Sarracenia

New World pitcher plant family · 10 in this guide

Substrate

Four parts fertiliser-free peat to one part perlite; ordinary potting soil is fatal over time because of its fertiliser content.

Pot

Plastic, and preferably pale-coloured to stop the pot overheating in full sun; choose one wide enough for the horizontally spreading rhizome — depth matters less.

Water

Keep permanently standing in a few centimetres of distilled, rain or reverse-osmosis water — these plants must never dry out.

Location and light

Full sun, outdoors or on a very bright windowsill; too little light causes stretched, overly green growth. Freshly relocated plants may darken temporarily — this resolves on its own.

Temperature

Tolerates -7 to 27 °C, briefly even 38 °C or a touch of frost. Winter dormancy from October to February is essential: if winter lows stay above -7 °C the plant can stay outdoors; colder than that, overwinter it in an unheated garage or on a cool windowsill, or bare-root it and store it in damp sphagnum in the refrigerator until spring.

Source: the per-species habitat data elsewhere in this guide, summarised by genus.