r/SavageGarden's Trade/Sale Thread (Spring 2026)

This year I grew a variety of carnivorous plants outdoors in utah. We had our hottest day ever here with the typical low humidity. Here is the setup and results. I didn't do the best with before pictures. Images from late April through last week older to recent.

Recirculating planter:

The main planter was a Lowe's planter box sealed up to be water tight (it was already a bottom watering planter so there were only two small holes a few inches off the bottom) and equipped with a solar powered pump. The boxes are 3D printed and interlinked. That design successfully allowed me to be away from home for a week even during the most intense heat without drying out. The squirrels immediately started chewing up the pitcher plant despite never bothering it in its own individual pot last year. So I had to iterate on the squirrel barrier. They were pretty upset about getting cut off and chewed the solar panel cable through. I got two additional sarracenia varieties early in the season. In total that planter had 3 sarracenia, a few VFT, a Drosera x hybrida "Lake Absegami, New Jersey" and a few cape sundew (i have tons of those). The sarracenia all did great through the year and the tall one caught many bugs. The VFTs suffered and a few died during the extreme heat. The sundews also suffered through the heat but came back strong right now. This planter was placed in full sun after the initial build was fully completed.

Things to improve:

The 3D prints didn't hold up great. I need to alter the design a bit and use a more resilient filament type instead of old leftover PLA. The TDS of the water always increased over time, likely due to the old house bricks I used to elevate the boxes off the bottom. I felt with that by doing frequent water changes but finding another material would reduce the maintenance. This may be why these VFT actually did worse than the stand alone one even though the root temps should have been better due to the much larger planter size.

Mario Pipe VFT:

The VFT in the smaller Mario pipe 3D printed planter was also out there in full sun. It did great until the temps got near 100 then started to struggle. It nearly died near the record hot weather but is coming back. I make those planters and sell them occasionally at local plant swaps so this was a stress test. I now know they'll survive pretty much the worst this region can throw at it. But it probably would have done better in a spot that only gets morning sun through mid summer.

Napenthes:

The napenthes pitcher plant was from a local plant store (propagated a few times). Wasn't properly labeled but i believe its Ventrata, may be wrong. It was hung on a north facing porch and only got direct sun for a short time in the morning. But it was outdoors the entire season. It was a struggle to keep it watered at times due to the hot dry weather. But it actually grew more pitchers than the one I have indoors. The pitchers ended up often dry later in the summer but caught many yellow jackets when they had liquid.

When people say that Utricularia can take as much light as you can give them, they are not kidding. I bought a small plug of Betty’s bay during the San Diego carnivorous plant show a couple months ago, and broke it into several pieces and placed the pieces along the top section of my highland vivarium, and I honestly didn’t expect it to do much, other than slightly fill out the top waterfall area. Fast-forward two months, and it has already taken over the top section of the vivarium (hooray) and flowering like crazy. I knew that it would be able to take the light intensity, but I didn’t think they would flower this profusely without getting burned. The top ledge where they are “planted” is at 1000 PPFD, and the current top section of the flowers is over 1500 PPFD. They are definitely bleached and the purple is hard to see, but they are extremely healthy and growing at a tremendous rate.

I mainly wanted to share this for information sake because if you happen to have issues with your Betty’s Bay not flowering, maybe it just needs more light.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy! Please share your photos and experience with Betty’s bay, I’d love to hear from everyone on how they take care of theirs.

Enjoy some of my standout VFT’s and Sarracenia’s before it all slows way down. It’s been a great growing season and I’m sure the plants will enjoy some rest.

D.M “Big Mouth X Ginormous”
D.M “Mammoth”
D.M “Jabberwocky” by California Carn.
D.M “Sunset” with some Drosera
D.M “Blood Bath”
D.M “Jersey Devil” by California Carn.
D.M “Bear Trap”
Tray 1 of my big boys
Tray 2 of my youngsters and genetic diversity
Tray 3 of middle sized and more gene diversity
S. Rubra Gulfensis
S. X “Kew Gardens”
S. X “Mitchelana Pink” and S. Bob Han. Leuco X Alata AF

Just set this up in a Target matte black dinner plate (link) using Seiryu stone. Media is a thin pumice drainage layer, then a 4:1 peatmoss to silica (pool filter) sand mix. I left between a 1/4 inch from the top of the plate so that I can flood the Utricularia occasionally to induce flowering. I spread about 5 small clumps of some Betty's Bay that I separated from a 1 inch plug.

Light is just a SANSI 10W screw in bulb. I measured with the PPFD Meter android app and am getting about 180 PPFD on the very outer edges of the plate up to 400 PPFD in the very center. Keeping the water level fairly high at about the same height as the media in these first few weeks for it to establish. I'll make sure to update as it grows and fills out the space! Hoping for it to look like a mini mountain range with the utricularia acting as a miniature grass.

On a side note, I have this growing on my office desk, but plan to use it as a table center piece when we have guest over.

Our third annual Halloween giveaway is live!

Three winners will get a free plant, valued up to $125, from any that are available on the site! The giveaway runs through November 1st.

Check our our site, dangerlettuce.com, for rules and to enter. U.S. only

I’ve had this one about a year and a half, and it’s finally starting to throw off some mature traps, still looking good into late October.

Happy Growing
Jeremiahsplants.com

Little messy had to go in for cleaning the poor poor spatualatas and albino.

Just a few new pitchers! 😍

1/2--edwardsiana

3--bical

4--maxima x veitchii

5--viking x black miracle

6--(trunc x camp) x veitchii "the wave" x SOM x LVB

7--H. uncinata x parva (ex hairy)

8--jamban

9--ventricosa porcelain/alba

10--izumiae

11--diana

Week 11: Plant A developed 1 new growth. Plant B developed 1 new growth and lost 1 leaf. Plant C developed 3 new growths and lost 1 leaf. The leaf losses are considered to be within normal parameters. All three plants continue to look healthy and strong. No negative changes have been observed.

Link to the complete post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SavageGarden/s/LP6Z5GXtuB

Does it count as cannibalism if one of these eats a leaf?

Serious props if anyone can figure out where these photos were taken. The last photo has the strongest clue.

I found these plants in a store without any water or light. I thought I would take them home and try to save them. I have a Venus flytrap, but I’ve never had these two species before.

What should I do? Should I give them distilled water and put them in a bright place? Should I change their soil? What type of soil do they need? Can I use the same soil as for my Venus flytrap? What conditions do they need to thrive? Is there still a chance to save them? Please help!

I'm extremely grateful that a plant friend decided to share her winnings from the NASC auction with me. She asked Steve Galic to send this plug of seedlings directly to me. Being from North Carolina I am naturally a huge fan of the NC-SC-VA phenotypes of Sarracenia flava. The plug had over 60 seedlings. I kept 46 for myself (4 pots of 9 and 1 pot of 10) and I'm paying it forward by sending the rest to a fellow Carolina grower that's down in south carolina. I can't wait to see what these seedlings grow up to become. In the meantime, bring on the ferts!!!!!!!

1. N. truncata D2 x (ventricosa x sibuyanensis). These two pitchers are only a leaf or so apart.

2. N. veitchii x robcantleyi. This one is doing surprisingly well in my intermediate cabinet.

3. N. sibuyanensis x merilliana

Don’t mind the other plant I put them in for some major heatwaves. May try and push the sar through winter dormancy.
The light I have is a marshydro 100 watt dimmable
Questions:
Why is my helimphora making baby pitchers?
Does my cobra Lilly look healthy?
Is it unhealthy to keep a window open nearby.