are the best candidates for leaf pullings. Strike rate is about 50%. The other species don't respond to leaf pullings."

Is that your experience?

Regards Richard.

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Hi Richard

This is what I do with varying degrees of success on all forms of sarracenias and hybrids, minor crosses and 'Juthatip Soper' as well as purp hybrids seem to work well -you will need to take a leaf from a juvenile or semi mature plant (mature plants don’t work for me) with the horseshoe shaped clasp of rhizome still attached to it, where it was attached to the rhizome, looking white and alive. To get this material, gently tug a leaf, preferably one at the end of the rhizome, backwards and away from the rhizome, it should tear off cleanly. Clean the leaf of dead material, all I have ever done is cut the top off the leaf to about 100- 150mm long, to reduce moisture loss due to transpiration, pushed these leaves into the soil (about 50mm deep) and it either grew or it didn’t. However if you were to take the trouble either to wrap these pullings in sphagnum, keep the humidity high as the transpiration from the leaf could potentially be too great for the non existent or fledgling roots, put in favourable light and heat, with water, then you will probably get a much better success rate.

I grow mine outdoors and would say dont give up even if the leaf browns, I have had new plants shoot from the base as long as into the next growing season

Never tried hormnone rooting powder so I cant comment I'm afraid

Cheers

Steve

Edited by billynomates666
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I have only had success with purpurea venosa and that was only by luck.

I cant see why you dont use the rhizome cutting/slashing method.It is much faster and you will get plants mature a lot faster.Depending on the plant you can get anything from 1 to 13(the most i've had)in one season and grow them on seperatly the next.

ada

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I agree with Ada, you'll not have mature plants for years and that is even if they do work, sorry to sound negative. However, it'll be fun trying so its worth a go.

Its not an issue of which greenhouse you'll need as the way you need to keep leaf pullings is to put them in a plastic bag with lots of wet sphagnum, then place out of direct sun light.

I'm hapy to defer to Steve if he has had more luck, but I'm guessing this is a lobour of love rather than a way to gain maxium amount of divisions.

Cheers

Alex.

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I have only had success with purpurea venosa and that was only by luck.

I cant see why you dont use the rhizome cutting/slashing method.It is much faster and you will get plants mature a lot faster.Depending on the plant you can get anything from 1 to 13(the most i've had)in one season and grow them on seperatly the next.

ada

Indeed, I can recommend this too.

Whilst not having tried leaf pullings on Sarracenia, I had potted up a large amount of 'blind' rhizomes (without any growing points) when dividing at the beginning of the year.

Now practically all of them have put out a lot of new growth points and produced fairly large pitchers too.

As an extra point of note - I 'notched' some rhizomes but not others and both have grown well.

I found sphagnum to be extremely helpful in protecting the whole rhizome whilst it re-shoots - pot the chunk slightly proud of the soil surface (so the roots are buried but not the rhizome), and use a good amount of sphagnum to pack in around the entire section.

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Hi all

Perhaps I should have mentioned that I don't do leaf pullings from choice, but rather when I am cleaning plants up in spring and pull off leaves from the rhizome, those which look likely candidates I push into the soil as a sort of last chance saloon, rather than compost them, so they have a fighting chance, grow or die. The stike rate is not high but I am surprised by the spectrum of plants that do take and produce pitchers reminiscent of semi mature plants in their first full growing season.Although as Ada says rhizome division is a quicker and more reliable method and for propogating plants that would be my preferred way.

But hey if all I have to do is push a leaf into the soil while I'm tidying up, it takes no time and I get free plants then I'm all for it.

Cheers

Steve

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But hey if all I have to do is push a leaf into the soil while I'm tidying up, it takes no time and I get free plants then I'm all for it.

I was actually thinking the same thing the other day when I was tidying up a few of mine... having not tried it, I thought maybe I could give it a go but after a second thought decided that they'd take a long time to grow and as I will be needing lots of space for tons of seedling growth next year, they ended up in the bin instead!

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  • 1 month later...

Hello

Has anyone every tried striking Sarracenia leaf pullings in pure water and if so, how does the strike rates compare to using a growing medium like peat moss? If they could grow in water it would save a lot of room and time preparing the growing medium and planting the cuttings in the propagating trays. Because the strike rate of Sarracenia leaf pullings can be a bit low so a lot of time and space would be wasted if they are planted in a growing medium. Water would be simpler to just get the initial roots starting to grow and then those that produced the roots could be planted in a growing medium like peat moss and perlite.

I read Nepenthes can strike in pure water so I thought Sarracenia might as well. If anyone has reported success with Sarracenia, did they have the cuttings in a sealed bag or container or did they find distilled water was an advantage. This may save changing the water as often as this would take time.

Regards Richard.

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