What should I feed my pitcher plant?
4 min read
Asked by: Scott Martin
Pitcher plants can eat and be fed almost any live or dead insects or spiders, such as ants, gnats, fruit flies, house flies, months, and rolly pollies. Also, pitcher plants can benefit from fertilizer pellets. A single bug once a month is enough to keep a Pitcher plant thriving.
What do I feed pitcher plants?
Pitcher Plants are probably the easiest carnivorous plants to feed. During their active growing season, drop bugs, fish food, or fertilizer pellets in a few of the pitchers every 2-3 weeks.
How do you feed an indoor pitcher plant?
Your adult pitcher plant will be happy if it can catch a couple of insects every month. If you don’t have bugs flying around your house, provide a freshly killed insect once in a while, (no insecticides!). Use only small bugs that fit easily into the pitchers.
Should I fertilize my pitcher plant?
Outdoor plants have plenty of opportunities to catch flies while indoor plants may need you to hunt for them. Without supplemental insects, fertilizing pitcher plants is necessary to keep them healthy.
How do I keep my pitcher plant healthy?
Follow these tips to add a pitcher plant to your garden or home:
- Plant pitcher plants in the spring.
- Use nutritious soil.
- Place your pitcher plant in direct light.
- Keep the soil moist.
Can I feed my pitcher plant mealworms?
Bloodworms are ideal for almost all species, particularly sundews (Drosera) and butterworts (Pinguicula), while mealworms and crickets are often good for larger pitcher plants (Sarracenia and Nepenthes).
How do pitcher plants get nutrients?
Plants belonging to the genus Nepenthes are carnivorous, using specialized pitfall traps called “pitchers” that attract, capture, and digest insects as a primary source of nutrients.
Can I feed my pitcher plant bloodworms?
You have pitchers, snap traps, sticky leaves, and some others. If you grow one or many carnivorous plants inside, or like me in a terrarium, the plants will not be able to catch anything, or very rarely. Feeding with dried blood worms (DBW) is a very good method of manual feeding.
How often should I water my pitcher plant?
Pitcher plants like humid, boggy environments; this is the main thing to keep in mind when watering nepenthes. Feel the planting medium regularly, and water whenever the surface of the medium begins to feel slightly dry to the touch.
Can you feed a pitcher plant meat?
And consulting my books and what I've read is that while it's best to feed actual insects you can also feed things like a dehydrated bloodworms or anything that sort of high in protein.
Can you overfeed a pitcher plant?
The problem is that it is easy to overdo the feeding. I have conducted feeding experiments and have found that Venus flytrap deprived of food can be damaged by overfeeding. I would not be surprised if other carnivorous plants are the same way.
Should I fill my pitcher plant with water?
Since these plants do much of their digestion via bacteria, you should probably keep the pitchers filled with a bit of water at all times so the bacterial populations are healthy.
How long do pitcher plants live?
The plants grow new pitchers throughout the summer, and one plant can have as many as 10 pitchers. The pitchers only last a year or two, but the plant itself can live for 50 years.
How do you encourage a pitcher plant to grow?
Add just enough water to keep the pebbles wet, but be sure the pot is sitting on the pebbles but not standing in water. The plant will rot if water seeps up through the drainage hole. Feeding – Pitcher plants require very little supplemental fertilizer, but they do benefit from a light feeding of an acidic fertilizer.
Why are my pitchers turning brown?
When your Pitcher Plant has dry or brown pitchers, it is likely not getting enough water, in an area of low humidity, or a combination of both. Pitcher Plants require consistent moisture and high humidity in order to thrive.
