My first Heliamphor!

[Wolfn]

Yep. My first Heliamphora has arrived. It is a pure-bred Heliamphora Minor.

It arrived potted in a 3-inch pot, but I took the plant and the soil (without disturbing the roots) and transplanted it to a 4-inch pot and filled the gaps with pure sphagnum moss.

 

[mobile]

It's a healthy looking Heliamphora. I don't know where you intend keeping this plant - maybe in a terrarium? Wherever it is kept then make sure that the humidity is kept high, especially as you've repotted it and they are particularly susceptible after this.

 

[Wolfn]

My Heliamphora rotted away. :-(

 

[amphirion]

that's unfortunate news....next time around, try to surround the heli with even more moss (partially burying it) this will help keep humidity levels high. use live sphag if you can. + keep the plant cold at night---highland conditions. i grow mine along with highlander neps, with no problem.
good luck the next time around!

 

[mobile]

What conditions were you keeping it in? If you get another one then I would recommend not repotting it until it has settled and showing good growth.

 

[Indigo]

Thats sad news. Did you fill the gap too much or too tight with sphaghum moss? if the soil gets squeezed to tight the root will rot.. (learn from self experience) from the picture it seems that you stuffed the gap with LOTS moss

 

[elgecko]

Sorry to hear that.

Helis can be a little tricky at first.

I recently fried a nice H. pulchella. Decided to place it in a tank so it had higher humidity levels. I just did not realize how hot the tank got until it was too late for the plant.
Got 2 new helis and throw them on the windowsill with normal household temps, 75 degrees. Settled right in no problem along side another heli that's been growing on a windowsill since 08. Should have done that with the H. pulchella.

 

[Wolfn]

I think the plant died for a couple reasons:

1) temperature: I was growing mine outdoors here in Florida (where it got into the 90s). It thrived at first and sent up a couple leaves, but then it suddenly died without warning

2) Maybe I over-watered it? I planted it in a big pot and sprinkled water into the traps every day. Was I supposed to do that?

3) I admit I killed two leaves from over-feeding. I caught a spider, froze it, then I chopped it up and fed it to several of the pitchers. Any pitchers that were fed with the spider promptly died. Any remaining leaves rotted away today.



I'm giving up on Helis for awhile. They are just really tricky plants to grow, so I'm going to wait until I get a proper indoor terrarium before I attempt them again

 

[Av8tor1]

There are always exceptions to the rule of course.... but mine complain anytime the temps start to approach 80F.
AW has recommend a 77F max in some of his writings. There also seems to be a correlation to an increase in susceptibility to phytopathogen attack at elevated temps. I'm not sure if this is due to less favorable conditions for the plant, more favorable conditions for the pathogen or (even more probable) a combination of both
From my personal experiences, I agree with 77F number. They definitely can be grown at higher temps, but the failure rate is greatly increased.

Av

 

[BigBella]

What Butch said . . .

 

[thez_yo]

I'm worried about my own helis living in such a hot, wet environment...no rotting yet, but I do drain them of water every week or so (by evaporation or just tilting the terra) before getting submerged again with a watering in their terra. It gets really really roasting in a terra in the sun...I end up having to fan my plants during the day and mist them down at the end of the day when it gets really sunny. They're covered in water and sit in a water reservoir to keep the roots cool (the water cools down at night), which seems to be sorta-working.

I just lost a bunch of pitchers due to overfeeding or something too..oops. Don't worry - try again.