Growing carnivorous plants
Three flies caught on a round-leaved sundew - Credit: A.J.Critch Wildlife
One of the largest costs to upland peatland restoration is the purchase of plug plants, most often sphagnum mosses due to the number needed to restore habitats. Back in 2024 Lancashire Wildlife Trust’s peatland programme partnered with Lancashire Wildlife Trust’s Greenhouse Project to grow plug plants in a greenhouse run by volunteers.
This involved setting up an irrigation system, acquiring specific compost, and most importantly finding patches of sphagnum moss from Darwen Moor in the West Pennines to harvest.
People harvesting sphagnum grown at the Greenhouse Project - Kirsty Tyler
With consent from Natural England, a team of volunteers led by the Lancashire Peat Partnership went up onto the hill and harvested seven species of sphagnum moss. This was then planted in trays at Witton Greenhouses and has been growing since February 2025.
Since then, we’ve expanded our list of species, from those original seven mosses, to now include hare’s tail cotton grass (Eriophorum vaginatum), bog asphodel (Narthecium ossifragum), and bog myrtle (Myrica gale), as well as something a little more carnivorous. Sundews.
Round-leaved sundew - Credit: A.J.Critch Wildlife
Sundews are an amazing species found on peatland habitats across the country. These small, reddish, plants catch insects on their sticky leaf droplets, ensnaring the prey and slowly dissolving it. They are perfectly adapted to the acidic, waterlogged, low-nutrient conditions of a peatland. In a habitat with very low soil nutrients, they have to find their nutrients somehow. To have sundews on a site, shows that the land is healing.
Thanks to funding from the CPS, we’ve been able to start growing two species of sundew at Witton Greenhouses; oblong-leaved sundew (Drosera intermedia) and round-leaved sundew (Drosera rotundifolia). These were harvested as cuttings from one of Lancashire Wildlife Trust’s lowland peatland reserves in Chat Moss, Greater Manchester.
Sundew cuttings in a jar of water - Alex Hubbersty
For 2-months, those tiny cuttings sat in little tubes of deionized water, in a sunny spot on my desk. For those 2-months we waited, watching for the cuttings to start sprouting. After weeks of no change, overnight suddenly most of the cuttings sprouted. Tiny new green shoots appeared showing that they were ready to be planted. These were then taken to the greenhouse at Witton Park, planted in the compost and left to do their thing.
Volunteers have been keeping an eye on the new shoots over the winter, keeping them watered in their dormant state. With the spring weather now upon us, temperatures are rising and we are hoping to see the continued growth of these plants. Once they are at a suitable size, we will take more cuttings from some of the plants to keep a supply at the greenhouse, and the others will be taken to one of our restoration sites on Darwen and planted out back into the wild.
A small step toward a rewilded bog.
Sundew growing at the Greenhouse Project - Kirsty Tyler
Thank you to the Carnivorous Plant Society for funding the restoration of these special plants.
