Q/A #106 - Huge Sarracenia Extreme Green is Floppy

QUESTION:
Question for you about my Sarracenia Extreme Green. I have had it for several years now and have struggled with the pitchers flopping over for the last 2 years. It is quite large, some pitchers are around 36 inches tall! It currently lives in a bathtub garden so it stays moist and gets full sun all day. All the plants in the tub garden are doing fantastic so the soil mixture seems fine. I have used some plant twine to help hold up the pitchers but was hoping you might have some advice to help strengthen the pitchers so they stay upright. Any suggestions? Thoughts on what I might be doing wrong? 
( Submitted in June 2021.)

RESPONSE BY JEFF DALLAS:
This is pretty normal for Extreme Green. It's parentage is S. flava x oreophila, two plants that grow very vigorously. So Extreme Green is definitely fast growing. Because of its fast-growing nature, the tissues can be softer than slower growing plants like Sarracenia leucophylla. Other than staking or tying them up there may not be a whole lot that will make them less floppy.

That said, here's a couple things to try. First, good hygiene. Be sure at the end of the growing season, or just before the new growth begins in Spring, cut everything from the previous season off, including the phyllodia. You want as much sun getting the the new growth as possible. This helps make them firmer. 

I also see this is in a bathtub garden. Keeping them very wet is also essential to maintaining good turgor in the pitchers. Since the bathtub garden can't sit in water, the soil is a little dryer than in tray watering. For many of the plants, especially Venus Flytraps, being a little drier is a good thing, but not for the Extreme Green. Consider moving this plant to a separate pot and a tray and putting a different Sarracenia in its place. If you can get one, Leah Wilkerson does very well in bathtub gardens, and gets huge.

Also consider dividing your plant. When it gets large like this, leaves in the middle won't get as much sunlight, so those leaves will be floppy. By keeping the clump smaller all parts of the plant will be exposed to sunlight. This will help keep pitchers upright.

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