Low humidity Neps.

[Exo]

I have read that N.rafflesiana can be grown on a windowsill in low humidity too, can anybody here confirm this? I always wanted a raff but figured it wouldn't do well without high humidity.

 

[thez_yo]

The raff just kinda sits there because of the cold, *slowly* making new leaves, but not making any pitchers because it doesn't get enough sunshine (not enough hours):

(raff, clip, etc. all in 3" pots for size reference)
EDIT: all are also in front of a window at apartment temps (chilly...usu. 70, 75 during the day, 60-65ish at night) and humidities (cheap humidity meter tells me it's usually 60-80ish % on the nep/orchid rack).

 

[back2eight]

yeah, my rafflesianas don't do well at all unless they are hot and humid. Definitely a lowland grower.

 

[seedjar]

I am also looking for Neps that will grow and pitcher in lower light levels, I know ampullaria will but not with low humidity. :-(

You can only have one or the other, in general practice. If you do find a plant that appreciates sub-par conditions across the board, let us know. My best guess would be a hybrid involving a vigorous grower (like from the maxima group) and a scrambler that's accustomed to understory conditions (talangensis, inermis or maybe aristolochioides?)
Why can't you improve your light levels? For small plants that can be kept close, four 40W T12 tubes are enough to string Neps along. Using six, mine actually seem to be quite happy with the arrangement. Sorry to nitpick, I just think that more light would probably be the simplest course of action.
Like the others said, rafflesiana is durable, but requires warmth. You're almost certainly going to want a plant that is known to grow well as an intermediate - anything more specific than that and I'm pretty sure you'll have to focus on highlanders.

seedjar: I've got the same problems, but my doctor doesn't just tell me to exercise more but sends me to physical therapy because it's what she had to do to finally fix *her* bad back.

Lucky you! I was unfortunate enough to encounter some problems with stress at the same time that I began to recognize my aches and pains were not normal, which happened to coincided with a particularly ugly part of the aftermath of my parents' divorce. This was also during the peak of the trendy "juvenile depression/anxiety/ADD" diagnosis-and-medication craze, before they knew how dangerous SSRIs are for children, so I was quickly labeled a headcase and medicated so heavily that I couldn't advocate for myself. My doctors eventually noticed I was still miserable and pulled me off once the side-effects became severe and obvious, but the whole experience was so counterproductive and unpleasant that I shied away from doctors for years for fear of a repeat. It took 10+ years and switching insurance plans for any of my "caretakers" to even suggest my problem might be related to posture and send me to physical therapy. I couldn't afford to go to regular appointments, and have since been dumped by my insurer, but I've been doing exercises on my own for several years now and am making gradual progress. But because all that is on my charts, I still have a tough time getting doctors to seriously entertain the notion that my aches and pains aren't psychosomatic or deliberately made up. :/
~Joe

 

[thez_yo]

seedjar:

That really does bite the big one...I remember the ADD craze and actively tried to avoid going to the doctor then when *my* parents split up because I took a look at all the kids on those meds and they seemed like zombies, and I didn't want to get labeled a head-case. Seemed like no matter what you had, cough or a scraped up knee or what have you, they'd put you on ritalin! I just watched a documentary on the new craze to diagnose even small 2 y/o kids as bi-polar and put them on those meds, even though it seems like those are even more dangerous pills to be feeding them considering they're even very dangerous for adults. 95% of ritalin'd kids really just need better parenting and time to run around outside away from the computer, or just their parents to man-up and give them a good scolding for behaving like animals, not "magic pills".

I do trust my PT guy and if you want me to send you all the exercises he has me doing, I can draw them out for you. It's only ever for 4-6 weeks (PT), so there isn't *that* much of it if you stick to it and work hard (I only ever miss 1 exercise out of the two a day, every two weeks or so max). The only special equipment you could use is one of those big exercise/yoga balls, and those are all of $10 at Big Lots or Target or something.

 

[rattler]

both my girls were borderline needing meds for ADHD but they attended a small rural school with teachers that were able to do alot of 1 on 1 teaching due to small class size so it was easier to avoid going the med route....the easy way out would have been to drug them but funny thing is right about the summer between 5th and 6th grade both pretty well snapped out of the mental part and have an easier time staying on task....yeah both of them are still a lil wired but both are so heavy into sports that their metabolism is wrapped pretty tight as a natural course of things which prolly explains part of it anymore.....

also a big secret to dealing with it if your a parent is stay away from as much refined sugar as possible and for the love of god dont give them caffeine......Kate used to literally start vibrating if yah gave her even moderate amounts of caffeine and would start talking so fast 90% of ppl couldnt make out a word she was saying....after that drop in the 6th grade she was able to deal with sugar and caffeine like the majority of the rest of ppl....i really dont understand parents that complain they have to give their kids meds but let them drink those dang energy drinks....its flat out retarded.....

