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Propagation

Division

Division of plants is the easiest and most successful method of your increasing stock.  This is best achieved during the Spring when new growth is just beginning to appear. 

A well established Sarracenia will be seen to have several plants arising from the original rhizome, removing the plant from the pot will reveal most of these will have their own root systems.  These individual plants should be removed from the parent plant using a sharp knife (preferably a scalpel), making sure to keep as many roots as possible with the new plant.  These should then be repotted in in the usual compost. 

Any plant removed without an efficient rooting system will take considerably longer to establish (if at all) than a comparable one with a good root system.  Usually it is better to leave the plant attached to the rhizome for a further year, at least this way success is almost certainly guaranteed when the plant is removed. 

Rhizome Cuttings

An alternative to dividing the plant ensuring each individual plant has its own root system is to simply divide the rhizome into segments.  Here again however ensure each segment has its own root system.  The cuts should be made with a very sharp knife, any dead or diseased sections of the rhizome should be removed and discarded at this time, the healthy sections being potted up into the standard Sarracenia compost. 

As with dividing the plants this is best done when growth is just starting to appear in the Spring, the rhizome sections should just be laid within the compost and the roots firmly anchored.  The compost should not be allowed to dry out, and ensure the plant has adequate light and ventilation to prevent any disease from taking hold where the rhizome has been cut. 

New buds may take some time to appear, so be patient if this method is used to increase your stock. 

Seed

Seed is the other obvious method of propagation, pollination of the flowers can be left to insects or manually carried out with the use of a small paint brush.  Because cross pollination is so easy to achieve with Sarracenia's, care needs to be taken if hybrids are not to be produced.  This will generally mean isolating the plants so insects are not able to cross pollinate, and use a different paintbrush for each species.  The seed should be collected and sown as soon as it is ready, a heated propagator being used to over winter the young seedlings.