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Nepenthes rajah

  • #41
lol nepfreak!!! 3 min diff I guess ;p lol! I want to get some of those wooden baskets as well. :p Av8tor1 was giving me advice about cypress bark, tree fern fiber as well. I will be checking that out soon. :)

@ capensis,

that plant is a really adaptive plant. I had my ventrata for 1 year in a mix of plain peat moss. yeah.....your mix sounds fine for it. You just have to be careful when you go on to the specialist species where you need to consider better mixes.
 
  • #42
PK- Sorry, I just got home from work and didn't have a chance to log on till now. WOW..this thread really took off. My grow mix is primarily cedar/redwood mulch (washed), small orchid bark, medium orchid bark, pumice, perlite in a ratio of: 1,1,1/2,1/4,1/4. If I had charcoal I would add 1/2 part of that as well. Since I started using this mix on all my N. veitchii all I can say is OMG!!!!! What a difference. I grow them pretty dry and humid anyways.

Like Capslock said, the N. rajah seem to grow faster in the open mix. They certainly do for me. The main reason I am not a supporter of 'potting on' a LFS root ball into a larger pot of LFS is that the root ball of LFS is going to eventually rot away and will smell like ammonia. It IS scary to repot a large rajah...but there will DEFINITELY AND WITHOUT A DOUBT be problems in the long run by using pure LFS.

That old moss will not last forever and your plant will eventually need to be moved up into larger and larger pots in order to support its growth. How many times do you think you can keep shifting a root ball of LFS into more LFS without the stuff just becomming an anaerobic disaster? (did I spell that correctly? hmm).

I'm sorry, but sometimes the cure can be worse than the illness. And to answer a previous question...I was really only referring to not repotting Nepenthes rajah when it gets really large, or at least being exceptionally careful when you do.

Let me tell you briefly, or as briefly as I can, what you can expect by continuing to shift N. rajah into larger and larger pots of LFS or even LFS/bark. You take your root mass from that 12 inch basket (which it has filled entirely) and need to put it into a ohhhh...let's say..a 3 or 4 gallon pot beause you do not want to disturb it for a long time. You decide you do not want to use pure LFS so you opt for an open mix. Smart move. So you leave that large mass of LFS and LFS/bark mixture in tact and just fill in around it with your new, open bark or mulch based mix. BAD MOVE!!!!

You see, that new open mix will have far more air spaces between the articles, which is good. But it's only this portion of the mix that is going to dry out. The center of the pot..composed primarily of LFS and whatnot will remain moist to wet; all the time. Please do not think that you can just water the outside perimiter of the pot where the mix is dry because that is just a recipe for disaster. Eventually in time the moss will decompose and suddenly you begin to notice that your plant is leaning quite a bit and needs to be staked to hold it up.

That's not a bad thing until you go to insert the stake and you suddenly notice that your plant is VERY wobbly in the pot and with careful digging with your finger you can see that the mossy root mass in the center of the pot..the part that was connected to the main stem, is disappearing and is no long connected to the stem's main root mass. You can safely diagnose this as root rot. And please do not be fooled into thinking that shifting a large root mass of LFS, with or wthout bark, into a larger pot and filling in and around said LFS with an open mix will provide extra air movement to the moss helping to keep it better, longer. It will not. It will not work. It will not work now nor will it work ever.

If, unfortunately, you do have to keep potting on into the same moss just to prevent damaging the root mass then we will eventually be hearing your tales of woe. Nepenthes rajah may do well in LFS as a seedling or a juvenile...but it will not do well as an adult. Once it gets to a certain size...let's say near adult like mine..it will become very demanding in its requirements; especially its choice of soil.

Please understand my stance on this subject is one of proven experience. I'm not shooting off at the hip...or however that goes. I do not need to run simultaneous tests on multiple plants. I know from first hand experience a bit about plant physiology. You can expect that in time...the larger the pot of LFS you grow this species in, the greater your chances will be of losing it. I'm sorry if any of this scares you Varun. That's not my intention. I want more than anything for you to be successful with this species because I know how passionate you are about it. But we need to be realistic here.

