Nepenthes Advice Needed

I'm normally a person with two very green thumbs, but for the life of me I cannot seem to keep these things! IF I manage to keep one alive and the plant looks good, it loses its pitchers and never regrows them, just keeps growing and vining. I know that there are "lowland" species and "highland" species, with different requirements, but I can't seem to find any decent information on which species belong where. Perhaps it would be better to describe my situation, and let some of you experienced Nepenthes keepers make recommendations based on that. I really would love to be able to keep some of these.

I live in South Carolina, in the northeastern quadrant of the state, so I'm not quite in the Coastal zone. Summers here vary a LOT insofar as humidity goes; until recently, this summer has been very dry and HOT. We are currently experiencing a shift in weather bringing us almost-daily showers/storms, high humidity and temps in the upper '80's, tops. Winters are typically cool and dry. I have several areas in the yard where I hang my plants during the summer, once the threat of frost is gone, so there's a lot of areas that receive a "filtered" or "dappled" sunlight that really seems to agree with my Rhipsalis, Epipremnums, Hoyas and other tropical, mostly-hanging plants. I've tried keeping Nepenthes in the same way, but they either died or lost their pitchers and did not regrow them. I have to admit, though, that I had no idea whether I had highland or lowland species, or for that matter, what species I had, period. I just saw them and bought them. I do NOT have a greenhouse or hothouse. Most of my plants winter on an enclosed back porch, which is not heated, and has windows all the way around except for the southern side, which is the rest of the house. With the exception of one Philodendron and one Hoya species, and of course, theNepenthes, all of my others do well on the porch, even when temps drop down into the '20's at night, since they are protected from the actual frost, and probably get some benefit of warmth when we open and close the main door to the house on our way in or out. I know that I cannot keep Nepenthes out there in the winter, though, unless there are species that are more cold-tolerant than the ones I've had. That means having to bring them inside, into the main part of house, and the kitchen is really the only room with a decent sunlight exposure. I DO have access to deep-well water, unchlorinated. Now, are there any species or varieties which can be kept successfully, AND will keep or at least re-grow their pitchers, given the parameters I have to work with, or is keeping any of this genus simply a lost cause?

pitbulllady

pitbulllady said:

Now, are there any species or varieties which can be kept successfully, AND will keep or at least re-grow their pitchers, given the parameters I have to work with, or is keeping any of this genus simply a lost cause?

pitbulllady

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No worries PBL, I guarantee there are some neps you can grow. You might find though the success one person has with any species or hybrid will differ from place to place. Don't be discouraged if they stop pitchering, sometimes they can refuse to put out new pitchers for more than a year from transport shock. As long as the plant is growing you are doing the right thing.

I'd buy myself some of the real easy hybrids you can usually find in garden centers such as ventrata (ventricosa X alata). You would likely do well with some of the hardier highlanders try getting your hands on a N. maxima or a cross thereof. They are very pretty and don't mind direct light either. It took me a while to find some nepenthes that would work for me. The pasian highland truncata is a beautiful plant as well and quite hardy though it prefers indirect light. I think I lost about 8 before I found the species and crosses that worked.

Just my two cents.

May be humidity, too much available nutrients and/or not enough light. Those are the three most common culprits for an overly vegetative Nepenthes. I would guess insufficient light or humidity from the description of your set up- of course which species/hybrids you are growing will dictate that as BigBoy mentioned. But in general they require pretty high humidity and much more light that one would suspect. Mine grow very well in a greenhouse but sulk out of doors here in hot and humid Florida. They could be experiencing transplant shock, but not as likely as lack of light/humidity. I could barely grow alata outdoors and it's fairly easy. In the greenhouse it becomes almost weedy it grows so much.

They're not unlike some orchids in this sense- they can grow with window light but they won't grow well or flower heavily without bright light and extremely high humidity. Put them in a greenhouse and suddenly you have a robust, vigorous plant. The viney, pitcherless growth sure sounds like insufficient light to me- they are long stemmed but will grow more compactly when they are happy light-wise, more of a lanky bush than a vine, shorter internode spaces. They are grown quite happily in our university greenhouse and in the rare plant house at Fairchild in Miami, both of which have over head light all day- probably 80-90% of the intensity outdoors if I had to guess (noting that glass blocks almost all UVB and some UVA and that this also means high humidity- hard to distinguish the two, but they certainly look quite healthy with fairly intense light). Hope this helps! Good luck.