 

[seedjar]

Agreed. I think a big part of commonly diagnosed ADD/ADHD is just a lack of discipline- and focus-based skills. If kids never learn to recognize and control their impulses, they become slaves to them. I've seen it many, many times and it just gets uglier as they get older. A hyped-up, angry seven-year-old is hard enough - twenty years later, when they're bitter, belligerent and too old to change their bad habits, is pretty much a hopeless case. I definitely have problems in the ADD spectrum, and if I wanted to act like a brat and call attention to myself all the time, I'm sure I could've found a doctor to diagnose me as such. But as much as I wanted to run around and scream, I kept looking ahead and tried to make do with what I had available.
It's all about good role-models and finding objectives. I'm not shocked at all that many kids fall into ADD-like behavioral traps; school these days is an insidious mix of insincere everybody-is-good-enough head-patting from the teachers and hypercompetition/elitism on the part of students. Little kids don't know how to cope with that - they don't even know that they should be coping. I've met a lot of brilliant kids who were simply conditioned into thinking that they'd never succeed in school, by lazy teachers or impatient (or alternately coddling) parents, and their frustration was basically eating them alive. It's very sad. Glad to hear your girls managed to set their sights on something, rattler.
~Joe

 

[chezilla]

My miranda has lived and pitchered despite my best efforts to say otherwise. I am always moving it in a and out of my grow cabinet to make room for other things. 80% humidiity to winter home humidity with very little to no change. It only get a few hours of light a day when it is out of the cabinet. In the summer I throw it outside and it has tolerated temps from 40F to over 100F without much of a problem. It is a tough plant and looks nice esp when outiside in the sun the leaves turn dark red.

---------- Post added at 11:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:49 AM ----------

True ADHD is not from lack of discipline. Many people think this and it is an ignorant belief. Seedjar, I am not saying you stated this. I am assuming that you are stating that many kids are incorrectly diaganosed as having ADHD when it is a product of poor parenting and lack of guidance and discipline causing inappriopriate behavior. A child psychologist can diffentiate between the two. The problem is that many kids are diagnosed by their family doctor, whose first treatment is to throw drugs at the kids because that is what the parents want. The first step should be counseling and therapy to help develope techniques for the child to control their behavior without meds and diet & lifestyle changes, but that requires more effort.

Caffeine for many kids with ADHD is actually therapeutic. Caffeine is in the same class of drugs as ritalin, (amphetamines). The brain of ADHD kids is actually understimulated which causes them them to not be able to control their impulses, emotions or behavior. That is why Ritalin and most other ADHD meds act paradoxically in these children. It will calm them down and help them to focus where in a person without ADHD it will cause hyperactivity. In the my daughter and from other parents I have talked to about it, the child's behavior is worse when they are tired or if they have had a mentally strenuous day.

I also send my kid to small rural school with 10:1 student teacher ratio. They are outside half the day and don't have to sit at a tiny desk and stare at a chalkboard all day, and it works well for her. I also have decided against the meds. The side effects don't seem to be worth the benefit. Cardiac arrythmias, growth and developemental delays, sleep disturbances, chemical dependence... If she were learning diasabled I might consider it, but she excels in her school environment. In public school I am sure she would be labeled as difficult and we would be forced or greatly encouraged to drug her for the ease of the teacher. It is a not a disability just a different wiring that in many cases is a gift that gets stigmatized for societal convenience. Many are just as intelligent or more so than kids without ADHD, but they cannot learn in public school style class room with 30 other kids, "trapped" in a small desk all day. These children are so emotionally beat up by being told they are failures that they don't have much chance of succeeding. It is very sad. That is what often leads to behavioral problems and acting out.

 

[rattler]

well caffeine wasnt therapeutic in my girls case but then again everyones body chemistry is a lil different.....who knows maybe it did help the mental ADHD stuff but the physical effects werent worth it.....within 10 minutes of giving them some you could literally watch them start vibrating.....one of our friends took them out to eat for lunch one day cause we were swamped with work and we warned them not to give them any caffeine.....they didnt listen......when they got back to the office, neither girl could sit still if their life depended on it.....made our friends watch them all afternoon given they didnt follow instructions

 

[thez_yo]

Definitely chezilla: gimme a cup of coffee and I pretty much fall asleep!

 

[seedjar]

True ADHD is not from lack of discipline. Many people think this and it is an ignorant belief. Seedjar, I am not saying you stated this. I am assuming that you are stating that many kids are incorrectly diaganosed as having ADHD when it is a product of poor parenting and lack of guidance and discipline causing inappriopriate behavior. A child psychologist can diffentiate between the two. The problem is that many kids are diagnosed by their family doctor, whose first treatment is to throw drugs at the kids because that is what the parents want. The first step should be counseling and therapy to help develope techniques for the child to control their behavior without meds and diet & lifestyle changes, but that requires more effort.