Growing Nepenthes should be treated more like a science than just a hobby. Get every book you can lay your hands on about Nepenthes and/or the flora of Southeast Asia. Study and learn about the locations and habitats these plants come from and take it seriously. This is especially important when dealing with uber rare montane species like rajah. It's a proven fact that some of the harder nep species are not too hard to grow when they're young...but give them time and they can really challenge your horticultural experiences.

To answer one more question. If I receive a new plant that is growing in pure LFS, should I get it out of the moss right away? Like Capslock said...it depends entirely on the species you're dealing with. The more common species, or even hybrids for that matter, don't mind having their roots messed with as much as rajah does. And yes, I have heard that disturbing northiana and merilliana can have the same effect as well. Unless you're Jeff Shaffer. Now THERE is a master grower if ever there was one.
 
  • #43
Totally agree Phil. lol! Well....its better to be "scared now" and keep this fact about the media in mind rather than suffer later (which unfortunately you are facing right now!!). I appreciate your valuable input. :)

I have personally read almost every single page on nepenthes rajah I can find on the web. Sometimes even those in other languages with translation. I have a collection of over 500 N.rajah pics that I keep to encourage myself on where I want to see my specimen to go.

A perfect example of this is how horrible my ceph looked when it was growing in a crappy 100% LFS media. It died to the root and then came back. However, Butch & a lot of others here recognised the problem and advised me to repot it into a ligher media. The results are obvious. It seems that most carnivorous plants seem to prefer lighter media with more aeration.

I will be definitely shugging away from using a lot of lfs in my mixes from now on. I was talking to Butch and have decided that i will be on the lookout for some Cyprus bark, cedar mulch, western fir bark and maybe a higher grade of perlite. As I mentioned...there is only this one professional nursery which has like a table with different mulch samples which I can probably take pictures of and verify before buying. But lol....thanks for the advice. I know a lot of people here especially PK have been adamant about LFS in mixes. Unfortunately, your bad experience seems to be the perfect justification. :(

So there you go Phil. You can see my plant in its pot in that pic. What would your suggestion be??? How long do you think I can go from this point before I should probably think about moving it to a lighter media?? I know that it will set the plant back a lot....but Its better to have it stress a bit than die later on. I feel like I have some time. MY mix tends to be pretty wet as I try to keep the live LFS nice and alive. However....it must be spelling disaster in the root zone. I am guessing maybe summer end might be a good time to think about repotting this baby??

Thanks,

Varun
 
  • #44
Thanks for the answer Phil. Where can I get pumice? I can't find coarse perlite anywhere, so I think this would be a good substitute.

I can speak from experience that larger merrilliana does not at all appreciate root disturbance.

V, maybe Phil will disagree with me, but I'd repot now so it will get over the stress before your temps increase in the summer. Repotting stress plus extra heat may well cause death.
 
  • #45
Well PK...thats the question. Do I repot soon'ish?? I do have to wait anyways atleast till mid may as I have to move out of res, head home and then buy this stuff first. But it is hard to swallow the bullet considering it took me months for this baby to come around.

But yeah...I am willing to make the change though. Just don't know that if it is required right now as I prefer to enjoy some nice pitchers on it and most importantly: allow it to regain some of its strength and grow more leaves before I repot it. (Yeah! I am feeding it now ;) ... live crickets)

I am sure that it will drop all its pitchers when I do repot it as the media won't be sooo water retentive as the current one.
 
  • #46
Evening all, not often you'll see me on this side of the pond.. Hi to all who know me.. good to meet you those who dont..

Vraev dropped me a line about this topic so I thought i'd chime in..

I grow in a greenhouse, humidity down to 60% during the day, up to 90% at night, temps down to 6 at night up to 28 day (currently)..

I grow my rajah in a 14" x 10" hazel basket, its in a light mix of fine orchid bark, perlite, hydroleca, peat and chopped sphag, ive no idea of the ratio, its just feels right.. its probably around 2:1:1:1:1, its topped with live sphag...

