Stratification of Carnivorous Plants

"Hi my name is Wes for ExpertVillage.com and in this video segment I’m going to talk to you about cold stratification for seed germination for carnivorous plants. If you want to know more about these plants you can visit us at Equilibriocarnivorousplants.com. Now cold stratification is used to germinate these seeds for the carnivorous plants, especially the North American carnivorous plants because they produce seeds in the fall and then they have a period of winter before these seeds can germinate in the spring. So this works perfectly for species like the Sarracenia and certain species of Sundews. So what you want to do is take the cut dried flowers of these plants, pulverize them over a piece of paper. Again we’re pulverizing these dry leaves in order to get the seeds out of the dried flower casing. And you won’t be able to see the seeds but you’ll probably have hundreds if not thousands of seeds in these dried flowers. After the flowers are well pulverized, you want to take a little bit of soil, place it in a plastic bag, you want to make sure the soil is damp or humid because you’re going to do the cold stratification in your refrigerator. We take the pulverized flowers and the seeds, dump them into the container, mix them thoroughly together and place a tie to lock in the humidity. Then you’re going to place this bag in your refrigerator in the vegetable drawer for 4 to 8 weeks depending on the species of plant. After the seeds have germinated in your refrigerator, you can open the bag again, taking a pot of carnivorous plant soil and you distribute the soil and seed mixture over the top of the pot."