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left: carole ottesen. right: courtesy of stefano Zucchinali HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN BOG GARDEN PLANTER

Containers make it easy to satisfy the needs of carnivorous plants, which are: an acidic, low-nutrient growing medi - um, mineral-free water, consistent moisture, and full sun. The growing medium is a blend of fine sphagnum peat and children’s playground sand that has been washed. To supply the plants with mineral-free water, you must collect rainwater or use bottled drinking water labeled sodium-free; simply boiling tap water will not remove minerals. One of the attractions of growing 1. PREPARING. Combine equal amounts 2. PLANTING. Arrange the potted plants carnivorous plants is their low mainte - of sphagnum peat and sand in a buck - on the surface of the filled container nance. For several years, I’ve grown et with water until you get a mudlike until you get a design you like. A tip: them in containers left outside year mixture. You can also mix in perlite or Set taller plants either in the middle round in an exposed area of my USDA pine needles for texture. Then fill the or off to one side. Then make a hole in Zone 7, AHS Zone 7 garden in Mary - container with the mixture—firming it the growing medium below each plant land. I’ve lost some sundews and down to remove air pockets—to within and insert the plants, tamping down Venus flytraps to smothering by sphag - two inches of its rim. Set the container gently around the rootballs. num moss but not to winter cold. in a water-filled tray. —C.O.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED I Assorted carnivorous plants I Container with a drainage hole and a deep dish or tray that holds water in which the container can be set to keep the growing medium wet I Sphagnum peat I Sand (well washed) I Perlite or pine needles (optional) 3. FINISHING. Carefully arrange wet 4. MAINTAINING. Water regularly to keep I Bucket for mixing growing medium pieces of live sheet sphagnum moss medium wet. Remove the occasional I Water (mineral free) on top of the growing medium around weed and overgrown sphagnum moss as I Sheets of live sphagnum moss each plant. This makes the container needed. Plants go dormant in the winter. more attractive and also helps prevent In spring, cut off dead parts with prun - the medium from drying. ing shears before growth resumes.

The kinds of plants that live in this nu - necessitating a hot and steamy greenhouse Being able to watch these ornamental trient-poor habitat descended from prim - in which to grow them,” writes nursery - natives dine has great entertainment value itive pre-historic ancestors and have had man Peter D’Amato of California Carni - as well as a practical aspect: Plants that

eons to develop cunning mechanisms for vores in The Savage Garden, which feed themselves don’t need fertilizer. In

deriving nourishment by means other received an AHS Book Award in 1999. “In fact, fertilizer, good soil, and mineral-en -

) than from the soil. In other words, they truth…most carnivorous plants grow in riched water are all too rich a diet for most 4 ( n e trap their own food. temperate climates…and the North carnivorous plants. What they need is s e t t “Most folks assume that such weird American continent has the widest variety pure water, a sterile, acidic growing medi - o e l

o vegetation certainly must come from of ornamental carnivorous plant genera in um, and a place in the sun. These simple r a c some far-off, exotic, and tropical country, the world.” needs render them ideally suited for life in

January / February 2011 19 2 p g e a d u m y b t l w F P a f g u o p w t p v a i a p n t i t e a h o 0 s

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top: carole ottesen. bottom (2): courtesy of noah elhardt Sources California Carnivores, Sebastopol, CA. (707) 824-0433. www.californiacarnivores.com. Carnivorous Plant Nursery, Derwood, MD. (301) 519-7505. www.carnivorousplantnursery.com. Sarracenia Northwest, Eagle Creek, OR. (503) 630-7522. http://cobraplant.com.

Resources Carnivorous Plants of the United States and Canada by Donald E. Schnell, Timber Press, Portland, Oregon, 2002. Growing Carnivorous Plants by Barry Rice. Timber Press, Portland, OR, 2006. International Carnivorous Plant Society, www.carnivorousplants.org. The Savage Garden by Peter D’Amato, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, Califor - nia, 1998.

sects—often flesh flies (Sarcophagidae) and ant species—are lured down inside the pitcher—almost always a one-way trip. Downward-pointing hairs accelerate progress down, but impede any escape up - ward. Farther along the tubular leaf is the Endangered green pitcher plant (Sarracenia oreophila) grows wild in a Georgia wetland. slippery slope. On its sticky edge, the un - fortunate insects struggle, then plummet around it and digestive enzymes begin rare, protected, or at-risk plants. And to their deaths in the drowning pool at the their grisly work. three pitcher plant species as well as the base of the pitcher. Cobra orchid (Darlingtonia californi - Venus flytrap have been listed as “feder - Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) is ca) resembles a cobra head with a hood ally endangered.” well-named. Its eyelid-shaped leaves form and “fangs”—a fishtail-shaped appendage Ironically, while digging up a single two halves of an efficient trap. When lured below the hood. Native to California and Venus flytrap in North Carolina could by nectar, an insect lands on one of the coastal Oregon, cobra orchids are denizens land you in jail with fines up to $50,000, leaves and the eye shuts. Large hairs, like of running water in areas underlain by ser - razing an entire bog to make way for a eyelashes, act as bars to keep it imprisoned pentine rock—habitat requirements that housing development doesn’t seem to while enzymes in the leaf glands digest it. are difficult to duplicate in a container gar - raise an eyebrow. “In the United States,

While Venus flytrap is endangered in the den. Insect prey are attracted by a sweet over 95 percent of the original carnivo -

wild, plants have been produced by tissue nectar fragrance and may fly or crawl to rous plant habitats along the southeast - e

c culture. A beautiful red cultivar, ‘Akai Ryu’ the rolled edge of the plant’s mouth from ern coastal plain are gone,” says i v r e (sometimes listed as ‘Red Dragon’) was in - which they topple into the depth of the D’Amato, adding, “the devastation and s e f i troduced by ABG in 1997. pitcher’s hollow leaf. Downward-pointing disappearance of carnivorous plant habi - l d l i Sundews (Drosera spp.) have long hairs impede escape. tats throughout the world is currently be - w d n

a tentaclelike leaves that are covered with a yond alarming.”

h s i sticky substance that glitters like dew in RARE AND ENDANGERED PLANTS f

. s . u the sunlight. It also acts as a powerful Carnivorous species turn up with discour - Carole Ottesen is a contributing writer for

f o

y glue, so when an insect lands on the aging regularity on rare and endangered The American Gardener. This is an adapt - s e t

r leaves it is stuck fast. As the insect strug - lists. Over 30 species and sub-species of ed version of an article she wrote for the u o c gles to escape, hairs on the tentacles close Sarracenia appear on many state lists of magazine in July/August 2003.

January / February 2011 21