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Nepenthes villosa

I'm trying to fine tune my terrarium to be an Ultrahighland terrarium... This is my favoroute nep... It grows slow, so I dont have to upgrade it's living space any time soon, bonus!

Day Temps: seventies maybe low eighties
Night Temps: fifty five and up, but have it down to fifty occasionally
Humidity - 70-80... any more and it will not tolerate lower
Light - dappled direct sun, or brigh indirect... (does that mean light pouring in your window, but the sun is actually still out of view???

Did I miss something?!

Eeeheheehe... I get giddy thinking about it!
 
It sounds like you have good temps for N. villosa. The key is to not cook it. Have fun, as it is a nice nepenthes.

Kim
 
no, thats wut it NEEDS, not what i have...
 
Parasuco,

It might sound idiotic but up there in Canada you might have better luck with highlands than most others. I had great luck in Colorado because I could open the windows at night and get the massive temperature drop. Even during the hottest days of summer night time highs were still down in the mid 60's. Considering you are significantly further North I'd wager that you could almost grow it on a window if it were not for its humidity requirements.

Pyro
 
Pyro is right, highland nepenthes grow pretty well around here (I'm from Niagara Falls, american side). Most highland species I've grown have done very well on a windowsill (thanks to being near lake Ontario, a couple open fishtanks, and misting occasionally, humidity has not even been a problem). Every highland species I've grown has done rather well.
 
Well... Lately, its been in the nineties and I dont know if this counts for plants, or only humans, but with the humidex, its hasnt been rare for the temperatures to be in the hundreds... Thats too much for highlands isnt it? I have my burbidgeae in a terrarium with a little bit of ice to keep the temperatures at around 80, and I actually (once) got it down to sixty five...

If I DO open my windows, and it actually is that cold, then wont that harm my lowlander (ie. rafflesiana)?

The winter will be perfect... Theres nothing else I can say about that, the humidity will suck, but the temps will be villosa in my bedroom...
 
While it might be 90+ outside I am assuming that you have A/C indoors? If you can keep that in the low to mid 70 range you might be able to squeak by. And I am not necessarally advocating growing on the windowsill, just that opening a window at night that far North might solve your temp drop issue.
smile.gif


As for harming your lowlands, that is a whole different ball of wax and I'm not sure how to fix that.

Pyro
 
Temps into the low 60 and even 50's will not nessacarily kill Lows but may make them look at bit ratty. I personally (if your bedroom is that cold in the winter) move them to the warmest part of the house. IE: an inside corner.
 
N. villosa needs very cool temperatures to thrive.  I've been growing this species
for a number of years, and have been most successful with it when overnight lows
drop to about 3 C.  Daytime highs should not be much more than 17 C.  This
is based upon personal communication with Charles Clarke.  If you cannot provide
these conditions consistently, along with bright light and high humidity, then I suggest
you avoid this species as your chances of growing it successfully are slim.  

My plants have been grown under these conditions for some time now, and the largest
is 15 cm in diameter, with 5 cm pitchers.  Plants are very healthy, and pitcher from each leaf.
When well grown, this species is exceptional; however, please avoid it if you cannot provide
proper conditions, and if you are not patient.  This species only produces three or four pitchers
per year.
 
  • #10
That's a very suitably sized Villosa! Keep up the great work! I will get a Villosa when/if I can find a 2 inch palnt at least! THat's all I want a 2 inch plant. I'll just gorw it with my Rajah and Lowii. My two Ultrahighlands get 45F at nihgt so it's nice and cold anyways. I have great condiitons but haven't found a 3 inch Villosa yet anywhere's. darn.
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  • #11
NG, I doubt that you will find a 5 cm (2 in) diameter specimen of villosa, ever, unless you have
the good fortune of encountering a very experienced grower who is selling one. All
of the specimens I've ever seen for sale are only 1 to 2 cm in diameter.

Also, I would not recommend growing villosa with rajah and/or lowii. Temps will either
be too hot for villosa, or your rajah/lowii will be so cold that they will grow even more
slowly than they already do. Trust me. Overnight low's of only 10 C are not low enough
for villosa, especially as it get larger, and temps above 20 C are too high.
 
