Need help with couple nepenthes

[thez_yo]

Most nepenthes I can just dump into my growspace and they grow on their merry way, but a couple I'm still having trouble with so I'm here soliciting advice if anyone has any. Here are my misbehaving plants with descriptions:

N.sp Doorman's top #2:
It barely has 5 leaves on it, maybe thinking about making a pitcher. It grows slow as molasses, and is just generally angry. If it's in full sun, the leaves turn red and when not it goes back to green. I can't get it to grow any faster than villosa and that's saying a lot. I coffee'd it 2 months ago and it's in an lfs : perlite mix, gets 70's by day and low 60's by night. Humidity...considering it's still just a big rosette a year later of the same size (maybe 3" across), it should be pretty high so close to the soil. Anyone successfully grow this one and can give me pointers?

N.muluensis:
Same conditions as the above N.sp Doorman's top#2, and I swear it's shrinking when it was actually bigger earlier in the year when it was warmer during the day and night, which is strange considering it's supposed to be good and solid highland. It would be an exaggeration to say that it's even penny sized.

N.macfarlanei:
I've had it for a year and ... well, it's put up a basal and gained some height, but looks like it wants to die and definitely doesn't look vigorous. Same lfs : perlite mix, plenty of direct sunshine, not so great humidity but it's pretty hard - temps are again 70's day and 60's night. For a month 3 or 4 months ago it was making tiny pitchers and looking happier but now it's kaput again..

N.campanulata:
Same conditions as the above plants...doesn't look bad but isn't really growing and hasn't made a pitcher for me yet. The N.tenuis I got in the same shipment as it is growing like a weed in comparison so I'm not sure what's up. It wasn't growing when it was warmer earlier in the year either - high 80's by day and a struggle to hit upper 70's by night. Is it really slow to acclimate or something?

N.burkei:
Same as campanulata, doesn't look bad, but doesn't do anything. And I really want to have a nice burkei because they have such nice spots

Any advice is appreciated.

 

[Exo]

I find that macfarlanie, and anything with macfarlanie in it, grows best with night temps of 50-55F.....any warmer and it nearly stops growing all together. So cool and very humid conditions are best for this one.

N.muluensis....I suspect that that it may be the same as macfarlanie.....needs to be cool at night and pretty humid.

Doormans top.....in this case, you may actually need to keep it warmer. I have heard that this one is VERY hard to keep happy, and the most successful growers keep it as an intermediate, with day temps of about 80F and nights of 65F.

N.campanulata....not sure....I hear that they grow well with oyster shell in the mix, but I'm not sure if it's neccessary or not. I'm sure there is somebody around here that knows more....

N,burkie......looks like it needs more light, and possibly more humidity....from what I've heard they like it fairly moist and humid.

 

[Raven01000]

I grow my N. macfarlanei in regular household humidity and temperatures are usually in the low 70's or high 60's with a slight drop at night. It pitchered like crazy for a while and had just started to gain some size, but I recently rearranged my growspace and now it is stalling due to an increase in light. I think maybe it's just very slow in every sense of the word, and it needs a lot of time to adapt to new conditions.

I wish someone on here who grows N. muluensis would have commented on this. I was thinking about getting one, and it's a species you don't really hear much about.

 

[seedjar]

Well, this is advice I give all the time, so forgive me for sounding like a bit of an evangelist. LFS and perlite can become kind of a heavy mix. Have you unpotted any of these plants to check the conditions of the roots? Soil compaction may be a culprit; your plants look to me like they're showing the same signs of stress that mine used to, before I switched to more airy media and net pots.
Net pots let you load up on watering and, as a result, sunlight. You can leave your plants in shallow water trays (so long as the grow space isn't too cold/stagnant/shady) and get a nice humidity boost that lasts far longer than misting or any other non-automated method I've come across. With the first two plants I tried it on - DeRoos' Alata and a big mix of N. sanguinea forms - I was able to keep them pitchering throughout the winter in the same room as my wood stove. If you've never lived in a house with a wood stove, it's a very dry heat - averaged about 25% RH, by far the driest environment I've attempted Neps in.
Here's a short read on Nep cultivation that I found on Barry's site back in the day:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050404002545/http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq6010e.html
It's not up on the new FAQ because he lost the original document, but I found this on the Wayback Machine and sent him a link the other day... hopefully he'll post it again.
Also, you've been around enough to probably have seen this already, but it's worth linking: http://www.nepenthesaroundthehouse.com/
I get those dry/sunburned looking leaves when my plants aren't getting enough water. An obvious reason for this can be underwatering - another would be low humidity (or the associated problem of too much heat from sunlight.) But one you probably wouldn't expect is overwatering; if Neps are in fouled or compacted media and kept wet, root rot can prevent them from taking up water, making them appear thirsty when in reality they urgently need repotting first.
As for the specifics of each species, I'm not much help in that regard. N. macfarlanei gives me grief too, but then I've had it in the same two-inch-square pot of cedar bark since I got it in a trade back in '06 or '07, and the grower I got it from had never repotted it after getting it from the nursery... It came to me as a refugee because the grower couldn't keep it cool enough, so I'm just proud it didn't die.
~Joe