The bottom inch of the basket is a layer of hydroleca, I find water pours straight through my mix and the hydroleca prevents it pooling at the bottom at all.. I water heavily every 4 days, usually the live sphag is starting to dry out a bit by this time...

The good thing about the hazel basket is that when I come to repot I can stand the entire thing in its new basket, cut away the old one completely and slide away its remains from under the plant.. I then fill around the sides with the same mix as before keeping the plant and its rootball completely encased in its media.

Here she is, 2 current pitchers and two developing, leaves are now bigger than my hand and starting to elongate so shes getting there..;

p1010083xj4.jpg

By wasted, shot with u10D,S300D,u300D at 2008-04-16

Not saying what I do is right, just that it works for me so far..
 
  • #47
V, maybe Phil will disagree with me, but I'd repot now so it will get over the stress before your temps increase in the summer. Repotting stress plus extra heat may well cause death.
PK, I couldn't agree with you more here. I just feel that Varun needs to be prepared for the possibility, not probability, that repotting at any time may induce some stress. I have found it to be lesser so when the plants are smaller. Just make sure that after repotting you put the plant in a really humid atmosphere for a while to help it adjust.

PK- Coarse perlite is also called spongerock or spongerok by some distributors. You will have a much better chance getting it online from orchid and/or bromeliad growing supply businesses and such. I know many years ago I used to get mine from Tropiflora in Florida. You may want to give them a holler.

Wasted- Your plant is beautiful and no one is saying you are doing anything wrong. The purpose here is to give a heads up for making changes for growing larger plants on..undisturbed and making the right choices for growing media.

One thing I would recommend to everyone here who top dresses with live LFS is to replace it often, no matter how good it looks. It may look really good and fluffy on top, but sometimes if you lift it up off the surface of your pot and smell it it has that ammonia smell developing. Tha's a REALLY bad sign and you should act on it immediately. If it doesn't have that smell then you're in good shape. I know it looks good and all...but I personally would never use it. Neps like to breath even from the top of the soil..although you are growing in baskets so that helps a lot...I'm sure. If you grow in plastic pots..especially 6 inch and larger, and top dress with live sphagnum and it gets all thick and green and beautiful...you're in the process of killing your growing media and creating sludge. There is no air exchange happening if you have a dense carpet of moss choking the surface. You're getting only about 1/8 to 1/4 % use from your mix. LFS really does cause rapid breakdown of bark based mixes. And the worms!!! Don't forget about the worms it atracts to your mix. Don't know how the hell they get there but they do and they LOVE LFS.LOL.

Ok, I'm done.

Varun you sound like me with all the pics of rajah. Personally my favorite species is burbidgeae. I have lots of pics to hopefully model my plants after. Unfortunately this has turned out to be the most cold sensitive species I have ever encountered. It's typically and usually the only species in my collection that gets leaf damage below 50 degF in my greenhouse.

Oh yeah, one more thing.LOL. You know those basals that these tc rajah love to produce? If you want your plant to get really big you will need to remove them all. Pot them up separately but don't let them grow attached to your main plant. My big plant was producing them by leaps and bounds and I just picked them off and tossed them into another pot of mix until I was left with only the one main plant. That's when it started to get really big. Works for vft too...but that's another story!
 
  • #49
Wasted- Your plant is beautiful and no one is saying you are doing anything wrong. The purpose here is to give a heads up for making changes for growing larger plants on..undisturbed and making the right choices for growing media.

Hiya, I didn't think you were and all advice is greatfully accepted!

The point im trying to make is that what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another, getting growers of any plants to agree on most things is like herding cats.. I find I don't have a problem with sphagnum on top as I only every use pond baskets that allow a lot of air through the media at all levels, the rajah's a bit big for that but the basket its in is intended to provide the same, its totally unlined.. If ive learnt anything about growing highlands its that airflow is of utmost importance, to the leaves and the roots.. My greenhouse is open to the elements (all doors and vents) between 6 and 11 every night summer and winter..

I know the smell your on about when sphag rots down and its pretty easy to detect if you just stick your finger into the media I do think though that it can be avoided with correct watering and airflow.