  • #12
SO your saying 45F at night is too warm for Villosa and too cold for Lowi and Rajah"? Somehow that makes no sense to me, as in the native habitats they get temps like this quite often or warmer into the 50's.
 
  • #13
No; what I am saying is that conditions where villosa grows are quite a bit cooler
overall than those prevailing where lowii and rajah grow.
To wit:
3 C to 17 C for villosa
8C to 30 C for rajah and lowii.

N. villosa grows from 2600 to about 3300 m,
whereas lowii grows from 1600 to 2600 m and
rajah grows from 1500 to 2700 m.
As you can see, the ranges overlap only at their boundaries,
if at all!

No offense, but if you're going to bill yourself as an expert,
you should know stuff like this!
 
  • #14
I see what your saying now. But I bill my self as an expert because I have most of my Nepenthes in ideal conditions. My Rajah is growing like a weed and my other highlands are too. BTW personally who are you?
 
  • #15
Hi Jeff,

welcome to the forum first!

From what you write I do suspect my plant grown as N. villosa in fact isn't. It is grown way too hot compared to the figures you give and does quite well. But it is still small and I can't judge for sure from the juvenile pitchers it produces right now. Did you experiment with different growing conditions?

A friend of mine did climb Kinabalu some years ago. He told me he believes that the plants do grow much faster there than we do expect from plants in cultivation. He mentioned the pitchers were produced on a seasonal basis due to environmental conditions. During that time the plants do have to grow quite fast because they all had some fully functional pitchers. Well I can't judge if this fits reality or not...

Joachim
 
  • #16
Hello, Joachim, and thank you for your welcome!

I've found that N. villosa is *significantly* more tolerant of high temperatures when small
than when it grows larger. So, your plant may indeed be correctly labelled! If you find
that it stops pitchering, and its rate of growth slows, then it may be that it has reached
a point where it will require cooler temps.

Unfortunately, I have not yet been to G. Kinabalu, so my remarks are based only upon
conversations with those who have been there, and my own personal experience cultivating this
species. However, I can tell you that I have noticed that this species actually grows *faster* under cooler conditions!
 
  • #17
Hi together,

does someone know, who introduced N. villosa into invitro (=cultivation) or if seed has been collected more than once ?

Maybe there are clones from different origin (altitude) in cultivation which can tolerate more or less heat ?

I have the same clone as Joachim (thank you ;-) ) and my plant's pitchers (very small &#33
wink.gif
turn completly red under bright artificial light (high pressure sodium). Is this usual ?
I also grow mine under to warm conditions :-(

Jeff, do you grow your N. villosa with a spezial "treatment" or in a separte enclosure where it gets 3°C at night ?
How do you reach such low temperatures ?

(I'm waiting for your homepage-updates, too ;-) )

Martin
 
  • #18
I am not entirely sure who introduced N. villosa into cultivation. Suspect
that several people have collected seeds, actually, so presume that there
are many different clones available now, and from a variety of different altitudes.
However, villosa grows at a minimum altitude of about 2400 m, so regardless of where
the seeds were collected, it's still going to require cold temps when it gets larger.

To be brief, when my first specimen was still small, it could cope well with more heat.
But, as it grew, it slowly began to decline in health. It was at that point that I decided
to try to provide it with much cooler conditions.

To accomplish this, I have converted a chest freezer to serve as an ultrahighland
growing chamber. Inside, temperatures range from 3 C to about 17 C, maximum
(the maximum is actually no higher than about 15 C in winter, higher in summer).
This works very well, and I've written an article about it which will appear in the
CPN (Carnivorous Plant Newsletter) sometime later this year (hopefully).
 
  • #19
Hi Martin,

the clone we have isn't very widespread. The guy I got this plant from did put it in vitro from wild collected seed by himself (as far as I know).

This clone has turned out to be quite unusual producing two new leafes in the last two months which is way to fast from what is said about N. villosa. Sadly I can't show a photo of a pitcher right now because the petflytrap homepage is still down.

Joachim
 
  • #20
Excellent idea! Is there any way to take the chilling motor out of one of these chest freezers (here most people call em a "deep freeze") and fit it onto a terrarium enclosure (larger space)? I need to come up with a better way to do highland cooling cos when winter hits I don't want to run the AC to get these low nightime temps!
biggrin.gif
 
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