I’ve rather fallen in love with the carnivores in the limery… not so much the Venus fly traps (which I expected to be very exciting, but are, in fact, fairly dull), but the Sarracenias (pitchers) and Droseras (sundews). These amazing plants are thriving – they have all grown since their arrival and have been working hard, with the sundews being particularly effective at catching small insects and the pitcher consuming the larger flies (houseflies, horseflies etc).

Unfortunately we have had rather a lot of flies indoors this year because the field behind us has had livestock in it for the whole summer. So, despite the pitcher doing its best – with a little help from the Nepenthes tropical pitcher, which needs to be kept in a vivarium to maintain high humidity – we still have rather too many insects for my liking. Which has given me a great excuse to get some more plants (it was always on the cards once the limery was finished). So, let me introduce the four newbies:

Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purpurea – Purple pitcher plant

Sarracenia flava – Yellow pitcher plant

Sarracenia catesbaei – S. flava x S. purpurea (hybrid of the two above)

Cephalotus follicularis Albany carnivorous Pitcher Plant

The Sarracenias are bigger plants than the one I originally bought and are in 9cm pots, but should grow significantly bigger. The Cephalotus is very small as yet – only a few centimetres across – but also should get much bigger.

The structure and morphology of all these plants fascinates me. I could spend hours simply looking at them in wonder…

The original pitcher

I now can’t remember which of the builders it was who suggested carnivorous plants, but whichever one it was he truly sowed a seed for me…