Basic care tips
Water: rainwater, distilled, or reverse-osmosis water
How to water: bottom/tray method (add water in the saucer of the pot rather than top-water). Do not keep the roots constantly in water
Soil mixture: peat + quartz sand or peat + perlite
Feeding: not required
Grows best in: high-moisture environments
Dormancy: Not required
For general information common to most Carnivorous Plants, please first read the Carnivorous plants care guide (general information)
In their natural habitat, Australia, the Cephalotus plants grow near the sea, in sandy areas with high moisture. As Australia does get colder for a few months a year, the plants do go dormant, but it is more like changing their leaves and having more regular leaves than carnivorous pitchers. I, personally, have never put my plants through dormancy and they are ok. What has killed plants for me, however, is giving too much water, causing root rot. This is called the Sudden Death Syndrome, when your cephalotus is doing just fine and then in a span of a week or two, it suddenly just dies. This is not related to dormancy but rather watering. It is nice to leave the water in the tray to evaporate and even wait a day or two extra before refilling.
In my experience, growing Cephalotus in a slightly elevated area in a terrarium has given me so far the best results, both leaf cuttings and big plants “catch on” and grow roots and grow great in the terraium.
The root system of the Cephalotus is quite deep so you should be careful when repotting. Also, I avoid repotting, as this sets back the plant quite a bit and sometimes the plant doesn’t make it. I have noticed that even pulling the dead pitchers, which fall off pretty easily, then sets back the hole plant and suddenly many more pitchers got black too after I’ve pulled a few of the dead ones. This is very odd, but i had this happen multiple times. Below you can see the aftermath of my reckless plucking of old, dead growth.. you can see how the whole top and left part of the plant just died. New growth is emerging but it will take quite some time until i get it to look as beautiful as it was.
