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Cephalotus follicularis: repotting

vraev

vraev

Carnivorous plant enthusiast
Admin
Hey guys,

Here are my 1 year old root and leaf cutting. I decided to finally repot it and give them more room to grow. I flipped the entire pot upside down ....the pitchers emptied...but the plant came out cleanly. media is mostly peat moss + tons of perlite with a handful of orchid bark.

The plants had great root systems as you can see. These are truly started from root and leaf cuttings. The bigger one is the root cutting. Note: order of plants in teh second pic is respective of the ones on the left after potting.

The plants were before in a 4 inch square pot that is like 3 inches tall. The roots were coming out of the drainage holes. The roots are like 6-7 inches long.

3242676889_1a1afbbf96_o.jpg


3242677289_11f0b11b9c_o.jpg


Now my only hope is that the plants don't experience a die back. If they do...its a lesson learnt on how "NOT" to repot a ceph. lol! I am confident they will survive htough. the root systems are very very tough as you can see. ;)
 
you showed these to me on MSN...absolutely amazing Varun
 
Incredible, they grew incredibly fast.
 
well done V,
more evidence that cephs can and do grow fast... if they are happy.

Butch
 
thank you sensei. ;) Is there anything amiss that you can spot ? I truly hope there is no dieback. :(
 
Those are huge for only being 1 year old. o_O They look great, hopefully they won't have much stress.
 
beautifuly done! my little SG guys have some work to do lol.
 
vraev said:
Hey guys,

Here are my 1 year old root and leaf cutting. I decided to finally repot it and give them more room to grow. I flipped the entire pot upside down ....the pitchers emptied...but the plant came out cleanly. media is mostly peat moss + tons of perlite with a handful of orchid bark.

The plants had great root systems as you can see. These are truly started from root and leaf cuttings. The bigger one is the root cutting. Note: order of plants in teh second pic is respective of the ones on the left after potting.

The plants were before in a 4 inch square pot that is like 3 inches tall. The roots were coming out of the drainage holes. The roots are like 6-7 inches long.

Now my only hope is that the plants don't experience a die back. If they do...its a lesson learnt on how "NOT" to repot a ceph. lol! I am confident they will survive htough. the root systems are very very tough as you can see. ;)
Click to expand...

I routinely repot my Cephalotus plants every couple of years, both to give them a bit more "breathing room" and to take divisions when possible. You shouldn't have any problem whatsoever repotting -- and this is the perfect time of the year to be doing it.

Nice plants . . .
 
Hey Varun, do you use fertilizers at all?

Hope your repotting s successful.
 
  • #10
thanks guys. Nope! I use no fertilizers whatsoever. I do however feed my plants with bugs which is still in my opinion the best way to fertilize.
lol Bigbella! man! you and av8tor1 have the best cephs I have ever seen (apart from Jmatt's ceph tank). Even Av8tor told me that cephs need to be repotted regularly for good growth.

Already one of the pitchers from the bigger plant has started closing its lid. So I just put a plastic bag around it to bring up the humidity a bit. Lets see what happens.

Personally...I just picked this time to repot arbitrarily. I didn't know its the best time to repot. lol! I just did it becos I had to do it sometime. :p The pot was getting crowded and the little crappy sheet moss was getting on my nerves. If u notice, I placed a couple strands of polytrichum sp. moss in the new pots and am hoping that it will take off.
 
  • #11
vraev said:
thanks guys. Nope! I use no fertilizers whatsoever. I do however feed my plants with bugs which is still in my opinion the best way to fertilize.
lol Bigbella! man! you and av8tor1 have the best cephs I have ever seen (apart from Jmatt's ceph tank). Even Av8tor told me that cephs need to be repotted regularly for good growth.

Already one of the pitchers from the bigger plant has started closing its lid. So I just put a plastic bag around it to bring up the humidity a bit. Lets see what happens.

Personally...I just picked this time to repot arbitrarily. I didn't know its the best time to repot. lol! I just did it becos I had to do it sometime. :p The pot was getting crowded and the little crappy sheet moss was getting on my nerves. If u notice, I placed a couple strands of polytrichum sp. moss in the new pots and am hoping that it will take off.
Click to expand...

Winter and early Spring seem to be the best times for repotting Cephalotus -- during the production of "vegetative" leaves -- before very active growth, and the later production of pitcher leaves; but I have transplanted them at other times of the year without incident, and have sent bare-root plants overseas and through the lowland gorillas at Customs without any casualties.

Once again, these plants are not as remotely sensitive as many would have you believe -- provided that you don't do the repotting with boxing gloves and a salad spinner . . .
 
  • #12
Aaah! I gotchya. Personally I imagined that the plants get desensitized in indoor conditions. For the most part...in the past year, the temps have been consistent as during the summer, I was in a basement. This means highland temps for the past full year from jan 08 to jan09. Cephs IMO love this. I did notice stages when vegetative growth was peaking. However, this always happened whenever i fed the plants any bugs. They immediately put out some leaves. In my understanding, it was trying to maximize light exposure to get energy to break down the complex molecules that comprise a bug into the simple elements it needed to absorb.

BigBella said:
Once again, these plants are not as remotely sensitive as many would have you believe -- provided that you don't do the repotting with boxing gloves and a salad spinner . . .
Click to expand...

LOL! very very true. :p I was gentle with it. But I was in no way freaking out as much as I did in sept 07 when I repotted my main ceph for the first time. ;) :jester:
 
  • #13
LOL, I remember the 07' repotting quite well, man you were a mess...

youve come a long ways varun, I can remember you complaining about never having more then one or two living adult pitchers at a time... problems with fungus, people telling you your cephs would be dead in a month if you didnt use fungicide immediately etc etc etc

all it took was a little faith ey mate ;)

now look at ya, maw... our boy has grown up!
 
  • #14
yup B! truly! Now I can look back in relief of truly how far I have come. :) I now realize of all the things u used to say about the easiness and hardiness of cephs.

Of course.......I wouldn't be here without help from Mr. professor. ;) lol!
 
  • #15
nice plants!
 
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