Growing plants from seeds is fun, lots of fun, and growing carnivorous plants from seeds is no exception. However, the technique for growing wetland carnivorous plants is different from how you would grow typical garden plants. Do not start your carnivorous plants seeds the way you would start petunias and do not start your petunias the way you would start wetland carnivorous plants.

The instructions here are intended for tropical, subtropical, pygmy, woolly, and warm temperate Drosera, Drosera regia, Dionaea, warm temperate Pinguicula, Genlisea, and terrestrial Utricularia with digressions for cold temperate Drosera, Sarracenia, Darlingtonia, Mexican and cold temperate Pinguicula, epiphytic Utricularia, and Nepenthes. Some aspects of the instructions are relevant to Cephalotus.

 
Step one is to get all your material and tools together in a place you can get messy. 

You need plant tags, a soft pencil, and a planting spoon. The plant tags shown are vinyl plastic, 3/4 x 6 inch, stock number 2766 from National Band and Tag. They work, unlike the ones you can buy in stores. To write on them use a #2 pencil or a mechanical pencil with 0.9 mm soft lead. Forget "permanent" felt pens. The most important tool is the spoon.

 
These pots are 31/4 inch (82 mm) wide designed to fit 3 by 6 (18 total) in standard 1020 plant trays. You cannot buy these exact ones any more but there are similar ones available. You can also use standard 31/2 inch (89 mm) tall pots but they do not fit well in the 1020 trays. However, any sturdy pot will work.

Blocking the drain holes with squares of polypropylene landscape fabric is recommended because the fabric helps keep the soil from leaking out into the water trays. 

 
One more thing before you start planting... If you are starting seeds of Sarracenia, Darlingtonia, cold temperate Drosera, or cold temperate Pinguicula and you are not going to put the planted pots outside for the winter, presuming you have appropriately cold winters, you need to stratify the seeds in the refrigerator first.

Put away your planting spoon and get out the old kitchen cutting board and old kitchen chefs knife you keep on the shelf of your potting bench. Finely chop a small quantity of wet Sphagnum moss.

 
You will need small plastic bags like this or snack size ziploc bags for refrigerator stratification. Put the finely chopped Sphagnum moss in the bag loosely then add the seeds. Try to distribute the seeds evenly in the moss. If you do not have Sphagnum moss you can use peat. Squeeze wet peat in your hand to turn it into merely damp peat and use that.

Put the Sarracenia, Darlingtonia, cold temperate Drosera, or cold temperate Pinguicula seeds in your refrigerator for 4 to 8 weeks depending on species. 

 
OK, now we are ready to start planting. Put the fabric squares in the bottom of the pots. I highly recommend this type of landscape fabric over the one shown above which has trouble passing water. However, it may be difficult to find. You can cut the squares off rolls using a utility knife, scissors, or a paper cutter.

Now onto soils... For Nepenthes coir is recommend. Coir is relatively sterile. Make sure you get a brand that says something like the coir "is exposed to rain water from at least three monsoon seasons" on the label. The usual blocks of coir you see in stores are too salty. Unfortunately, most carnivores do not like coir.

Please see the growing guides for the recommend soil mix.

 
The default soil is a 1:1 mix of peat and sand by volume. Some plants like the woolly Drosera and Drosera indica relatives prefer a sandier mix. Warm temperate Pinguicula appreciate a peatier mix.

Peat really is not that good for starting seeds but there is nothing that works better for growing most CPs. There is no best brand that is commonly available. Look for "horticultural grade" peat and hope it really is. Make sure there is no added fertilizer in the peat. The biggest problem with peat is it contaminated with live moss spores and other bryophytes. The advantage of peat is it is acidic and the plants do better in it than other media as long as the moss does not take over.

An option is to use finely chopped Sphagnum moss in the top cm of the pot. This is probably best for seeds that take a long time to germinate. Both peat and Sphagnum will have problems with cyanobacteria and quite often Sphagnum is contaminated with sedge and other weed seeds.

The sand is #12 sand blasting sand. Do NOT use play sand, builders' sand, or beach sand unless you sieve out the fine grains and wash the sand well. Fine sand will pack much too tightly. Sand blasting sand is washed and has even grain sizes. "#12" means 12 mesh which means it is sieved with a mesh of 12 wires per inch. #14 and #16 mesh sand is also good. These coarse sands are hard to find.

Please see Peat, Sand, Perlite and Sphagnum Moss for more information on soils and soil mixes.

 
Mix the peat and sand in a 5 gallon bucket or something similar. It is best to work with it damp, not wet. Transfer the soil mix from the bucket to the pots using your kitchen scoop. Loosely fill the pot to the top.

Do not leave the scoop in the bucket for a long time. The peat reacts with the aluminum scoop so make sure it is clean after you are done.

 
Lightly pack and smooth the soil surface with your planting spoon. Do not pack tightly as the soil will expand when it is saturated with water later.

 
Write what you are planting and the date on a plant tag and put it along the side of the pot. Then distribute the seeds in the pot. These are Nepenthes seeds and the soil is pure coir.

 
Lightly mist the seeds and soil.

 
This pot has 1 cm of a chopped Sphagnum/sand mix over a peat/sand mix. A final layer of pure chopped Sphagnum on top is sprayed with water before sowing seeds so Sphagnum expands to trap seeds.

 
This is what it will look like after misting a pot of Drosera seeds in a peat-sand mix.

 
Put some water in the bottom of a plastic bag and put the pot with the seeds in the bag. You need the water because the peat mix was not fully saturated. Check back later to make sure there is a little water left in the bottom to make sure you put in enough.

Instead of plastic bags you can use an old aquarium with plastic wrap on the top, a clear plastic storage box, or anything else convenient.

 
Put the pots with the seeds under LED lights. Now you wait and wait and wait. Check the seeds every week. Sometimes I lightly spray the surface to encourage sprouting. Nepenthes especially appreciate being sprayed and weekly is not too often.

Or if you are overwintering the pots outside, put them out in a location without direct sun that is protected from creatures.

 
Drosera aliciae seedlings.

 
Nepenthes seedlings. Nepenthes is relatively easy to grow from seed if you have fresh seed and do not mind taking 3 years to get big plants. The older the seed of Nepenthes, the longer it takes to germinate. Past a certain age it never germinates. A year after this photo was taken, the plants were finally large enough to be potted out into 6 cm pots.

 
This is a pot of temperate Drosera seedlings. The seeds were stratified in chopped Sphagnum moss in the refrigerator. After 4 weeks the moss was spread on the surface of pot with a peat/sand soil. The seeds germinated in three weeks.

 
And here they are close up. Note the cyanobacteria in the Sphagnum moss. I would leave these plants in the bag a little longer until they get established into the soil below the moss.

 
Nepenthes ventricosa seedlings 10 months after sowing. Notice the variation in plant size. Some of that is genetic which is why it is best to plant many more seeds than you need plants so you can select the best plants. It is also possible the extra large plants are hybrids so save some small plants to make sure you have some non-hybrids. And sometimes, the smaller plants will actually perform better long term.

 
Sarracenia hybrid seedlings 5 months after starting stratification. They just got their first fertilization with 4 Osmocote™ pellets per pot. The soil is not as sandy as it looks. There is a thin layer of pure sand on the surface to attempt to minimize moss overgrowth.

-- John Brittnacher

December 2017

Latest update July 2026