New Plants

N.mikei, N.ramispina

N.ramispina

The youngins

N.truncata Queen of Hearts X King of Spades (x2)

N.mikei, N.ramispina

N.miranda new pitcher

Plants Update

N.miranda

N.boschiana X densiflora

N.truncata (QoH X KoS)

N.sanguinea

N.singalana

One final soil change

So I couldn't shake the itch even though I know I should have given the plants longer to settle in. I was concerned about potentially having too much salt from the coir bark. I just made the most simple version of soil I could which would be 1 part lfs and 1 part perlite. My gut says they will be happier now as long as I didn't traumatize them too much changing the soil so many times :/

New plants coming!

Woo new plants should be here probably next Wednesday. Nepenthes Mikei and Nepenthes Ramispina. Sarracenia Northewest (cobraplant.com) has a great deal on them right now, around $10 each.

N.mikei

N.ramispina

Night temperature drops

I have been growing my plants on a reverse night/day schedule because my lights were blinding me during the day. I realized that this created the reverse temperature conditions, it was cooler during the "day" and warmer during the "night". I wasn't sure how big of an issue this was so I posed the question to the experts over at Sarracenia Northwest:

"Hi Adam,

You bring up a very good point.  We generally recommend nighttime temperature drops for highland Nepenthes because that's what they often experience in the wild.  However, it doesn't necessarily mean that the plants absolutely needs it to grow properly.  Overall, it depends on the species you're growing.  Ultra highland species tend to produce more pitchers with nighttime drops.  Other highland species, such as N. sanguinea, do fine without them.  

The point about growing these plants is always observing their growth and making necessary adjustments to the microclimate to achieve the growth you want.  So if you notice that the plants are not producing pitchers, then you may need to go back to daytime lighting to allow the temperature to drop at night.  That's what it essentially comes down to.  There's no hard and fast rule about growing in cultivation.  Our recommendations are starting points.  After that, it's a matter of fine tuning your growing conditions so your plants look their best."

My super happy ones

Not sure if you can see it in this picture but there is so much nectar on that peristome that it dripped onto my desk :)

This little guy has 5 pitchers opening/inflating at once :)

New information sections!

Take a look to your right ------->

There are new sections with some general information. If you have any questions or suggestions let me know and I will be more than glad to help answer/research a question. I also made a poll on the top of the page for people to share if they use terrariums or not as I am very interested about the topic.

color change

This is one of my highly traumatized plants that I am trying to revive. Where the leaves bend they are turning white, and they are turning white from the base. Any ideas? They were darkening from being under better light but now they are doing this.

N.boschiana X densiflora

N.truncata queen of hearts X king of spades

So this is the order I got from cpjungle. The plants seem to be doing alright and both the pitchers show a lot of potential in color already.

CPJungle review

Ok I commented earlier that cpjungle was pretty slow to respond. I think they were just overly busy at the time I was trying to reach them. Recently they have been replying to emails within 48 hours. I have two N.truncata (queen of hearts X king of spades) arriving in the mail from them today. I'll take pictures when the plants arrive and show how they were packed and what condition they came in. After they started replying to emails I feel more comfortable with them as a vendor now. They also have a "Nepenthes University" full of information.

Regarding Terrariums

Early I mentioned my stance on no terrariums. For most neps (highland nepenthes, see below for lowland) you can adjust them to lower humidity and due without them. However, this doesn't mean you CAN'T use one and many people do. If you do choose to use one you just have to make sure you regularly clean it to keep mold and other bacteria down. I choose not to have a terrarium and to acclimate my plants to reasonable lower humidity. I made this decision because I feel there are enough issues to worry about when you first start with nepenthes without having to also keep up on mold and bacteria.

There is a difference between lowland and highland neps in regards to this. Lowlanders for the most part need higher humidity, and some may require a terrarium if your local humidity isn't high enough. I have chosen to avoid lowland nepenthes for now due to the reasons stated in the first paragraph. I also chose to avoid them so that I can only have one growing environment for my highlanders and intermediates without having to create a different environment for lowlanders. Again this is in an effort to make my fist growing attempts as easy as possible.

If you are uncertain, use google! If what you have falls into the lowland class you are more likely going to need higher humidty. If what you have is intermediate or highland than you should be ok, use google to find information about your specific plants and what growing conditions it may need. You can also read the information at Cobra Plant in their Care Sheets or search forums such as Terra Forums.

lights

yellow and red :(

It's getting red... but its also getting yellow? any opinions?

Its not quite as yellow as it appears. The picture is a little off.

This is also being discussed at terraforums

Edit: Other growers said that their miranda did this, and then transitioned from a deeper yellow into a better green and red than before. So hopefully this is just a transition faze. 

Soil fixed

So after scrounging around all my local stored I found some long fiber sphagnum moss. I couldn't find enough to do the 1 part sphagnum + 1 part perlite so I ended up doing 1 part sphagnum + 1 part bark + 1 part coconut fiber. There might be a bit less than 1 part coconut fiber. I'll post pictured for reference. There are a lot of different mixes out there, just make sure there is enough drainage. My previous mix with the sphagnum peat was to dense and did not provide enough aeration to the roots.

long fiber vs not long fiber

Ok so when they say 1 part sphagnum moss and 1 part perlite they mean long fiber sphagnum not the short chopped up black powdery stuff. You can see what I am talking about in the pictures I posted. That mix is being remixed tomorrow. Apparently this type of peat moss will keep the roots too wet and cause root rot :( Learn from my mistake!