Hi Well Neps are very mineral hardy, out of all the CP's they can do pretty well with mineral rich water, not to say that its good for them. I would not advise you put ANY fertilizer of ANY SORT in its drinking water that gets to the roots, only a foliar feed would be suggested here. Your potting mix sounds fine, you want a mix that is very well draining and that will just stay moist but never be water logged. Many people use Coir, from what Ive read it does not do that well with other CP's though. An easy mix for a Nep (traditional mix) would be something like 2 parts Perlite, 1 Part Sphagnum Peat. I went a more "deluxe route" now back in South Africa by potting like this: Put layer of Long Fibre Sphagnum on bottom of pot to stop any soil mix from escaping. 1 part of each of these mixed together: Perlite, Vermiculite, LFS, Peat Moss, Orchid Bark I did this as a test with Peter D' Amato's "Deluxe Nep Mix", Im missing 2 or 3 things from his like Pumice, Charcoal and Lava Rock. The Neps seem very happy and are growing at a good rate. I cant say that they are any happier than when I grew them in 2 parts Perlite and 1 Part Peat though. Superthrive ia a great growth addetive, but I've seen and heard the bad side of too much on many CP's news groups. Over use of it also appears to lead to a HUGE mass of leaf growth, the downside is that there are no pitchers produced. From testing the growers have found that a monthly misting (half recommeded dosage on bottle) gives the plant an extra boost with folige growth and still has its large good looking pitchers. Many people have wondered if SuperThrive is a gimick or not. I attempted to test this with leaf cuttings as well as newly purchased plants. The Superthrive soaked leaves (D Capensis) did produce plantlets long before the untreated leaves and had faster growth to begin with. The new plants that where under stress from shipping and from climatising (D. Capensis Giant, Alba, Typical and D. Aliciae Typical) had their roots soaked for 30 minutes in a solution of 1 drop per cup full of water. The results where that the soaked plants adapted and started growth a few weeks before the unsoaked plants got their act together. From what I've seen it has benefit, mabey its just coincidence, but seems to be good stuff. Happy growing n good luck Sheldon

I'm not convinced the size of the plant is all that important in terms of shipping. From my experience, a small healthy plant (if cared for properly) does MUCH better than a large less healthy plant after shipping. My Cephalotus was quite small when I bought it. It's not small anymore! ;) Though I agree, plantlets are probably a bad idea. Those really aren't just small versions of the parent; they tend to be much more fragile.

Hi Calvin, I agree with Corymbosa's recommendations. What I meant by pitching the plant is throwing it in the trash. Often a single plant with mealies can quickly infect the rest of your plants. In Schnell's Book, he recommends the Acephate mentioned above. He says that the mealies often live below the surface as well as above, so remove the plant from the pot and discard old potting mix in the trash. Rinse away all leftover mix and as many of the bugs as you can into a safe area (down the drain or in a street?). Then spray the roots and rhizome, as well as the pitchers with the Acephate. Repot in fresh medium, and respray the plant in 10 days. I would also spray again 2 weeks after that. Apparently, mealies often get to Sarracenia from succulents in your collection, Or they come in from plants extracted from the wild :-( especially savanna plants. Good Luck! Best, Ross

Hello Drtoddh, The information Don555 gave you should help you out. If you bury the pot (a fine idea for keeping the pot insulated) make sure that fertilizer and regular soil from your yard does not get into the pot. Perhaps wrap the bottom of the pot in thick plastic would be wise to keep anything from leeching into your nutrient poor carnivorous plant mix. It will not be a big problem if you repot the plant right after winter in fresh mix. Repotting is always a good idea for Sarracenias right after winter anyways as it will revitalize the plant and you can inspect for root diseases before the growing season. If in doubt or you simply do not want to bury the pot and mulch it, you can always move the pot inside a garage or protected spot where it will not freeze completely. A garage with a window would be perfect, but light is not a big deal for dormant plants other than to keep fungus off them. When the weather starts warming up, just place it back in its normal sunny spot and it will come out of dormancy with increasing photoperiods. There are other methods of overwintering that take more effort, like placing the plant in a slightly opened plastic bag and placing it in the refrigerator over winter after it stop growing (always make sure a plant is dormant before doing that as sudden darkness all the time for a growing plant will kill it). I also use an ice chest with frozen water bottles around the pots. I cover the chest at night and open it to air it out and give some fungus killing light (no more than 8 hours while plants are dormant) by day... replacing the ice bottles every 12 hours. The ice chest clearly takes a lot more work, but it gave me great results with dormancy and stratification of seeds. At night the temperature should be about 40 degrees and by day with it open, about 50 degrees. The ice chest also keeps them moist due to condensation from the ice bottles, so no watering needed.