 

[Nepenthes101]

Haven't grown any of the others except for Campanulata. I keep my Campanulata indoors now on a South window sill and its starting to grow very nicely. So I assume it grows best as an intermediate.

 

[thez_yo]

OK...thanks for the ideas guys.

I've visited Joel's house to get a better idea of what to do with outdoor cultivation in So.Cal. and honestly his mix is heavier than mine so that's not the problem imho...it really must have been heat stress for the couple-months-hot for a lot of them because they've magically just perked up. Maybe they'll just be my canaries

I only know one person who had a decent sized N.mulu before but it died for reasons I can't remember right now... I guess I'll just keep wingin' it.

 

[seedjar]

Heavy how? LFS and perlite are light in terms of weight but if you water through and give them time they can compact into something that has very poor air circulation. Oxygen at the root zone is a significant limiting factor for Neps. You might get better results by substituting orchid bark and peat for your LFS.
~Joe

 

[thez_yo]

For pots 4" and under, it's lfs : perlite that dries out solid over the course of the week, for anything larger it's lfs: perlite: orchid-mix-stuff (bark, perlite, hydroton balls i think, charcoal maybe too). Also, everything got repotted 2 or 3 months ago so there hasn't been enough time for compaction to be occurring.

 

[seedjar]

Hrm. That's a bit of a stumper. Are you using the same batch of mix for everything? One thing suggested in the guide I linked to is to vary your mix a little with your strongest plants and see how they respond.
~Joe

 

[Jeremiah Harris]

Hello, I saw you asked for a little advice in the other thread. First let me say those are some of the slowest growing and just all around most difficult species. I would give them all more humidity if possible. Also the soil looks a little dry but it might just be the lighting.

N.sp Doorman's I dont grow it so I can't really comment, but to me it looks like it could use a little cooler nights and higher humidity. Light levels look great though.

N.muluensis It could be a struggle to bring it back to life. I've grown one for a few years now. It is definitely a very slow growing plant even when vining. From the looks of yours I would say it needs more Humidity and maybe even a little more light.

N.macfarlanei I have had one for years and it never has done much of anything. A lot of the N.macfarlanei going around are hybrids with N. ramispina or N. sanguinea which are also much easier growing. I would give it less light if I were you.

N.campanulata I've never done well with this plant so I won't even comment.

N.burkei Also seems to grow better for me in a little less light then most Nepenthes.
I dont have any new photos but I will try and take some next time.

-Jeremiah-

 

[thez_yo]

Thanks! That's actually great to hear because I've been slowly moving the mulu and campy to higher light and the burkei, doorman's top 2 and macfarlanei to less light so it seems I'm on the right track.

 

[vraev]

Fantastic plants Jeremiah. Damn!!

Hi TY, I grow campanulata, macfarlenii as a couple of ones from your list. Personally, my campanulata was easy to begin with. I finally got it growing again since it stopped after I repotted it many months ago. THe mother plant made a new offshoot and the seperated offshoot has started making pitchers. I found it loves high light and requires generally warmer temps than most of your other plants. So, perhaps moving that plant indoors and keeping temps a bit higher at night might help.

Macfarlenii, I noticed that it is more of a intermediate plant. The form I have is still very young, but pitcher color-wise looks exactly like Jeremiah's. It has always made pitchers and is one of the tougher plants that did well during the summer.