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Thagirion

Budgies are best
A while back I placed an order with a nursery in Texas. I don't like getting plants there but sometimes I do because what I'm looking for isn't available anywhere else. I ordered two plants. An N. bicalcarata giant Sarawak and an N. campanulata. The bical died on me. It started going down hill the moment I got it out of the ship box. I have two other bicals dong well so it's not that I don't know how to take care of them. Was very disapionted. The campanulata had two decent tiny pitchers and had very nice dark green leaves. After talking with some people here though, it seems dark green is bad. Is this so for campanulata? The grow tip seemed damage and it did start to make new leaves but they are way smaller than the ones it had. I'm glad it's still making leaves though but not pleased with this set back.

I've put it in my tank. Temps are 70-80 day and night. Humidity 70-90%. I think I've had it a month now and it hasn't made any progress. I know you don't fertilize nepenthes but I thought this one could use a little help since I'd like to see normal leaves and not worry about pitchers just yet. Last week I gave it very little liquid orchid fertilizer. That's it no more. It's still in the round green 3 inch pot that it came in when shipped. Looks like its in LFS at least on top but who knows what's underneath. I'm wondering if I should repot it with a better mix to a bigger pot? If so what do you recommend? "Soils" I have for mixing are LFS, pet, pealite, vermiculite and orchid bark. Soon it will be warm enough for my lowlanders to go back outside so I'm sure that will help too. But it probably won't be until April.
 
I'd probably repot it, a good mix for this species is 2 parts perlite to one part LFS. As far as the leaves being dark green, it probably needs more light, this species likes a great deal of it. Fertilizing can be done at a rate of 1/4 tsp per gallon, 2 x a month, with good flushings of clean water during it's normal waterings.

Hope this is helpful.
 
Thank you for this advice. It was dark green when I got it and I didn't know and thought that was a good thing. Now I know better. Light will not be a problem much longer and at the moment it is directly under one of my grow lights. I shall make that mix and repot it. I hope it will recover soon.
 
I have repotted it. And made a mix of 2 parts pearlit and 1 lfs like you said. Here is the pot it was in and how I got it.

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The roots look small to me. I don't think this is good.

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Repoted and out in the shade house getting really good light. Here's hoping it will recover.
 
Yeah dark green generally means too little light. The small roots may be from being kept soo wet. Even though places that sell these ants are supposed to be nurseries of these plants, they don't always seem to know what they are doing. Or don't have proper facilities. It is a good idea to always repot to check the over all general health of the plant IMO. This is on more reason I always buy bare root.
 
Yeah I first learned this from you in your hamata thread. Once you told me this I remembered my plant was dark green too and I had more warnings tell me something was up. No one else had a campanulata so I got this one. Thanks for the advice.
 
Things are not going well. I think this is a case of too little too late and the plant was on its way down since it came out of the box. The grow tip is blackening which I think means root rot and no hope. I'm rather sure I'm going to lose this plant. Very disapointed because it would have been so nice and the only lowland that has that bowl like shap.
 
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