Cheers..

Wasted
 
  • #50
@ Wasted:

Thanks for joining in mate. Glad to know more on how you grow this beauty. I didn't know that it was growing in such a media. I thought your percentage of chopped sphagnum was a lot higher. As I always keep saying, good job mate! Keep us posted when it makes the transition to adult pithers. ;)

Good to hear your input regarding the usage of sphagnum. As I will describe further on...my watering routine has been thrashed since i got a new light fixture which is causing heat making me implement air circulation in the enclousure. that is killing humidity which is causing my moss to dry and die. I Know that your humidity during day is also 60%. How does your live moss fare?? Thanks.

@ Phil,

hmmm!!! Repotting eh??? Well! I still have to atleast wait till the beginning of may to head back home, gather all the constituents of the mix and so on.

I am also currently having issues with the balance of HEAT, humidity and lighting...as a result of increased air circulation that is causing humidity drop to 50's and all my live sphagnum layers on all the pots is going white and dry. :( I am just getting a new humidifier and I am going to see what that can do.

As a result of the EXCESS watering I have to do everyday to keep the moss alive....the media is becoming very very very wet. I can see through the netted pot and damn! the LFS is wet. I am not really very happy about that and I am still working on a solution. I am guessing that is just accelerating the decay of the media.

LFS attracts worms to the mix??? The only thing I see in my plant pots is something which are the size of springtails. Very very small... less than a mm sized little silvery/black bugs that are normally around the rich nectar regions of both my CEPHS and my neps.

lol Phil! Interesting experience regarding the burbidgeae especially as it grows alongside the N.rajah in the wild. DOesn't the temp. on Mt. Kinabalu go below 50's occassionally?? I know its a beautiful plant as well...but I think I need a greenhouse before I get that one. ;) lol!

The rajah holds a special place for me. However, there are a few other plants (which are probably the favourites of almost every nepenthes cultivator) which I would love and envision to one day grow: N.edwardsiana, N.villosa, N.macrophylla, N.teuis, N.spec. nov. DA, N.sp1 (Wistuba), N.flava & N.jamban. For now the first one is probably more of a fantasy than reality as there are probably a handful of those around the world in cultivation. But...one day...I sure want to have one of them. Alongside the villosa, its among the most regal plants I have ever seen. YUp!!! the teeth...lol!
 
  • #51
Hiya,

No worries, to be honest it could be higher, im not that sure, im sure I told you it was in that mix though, deleted the pm now.. anyhow it depends how it feels more than me measuring out equal amounts to be honest..

Is Jeramiah still growing his in pure sphag btw? I read an older post a while ago where he stated he was.. thing is I think if one person starts something and gets short term success others are quick to follow and in the case of a plant that takes 10years+ to mature you dont find out for a while if your successfull method works as well for adult plants as it did for young ones.. What you end up with is a lot of growers that all grow the same way facing the same problems.. hence the sphag root ball problem.

Just my two pennies worth..

Wasted..
 
  • #52
So what kind of mix do you use, then? I'm on my third or fourth year of serious Nep growing and, while I haven't had any issues with tangled roots, I definitely know what you mean about LFS rotting. I tried a few of my plants in LFS/perlite and while they all survived, it wasn't ideal.
I've moved to baskets for all my larger Neps, which I line with LFS. Since the basket offers lots of air circulation, I'm hoping the LFS lasts. I use a mix of bark, perlite and horticultural carbon for my fill, and sometimes add peat, milled sphagnum, or ceramic chips to help it hold water. I'm wondering about other inorganic components, such as lava rock or, in my wildest dreams, rockwool cubes. With smaller plants, I'll typically wrap them in a few strands of live stuff to help them get established. So far, everything I've tried it with seems to enjoy that treatment; I don't know if it's the bigger pots, improved air circulation, or mix, but both the Neps and the Sphagnum/Tillandsia I have in with them have all bulked up dramatically after recovering from transplant shock. I really like this setup as it allows me to leave the Neps in a little bit of standing water without worrying about smothering the roots. The mix keeps a fairly uniform amount of moisture whether it's in standing water or not, and I can go well over a week without watering.
Packing peanuts are an interesting idea... do you think that coarse perlite would work as well? I'm looking to repot some rajah seedlings soon, and was thinking about dropping them into one of my 10"x10" baskets with the other 'big boys.' From the sound of it, I might get better results by just going straight to a big nursery pot... and I imagine I could get similar results to my net pot method if I used styrofoam to keep the mix from being in complete contact with the water line. My first guess would be... layer of peanuts, a few loose strands of LFS to wick up moisture when things start to try, then some sort of granular mix like bark, perlite and ceramic chips with peat or milled sphagnum watered in from the top to help slow evaporation. I think styrofoam in net pots might be overkill, though, as those plantings seem to have no trouble draining in my experience.
~Joe
 
