Albert's Greenhouse

The first sarracenia flower of the spring. And it had to be one of the bastard yellow ones, too.

These flowers are so absolutely complex and large - they make a really strange plant even stranger. This plant has evolved so its leaves are curled and joined into long hollow tubes, open on the top except for lids to shade them from the rain. The tops of the traps are already like flowers, and even secrete a nectar-like substance. So what are the flowers like? Like little pagodas or lanterns, held high above the traps, before the new traps open so as not to compete for insect attention. They are like little buildings up there, almost reminding me of hot air balloons with their bright colors. Inside is real pollen, real nectar, and not the certain death that will come with the summer.

And the colors! Lime greens, brilliant yellows, the deepest richest ruby red you've ever seen. All in the same fascinating shape.

I grow my sarracenias outdoors sitting in tubs with a couple of inches of water. I have to be sure to put mosquito dunks in the water in the summer to reduce the potential for neighborly wrath at the possible mosquito issue. The potting mix is a combination of virgin peat moss, sand and perlite - very nutrient poor. Sarracenias can't stand much fertilizer, and they do catch their own after all. The Sarracenia leucophylla has always been my favorite, and is probably the only one that I own intentionally. The rest I got from raffles at the Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society meetings, where I often buy $10 or $20 worth of tickets, and alternate between making out like a bandit to an extent which is almost embarrassing, and getting absolutely nothing.

Sarracenias are native to the southeastern United States, and are probably the easiest carnivorous plant for us to grow here in the San Francisco Bay Area. They will take our winters with no problem, living outdoors all year long. They get their needed winter dormancy from our mild winter conditions, and with the imported Hetch-Hetchy water rather than the liquid rock that is pumped from the ground in some parts of the city,I have no problems with water quality. The plants grow well, I have to divide them every few years, and they catch tons on insects in the summer - mostly moths.