Not every plant collection is soft and sweet. Harriet’s carnivorous plant collection in Otisfield, Maine, features pitcher plants, sundews, and Venus flytraps in a slate sink summer display that is both ornamental and wonderfully unusual. Harriet says:
GPOD recently asked for collections. Mine is a collector’s garden put together as if it were an ornamental garden. There are peonies, daylilies, and irises, many of which have been featured in the blog over the years. Two compact collections are more recent, and both feature smaller containerized plants. The rock garden troughs are one, and the carnivorous plants, in this group of photos, are another.
I became interested in growing pitcher plants from a submission to this blog a few years ago. A container with one plant was part of someone’s garden. I now grow several species of pitcher plants (Sarracenia cvs., Zones 6–9), several species of sundews (Drosera cvs., Zones 3–10) as well as the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula, Zones 7–10) in my Maine garden. All are outside in the summer. I display them in a slate sink. I use tiles to raise them if we have had ample rainfall and remove them as the level lowers. They must be watered with rain or distilled water, and never tap water, because of minerals. I stockpile rainwater collected from my roof for them.
A slate sink holds the collection during the summer: tall in back, from left, green pitcher plant (Sarracenia oreophila, Zones 7–9) and yellow pitcher plant (Sarracenia flava, Zones 6–9). There are several pots of purple pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea, Zones 2–9) with shorter reddish pitchers. A hybrid pitcher plant is flowering in the front, second from the left. There are also three Venus flytraps in the photo, including the front left. There are several sundews, which are small and short, and several pots with germinating seeds (on the right).
The hardiest pitcher plants are the purple pitcher plant, which are native to Maine. They can overwinter outside submerged in a vegetable bed.
I grew some from seed, and the first bloomed this season. Like other pitcher plants, the flowers are unusual and last all season.
My current favorite is green pitcher plant. Its pitchers are tall, and it flowers prolifically. It is said to be endangered in its native habitat, the Southeastern United States, but I found the seeds I collected from mine easy to germinate. It is said to be hardy, but I don’t dare test it. So I put it with many others, which I also think might be marginal but may need winter dormancy, in coolers in my garage, where they are buffered from temperature fluctuations. They do freeze. In a particularly bitter cold snap, I move the coolers into my mudroom just in case the low gets too low but then back out to the garage as soon as I can, so they don’t break dormancy.
Yellow pitcher plant is also from the Southeast and said to be hardy but also goes into the cooler for the winter.
Venus flytraps need a winter dormancy to do well and thrive outside in the summer.
In the front is the tender spoon-leaved sundew (Drosera spatulata, Zones 8–10), and behind it is a single Tracy’s sundew (Drosera filiformis, Zones 5–8), a sundew native to the Eastern United States from Nova Scotia to the Gulf Coast.
My Tracy’s sundew seems to come back from seed (in the previous picture by itself in a bed of self-seeded sphagnum moss, and in this picture self-seeded with a purple pitcher plant).
My favorite sundew, Cape Sundew (Drosera capensis, Zones 7–10) got too dry earlier this spring, but I am now nursing it back to its former glory, seen here in 2021. The other is doing well as a clump in the previous photo. Both tender spoon-leaved sundew and Tracy’s sundew overwinter indoors by a cool window.
Thanks for sharing this wonderfully unusual collection with us, Harriet!
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