I recommend at LEAST 8" pots for outdoor growing and Bogs are even better. If your winters get below freezing and your leaving your cold dormant needing plants outside 16" pots or bigger, mini-bogs and bogs are best.

Pot Winterization:

Once it starts to get chilly out start decreasing the amount of water given until they are roughly half as wet as they are in the summer. You don't want to dry them out considerably until they are actually dormant.

When they are dormant you don't need to supply them with very much water, or light. Remove them from water trays. They can't completely dry out or they will die, you want to keep them slightly moist. Don't add water unless it is warm enough for water to be water. If you keep them too wet rot will become an issue, just keep them moist once dormant.

Once dormant wrap the pots with bubble wrap or some other material to give them some insulation. Group your pots together in an area that has some protection from the wind.

If 30º F is as cold as it gets than you are done.

If temperatures are going to drop below 30º F then you should cover the plants with some type of mulch. I prefer using pine needles. If you are going to be having a cold bitter wind with exceptionally cold temps I would also cover the plants with black 2 mil plastic until extremes lessen. Be careful not to smash the plants in the pot. You can tie a thin rope around the pot to hold the plastic or use tape. I generally use rope for easy on/off.

Trim dead growth often to prevent fungus attacks. On pitcher plants if half the pitcher is dead then remove the dead half, make the cut in the dead part. Allow only a small section of the dead area to remain. For purple pitchers, and most of their hybrids, leave a dying pitcher until all of it can be removed at once.

The first year a plant spends its dormancy outside you should protect it from nighttime temperatures below 28º F or so. Bring it into the garage or place in a shed. You must be careful not to warm it up too much though, above 40°. Try to keep it around 35 or slightly lower. Make sure you know how a plant has been raised when you purchase it, some will have already spent winters outside.

If you have extreme winters or your just nervous about leaving your plants outside there are other options. Once the plants are dormant they need very little light, if they are truly dormant. Cold temps are needed to get them really dormant, below 38°F anyway. The colder they are the deeper their dormancy, a plant slightly dormant still needs a fair amount of light. A garage or shed often provides acceptable temps so they work well as storage areas during the winter. Just make sure they don't dry out or get over ran with mold. In warmer garages a light may be needed, use a winter photoperiod.
Garages/sheds also work good for temporary protection from extremes if you can leave them outside most of the winter. Some people put their plants out in the afternoon sun for a few hours each day, returning them to the garage/shed at night.
And then there's always the refrigerator, see next paragraph.

Dormancy is required but it doesn't get cold here!

Not to worry. You have two options, both require a refrigerator. If you just have one or two plants and the room in your fridge (not freezer) do the following:
Place a plastic bag over the pot and place in the fridge for 2 - 4 months. You should be able to tell when your plant is ready to go dormant by its slowed growth. Dry the pot out to just moist and treat lightly with a fungicide before bagging and adding to the fridge.

If you are short on space and/or have several plants: Bare root the plant and place in a sealable bag with some damp long fiber sphagnum moss. Place in the fridge (not freezer) as a above.

The photoperiod is the most important factor here. If the days become shorter and cooler they will know winters coming. If your winters get in the mid 40's and thats it then that's fine, good enough. Likewise if you can create those conditions. But a strong light source will be required for just slightly dormant plants. If you have a cool basement it could also house them for the winter, again light will be needed. Extreme temps are not required by a long shot. But they can be acclimated into much colder areas, if so desired, by the methods described on this page. Do what is easiest on you for your area.

Here's some basic info that may help some of you put outdoor winters into perspective. A winter photoperiod is required across the board, of course. Most grow naturally in areas that generally do not get colder than 20° or so.

Nighttime Lows(F):
50° to 60°	Use the fridge for Purpurea, Intermedia; all that can take -20 or lower; others are fine if summers are at least 20 degrees warmer.
35° to 49°	Use the fridge for Purpurea, etc as listed above; others are fine
29° to 34°	10" & larger pots, Insulate pot
20° to 28°	16" and larger pots, Insulate, Mulch
14° to 19°	16" and larger pots/bogs are better, Insulate, Mulch, cover with plastic
Subzero to 13°	S. Purpurea and D. Intermedia (some varieties) are fine, you should use the fridge for the rest as your playing with fire.
Strong or bitter winds	Cover with plastic to protect from the windchil too.

For plants left outside in cold winters its best to let them get plenty of sunshine during the day to build up heat. Remove the plastic when you can or excess heat can build, and it can get very humid and lead to fungus outbreaks.

Protect 6" pots from temps below 30°.
You can move pots to shelter during cold snaps if thats easier for you. You want to avoid drastic temp changes though, don't pull them out of 20's and put them someplace 80. Keep them cool even when protected.

We leave most of our 6" pots outside until it gets in the low 30's for several days in a row. Then we bring them into the breezeway where they stay for the rest of the winter. Generally 32° is as cold as it gets there. They get some light but not much. This has become our "easy out". I'm sure you will come up with something that works good for you. All you actually NEED is a winter photoperiod and cooler temps, the rest is simply what's convenient/enjoyable for you. We have sooo many flytraps we generally store them in the fridge for the winter.

As a general rule you wont loose plants at 20° or warmer if you make an effort to winterize them to at least some degree when needed. Colder and you need to insulate and mulch correctly and have enough media present to hold some heat. This applies to the vast majority of cold dormant needing plants including sarracenia, flytraps and sundews.

Some exceptions to the rule would be:
S. Purpurea - Most cold hardy of the Sarracenia, good to -50° or so. Requires a cold winter, use fridge if needed
D. Rotundiffolia and D. Intermedia (some forms) are good to -50° or so.
Flytraps can handle the cold pretty good when winterized but single digits can still kill, make sure they are covered with plastic below 20°, protect if possible from single digits altogether. Their main downfall is rot, as always. Make sure the media is just moist but do not allow it to dry out.

Mini-Bog & Bog Winterization:

Bogs are pretty easy to winterize. As winter approaches start the drying out process. Again you just want to take it to half or a little less as wet as it generally is during the summer months until the plants go dormant. Once the plants go dormant let dry to just slightly damp if possible. If temperatures are going to drop below 28º F or so then cover with mulch, again I prefer pine needles. Generally a 1/2" layer will suffice. If you are going to have a cold bitter wind with exceptionally cold temps I would also cover the bog with black 2 mil plastic. Uncover when the harsh weather has passed. I generally cover when temps dip below 20°F. My bog is around 20 inches deep (300 gallon), the amount of media will have everything to do with when to cover and what extremes are tolerated.