What's eating my excellent pitcher plant?

Sarracenia x excellens is a hybrid pitcher plant that catches insects in fluid-filled pitchers. Grown as a houseplant, it faces aphids on its phyllodia and new pitchers, scale insects on older stems, and fungus gnats in its boggy substrate. Scale is a persistent threat on the tall, waxy pitchers where it is easily overlooked.

Flat brown or white bumps cling to pitcher walls and rhizomes, draining sap and causing yellowing or collapsed pitchers. Scrape off with a soft toothbrush and wipe pitchers with a 70% isopropyl alcohol swab. Inspect the rhizome at the soil surface — scale hides there most often.

Green or black colonies gather on young pitcher lips and phyllodia, distorting growth and depositing honeydew. Rinse with distilled water or dab with an alcohol swab. In a greenhouse, introduce Aphidius parasitoid wasps as a preventive biological control.

Larvae infest the constantly wet, peat-based bog compost and damage the rhizome, causing unexplained pitcher failure. Use yellow sticky traps and coarse-sand top-dressing on the pot. Keep tray water fresh and avoid stagnant conditions around the rhizome.