Butterwort Care Instructions – Chalet

Taxonomic Name: Pinguicula species

Bladderwort Family

Herbaceous Plants

Butterworts are not as well known as Venus flytraps or sundews, but they are an excellent choice for the carnivorous-plant terrarium. As members of a genus that is distributed worldwide from the tropics to the arctic, butterworts rely not on traps or glue-tipped hairs to catch their prey. Instead, their leaves produce a rather greasy coating. When gnats and other tiny insects land on the leaf blades, they become stuck, and the slow process of digestion begins.

Often, the margin of the trapping leaf will curl upwards into a rim--apparently this keeps the plant's digestive enzymes from leaking away.

How to Care for Your Plant:

LIGHT: Place your butterwort where it will receive some direct sunlight.

ENVIRONMENT AND WATERING: Keep your plant either in a high-humidity terrarium (the best option) or in the enclosed plastic-cup container the plant was sold in.

Butterworts prefer to grow in a 1:1 mixture of silica sand and sphagnum moss (not gardeners' peat moss, which is too fine in texture). Make sure the mixture remains moist, but not waterlogged. When you do add extra moisture, use distilled water or rainwater. DO NOT use tap water, including the kind treated by a water-softening system, as it contains minerals that might hurt the plant.

FEEDING: Never apply fertilizer to your butterwort. However, you should give your plant the chance to catch small flying insects. You can do this, especially in summer, by keeping the terrarium lid open for a few hours at a time.

DO NOT feed your plant hamburger or any other meat product. The fat content will cause the leaf tissue to rot.

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS: Butterworts need high humidity (ca. 75%). In addition, many butterwort species require a winter dormancy period, when they should be kept in a cool (ca. 45 degrees Fahrenheit) room or windowsill. This will give your plant the chilly-but-not-freezing conditions it needs then. At that point, keep your plant's sphagnum moss just barely moist. Around the first of March, return the plant to its original, warmer location. It should flower as the warm season progresses.