  • #53
Yeah I agree! WHen I make mixes its a very very rough estimate based on the "FEEL" and a simple measure using fistful of materials. ;) Hmm....lol! Yeah! You probably did tell me...but I guess I forgot. lol! :p

Yeah Phil! Thats true! I was actually wondering about the same thing. Jeremiah's plant is around 7 yrs old isn't it?? I remember he posted that he grows the huuuge one in LFS. Once again.....not trying to cause an argument here. I totally agree with a lighter mix as it is a lot healthier for the roots and I will for sure go for a nice light mix when I repot. However, I am trying to assess both the sides of the scenario here: From the LFS advocates and the No-LFS group. :)
 
  • #54
lol! we posted a min apart. ;)

well...if you were asking wasted: He mentioned his mix here:

I grow my rajah in a 14" x 10" hazel basket, its in a light mix of fine orchid bark, perlite, hydroleca, peat and chopped sphag, ive no idea of the ratio, its just feels right.. its probably around 2:1:1:1:1, its topped with live sphag...


So what kind of mix do you use, then?
~Joe
 
  • #55
Hehe... though I was all the way through but I was wrong. Now I see.
Do you think that the root rot problem might be abated by raising the root ball and old mix to the surface of the pot? Rather than dropping the root ball into the new pot and lining the gaps with new mix, fill the pot most of the way and rest the root ball on top. Where rot has already taken hold, this probably won't help, but it could perhaps make enough of a difference to keep compacted LFS from turning to just a plain lump of mush. Neps tend to send out shoots when they fall over/begin hanging, so you could maybe rescue a plant in this manner. Thoughts? I don't have enough experience to make a good guess.
~Joe
 
  • #57
Ok after reading through all this it makes you think are you doing it right. I know that the rajah is a tempermental plant as well as some others. I always used a mix that has lots of LFS. But now I think I'm going to change it. At first I used just that. Then I added some of this orchid mix. It's made by Schultz. It has aged raw fir bark or aged raw pine bark, arcillite, and horticultural charcoal. It's made for orchids. I'm not growing rajah (yet) but I am growing a villosa that needs to be repoted like a week ago. Also I have a hamata, predator, tentaculata, lowii, and some other not as rare neps so I want them to be in a better mix for them. But they are still small in 4in pots. Maybe add some cedar mulch or other type but washing it could be a problem can you use tap for that? What would you do?
 
  • #58
I use that Schultz mix too for some things. I think its too dense for some of those plants though...the pieces of media are too fine. And its heavy.
 
  • #59
I am wary of schultz mixes. Especially since my experience of finding fertilizer in their peat bags. :( So now I prefer making my own personal mix from all raw materials. ;) BTW...Jmurphy....those are not "not as rare neps". You also have among the most favored plants: N.villosa, N.hamata, N. x predator, N. lowii ...... Thats a kick arse selection of neps. ;) Also coming back to what Phil was saying.....for a 4 inch pot..... I don't think that you need to worry right now. Once they grow older..thats when they become more dependent on their roots. I guess thats true with all plants as a result of which they don't like being repotted once they grow into adults.
 
  • #60
Every time you post you make me want to buy one even more! LOL!:-))
 
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