Tarac said:

May be humidity, too much available nutrients and/or not enough light. Those are the three most common culprits for an overly vegetative Nepenthes. I would guess insufficient light or humidity from the description of your set up- of course which species/hybrids you are growing will dictate that as BigBoy mentioned. But in general they require pretty high humidity and much more light that one would suspect. Mine grow very well in a greenhouse but sulk out of doors here in hot and humid Florida. They could be experiencing transplant shock, but not as likely as lack of light/humidity. I could barely grow alata outdoors and it's fairly easy. In the greenhouse it becomes almost weedy it grows so much.

They're not unlike some orchids in this sense- they can grow with window light but they won't grow well or flower heavily without bright light and extremely high humidity. Put them in a greenhouse and suddenly you have a robust, vigorous plant. The viney, pitcherless growth sure sounds like insufficient light to me- they are long stemmed but will grow more compactly when they are happy light-wise, more of a lanky bush than a vine, shorter internode spaces. They are grown quite happily in our university greenhouse and in the rare plant house at Fairchild in Miami, both of which have over head light all day- probably 80-90% of the intensity outdoors if I had to guess (noting that glass blocks almost all UVB and some UVA and that this also means high humidity- hard to distinguish the two, but they certainly look quite healthy with fairly intense light). Hope this helps! Good luck.

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That's what I was afraid of. I don't have a greenhouse, and cannot afford one, not even a small one, on my severely-cut and still-shrinking paycheck. Humidity is a crap-shoot, like I mentioned. Right now, we've been getting a lot of rain and it's very humid outside, though it's been partly-to-very cloudy for the past week or so, without much sunlight. Earlier this summer it was blazing hot and bone-dry, with humidity levels in single digits, so humidity outdoors is not something you can count on one way or the other. Also, there's the issue of sunlight. Our yard has a lot of shade because we have a lot of trees, large old trees. Areas which are not shady are out in the open, and there's nothing to hang a plant basket from. Basically, what you're saying, is that the only way for Nepenthes to thrive and produce pitchers is to keep them in a greenhouse or other controlled environment, right?

pitbulllady

It's not the only way, but it's the only easy way. You can always do very very extensive research and find a hybrid that does do well, but it's probably a crap shoot still and you may go through a number of plants before you find just the right hybrid if one even exists- and they can be quite variable as individuals even though they are clones in most cases. Some are just not as tough as the next for whatever reason (maybe epigenetic changes after production? who knows).

One thing that might help and may fit in your budget is getting a cheap supplemental light source. Something with a high Kelvin rating is perfect, a fluorescent from a fish store for aquatic plants, for example. The higher the Kelvin value is, the better (in general, light is complicated technically but there are ample aquaria pages that will detail exactly how to pick the perfect light if you really want to go there- probably not necessary though, just stick to high Kelvin rating).

Humidity can always be faked by misting more often or putting some water underneath it in a humidity tray, but decent light can be harder to come by. Really the nice thing about your arrangement is that the temperatures are equitable and that's the hardest thing to control- a constant battle here in Florida because you can't cool evaporatively at all. Don't give up quite yet!

I wound up purchasing two yearling Nepenthes miranda plants today at the Myrtle Beach Reptile Expo. I was kinda hoping I'd find some, since once in awhile there will be someone at one of the reptile shows selling high-end orchids and other collector tropical plants. There was a guy from the upstate of SC, as it turns out, who grows some different Nepenthes species. He had three really nice established N. alata plants and a lot of the N. mirandas that he'd grown from seedlings, and most of them already have tiny little pitchers on them, a far cry from what they'll have as adult plants, but it's a start. I repotted them when I got home in a six-inch hanging basket in Eco-Earth(coconut fiber)substrate, soaked in rain water, so I'm gonna give them a try. The humidity is really high, and the guy had kept them outdoors under trees, so hopefully there won't be too much transplant shock on them. I've got them placed where they will get fairly bright morning sun, and some late afternoon sun, with the rest of the day mostly filtered sunlight/shade combo, same place I keep my Rhipsalis, only a bit higher up in the bushes for more morning sun.

pitbulllady

I have always found that non production of pitchers was linked to low humidity something tough to acquire most of the year in southern Calif. I did have to resort to a small green house to keep them although N. khasiana did wonderfully outdoors. As dreadful as I find hybrids to be the one you got is probably a good choice to work with.

myrmecophile said:

I have always found that non production of pitchers was linked to low humidity something tough to acquire most of the year in southern Calif. I did have to resort to a small green house to keep them although N. khasiana did wonderfully outdoors. As dreadful as I find hybrids to be the one you got is probably a good choice to work with.

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Yeah, they thrive in a greenhouse. Maybe watch on Craigslist or something. It will change your tropical-cultivating life. I live in an almost tropical place already but you cannot believe the difference between greenhouse and outdoors and I am a very devoted and diligent gardener. It's especially noticeable here in the winter with the cool season bloomers (most orchids and Gesneriads) and with some of my ferns.