Question
I ordered a medium (4-inch pot) S. flava towards the end of March of this year and as promised, it arrived with two flower buds (and pretty much nothing else).  After unpacking it, I placed it outside with my other dormant carnivorous plants, in a sunny location, and kept it watered accordingly.

We have had only two very light frosts (neither of which appeared to affect the plants) since that time, but the flower buds remained and new growth began to appear.  By mid-April, this plant had about six new pitchers well on their way (and those were opened for business by the beginning of May).  This plant has been growing exceptionally well ever since, but the flower buds never did a thing.  Last week, they finally turned black and fell off.

I'm not actually upset over what happened since the plant seems to be very healthy and is doing an excellent job of capturing all kinds of beetles and wasps.  I'm just curious as to why this happened and whether there is anything I can do to prevent it next year (as I have not yet had a Sarrancenia old/large enough to flower for me yet)?

Thanks!

Answer
Hi Michelle,

Yes, it's a real bummer when flowers don't grow.  Flowers are a bit more sensitive to frost than the leaves.  Even a light frost can potentiall damage the flower buds.  We lose more flower buds with S. flava than any other plant because they tend to produce flowers a lot earlier.  It's just one of the quirks about S. flava.  That's why it's so hard to create hybrids with flava, at least for us.

Besides our nursery, other growers who grow other types of plants face similar issues, such as vineyards and fruit orchards.  Any frost is a danger to developing flower buds, and that's usually the nature of the horticultural business.

Since you have a small collection, you can bring your plant indoors in a south facing window in early spring.  This will protect your plant from any sort of frost damage.  Because we have a substantial inventory, we simply don't have that luxury of pampering our S. flava.

Next year, you can look forward to even more flowers as the rhizome grows larger during the growing season.

As a word of warning, S. flava flowers smells faintly like cat urine, so may be you should find a different location to keep your plant other than your home next spring.  An unheated garage with a sunny south window would do the trick.

Good growing!
Jacob Farin