Scrolling through my photos I couldn’t believe just how many images I’d taken of the sarracenia at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens. I mean, I probably could have guessed, but these plants were just so beautiful that I couldn’t quit taking photographs! While in Virginia to celebrate our friends’ Grace and AJ’s wedding, this was a great way to spend an early morning before the festivities began.
After visiting Norfolk Botanical Garden we even had time to visit Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond. Two gardens in one weekend! This is where my inner plant geek starts bobbing up and down with excitement!
We usually make our annual pilgrimage to Richmond each year during the week of Thanksgiving. Their holiday light display is awesome, but the chance to see the summer perennials this time of year was a delight. I will write more about the others, but these sarracenia at Lewis Ginter are enough to focus on for now.
Easily accessed by the raised boardwalk path, the sarracenias at Lewis Ginter are planted in the Martha and Reed West Island Garden. The raised path makes it easy to view the plants from above and appreciate the wide variety of colors and forms.
These Sarracenia leucophylla ‘Titan’ were massive.
The flowers in the foreground have a deep red color and stand tall above the pitchers.
Sarracenia is a genus comprising 8 to 11 species of North American pitcher plants, commonly called trumpet pitchers. They are considered carnivorous plants because insects slide down their slippery “throats” or “tubes” and do not come back out. Water collected in the base eventually becomes the burial ground for the insects and enzymes from the plant break down the insect for nutrient absorption. Pretty cool, right?
The International Carnivorous Plant Society writes, “Sarracenia are among the easiest carnivorous plants to grow. If you have a location outside with full sun and have or can easily get water low in minerals there is no excuse not to grow these spectacular plants.” For more on cultivation and native range, check out this link on how to grow pitcher plants.
Sarracenia flava var. rubricorpora in all of their glory!
The folks at Plant Delights Nursery have a wonderful article on Sarracenia which I highly recommend reading if you are interested in more details about these special plants.
