Light
Bright light, but not harsh midday sun. A bright windowsill, a grow light, or a combination of the two all work well. Shorter photoperiods through autumn push some species into a non-carnivorous succulent rosette for winter.
Under intense light, many species and hybrids blush and sun-stress, revealing beautiful shades of red, pink and purple.
Soil
1 part peat moss to 1 part perlite. Sand or fine grit can stand in for part of the perlite, giving a grittier mix closer to the ground Mexican butterworts grow on in the wild.
Some growers also add a pinch of dolomite lime, calcium carbonate, or crushed oyster shell to nudge the pH up, since Mexican butterworts prefer slightly alkaline soil. Neither addition is necessary for a healthy plant.
Use pure peat with no fertilizer or other additives. Use plastic or glazed pots rather than unglazed terracotta, which dries out fast and can slowly leach minerals into the mix.
Prefer it ready-made? Get the potting mix we use.
Water
Keep soil damp using rainwater, distilled water, or reverse osmosis water. Stand the pot in a tray with a few centimetres of water, and let it run dry between waterings rather than staying topped up. Butterworts do well with this, and in our own growing we often leave the tray dry for 2 to 5 days before refilling it. Cut back further through the winter succulent phase, watering only enough to keep the media barely damp.
Want to know exactly what makes water safe for these plants? Read our full Carnivorous Plant Water Guide for TDS testing, filtration, and RO systems.Humidity
Butterworts do well in normal household humidity, but tend to grow best with a bit more moisture in the air. A humidity dome or a nearby humidifier can help supplement this. Good air circulation matters just as much, since conditions that are too wet, too humid, and short on airflow all at once are the most common way to lose a plant to crown rot. An oscillating fan, a clip-on fan, or even a small USB-powered computer fan on a timer is enough to keep air moving through the grow space.
Temperature
Comfortable at normal household temperatures. We almost exclusively offer Mexican butterworts, and they have no frost tolerance, so keep them indoors or bring them in well before the first frost. The one exception is P. primuliflora, our only temperate species.
Dormancy
No true dormancy, but shorter days through autumn often trigger a seasonal change in many species, replacing the carnivorous leaves with a non-carnivorous succulent rosette. Water more sparingly and let the media run dry until new sticky leaves appear in spring. As a rule of thumb, the tighter the winter rosette, the drier the plant wants to be kept.
Feeding & Fertilizer
Letting the sticky leaves catch small gnats and fruit flies on their own is usually plenty for a windowsill plant. If insects are scarce, misting the leaves with a diluted liquid fertilizer is an easy way to promote growth and flowering. Never fertilize the soil. A butterwort's roots are extremely sensitive to fertilizer.
Pruning & Repotting
Tidying up
Dried leaves can be pulled away easily with tweezers or fingers, and it's worth tidying up every several months or once a year. Because butterworts form flat rosettes, the oldest leaves end up underneath the plant, and in drier conditions they can pile up instead of rotting away. This can lift the plant off the media, keeping its roots from reaching water. If you notice this, lift the whole plant, remove the dead leaves from its base, and set it back down with the roots in firm contact with the media.
Repotting & propagating
Repot every couple of years into fresh media. When repotting, pulling a few healthy leaves and laying them on damp media will often result in a few new plants.