I definitely see where you're coming from, but I wonder how many doctors truly see (or even believe in) ADD/ADHD as a pathology, and not just a behavioral syndrome. Although I think it's neither realistic nor pragmatic, I get the impression from most of what I've seen on the topic that it's the latter. The actual cause is irrelevant if the medical community is working on false premises. Today a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD is a self-fulfilling prophecy; doctors, parents and teachers will retroactively project the disease onto children at the mere suggestion, regardless of whether or not there's any hard evidence to support it.
What I little I know about the neurological characteristics of ADHD is that it diagnostically resembles several other nebulous disorders/syndromes where brain activity shows an atypical distribution. Given what little we know about brain function, the statistical correlations of symptoms to observed abnormalities don't indicate any pathologies specific enough to be conclusively corrected by either medication or behavioral therapy. There are still major arguments, both practical and theoretical, as to whether or not the abnormalities are the result of experiences, genetic predisposition, subtle environmental factors or some combination. I think the issue is that the disease is characterized by vague sociological symptoms, while doctors treat it as though it were entirely determined by some gross physiological deficit, and the two don't always match up. Of course stimulants relieve the appearance of symptoms; the symptoms are all defined in terms of things like accomplishment and ability to concentrate for long periods of time. But those aren't basic features of personal health - they arise as a combination of many internal processes and are determined in part by external circumstances.
Even if there is some definite chemical cause that can be easily and safely treated, I think it's a bad idea on principle. Brain chemistry is one of the few things that we can learn to willfully influence within our bodies. To provide a crutch in the form of drugs deprives a person of learning to overcome a significant personal difficulty. I applaud you for helping your daughter along the harder path - best luck.
Thread derailment! I second chezilla's suggestion towards x. 'Miranda' - I was actually thinking that myself.
~Joe

 

[Exo]

AHEM.....


Anyways, I do think I'm gonna try a miranda, they sound like the perfect plant for my needs.

 

[limeslide]

Cool! N. 'miranda' is a beaut.

 

[DavyJones]

And gets HUGE! I perfect candidate for somebody not growing in a greenhouse or grow chamber. If the local garden center can keep mirandas alive, I think anybody can!

 

[Chris_Himself]

I grow all my neps in a freaking closet with CFL's. The x Miranda is the gigantic thing in the 8" pot with pitchers the length of my hand. It's about a year old from a 4" potted starter.

I started a Maxsea regimen about 3 weeks ago. Waiting on results... So far the Sanguinea suffering from a poor rooting procedure and it's first winter is actually growing for once! The Spectibilis should have grown a lot better but shipping uprooted it and stripped it bare actually so hopefully it makes it =(. Maxsea should have some growth hormones in it hopefully. Everything in square pots are new. The ventricosa is out of sight, but it has 2 basals on it.

 

[Exo]

I grow all my neps in a freaking closet with CFL's. The x Miranda is the gigantic thing in the 8" pot with pitchers the length of my hand. It's about a year old from a 4" potted starter.

I started a Maxsea regimen about 3 weeks ago. Waiting on results... So far the Sanguinea suffering from a poor rooting procedure and it's first winter is actually growing for once! The Spectibilis should have grown a lot better but shipping uprooted it and stripped it bare actually so hopefully it makes it =(. Maxsea should have some growth hormones in it hopefully. Everything in square pots are new. The ventricosa is out of sight, but it has 2 basals on it.

I just got a huge specimen nearly 2ft across and with 2 growth points, but it appears to have been grown in low light and is green.

What temps and humidity are you keeping your's at?

 

[Chris_Himself]

I'd say about 70's in the day, 50's at night. They grow at room tempurature with the tempurature drop at night. Sometimes I leave the window open, sometimes I don't. I feel the more obvious the drop in tempurature is, the faster they grow. Thats why I stopped running my lights at night while I sleep a week ago.

A green one isnt necessarily an unhealthy one. Mine is just bombed with light is all. Some people run 1k lumens on a 4' tube. I do 10k from three spiral bulbs within 2 sq. feet 6 inches above.

 

[Exo]

So you grow it like a highlander....interesting. Mine has some twisted leaves and no pitchers, but I get the impression that it didn't like it's former growing enviroment that much.

 

[Chris_Himself]

So you grow it like a highlander....interesting. Mine has some twisted leaves and no pitchers, but I get the impression that it didn't like it's former growing enviroment that much.

Spring is starting and most people are getting their first pitchers of the season anyways. What kind of water do you give it? I treat x Miranda like a cactus and I dont water it for like 2 weeks sometimes and it still manages as long as it get it's light.

I actually have found that lowland/highland plants do fine in the same conditions for me oddly enough.

 

[Exo]

Spring is starting and most people are getting their first pitchers of the season anyways. What kind of water do you give it? I treat x Miranda like a cactus and I dont water it for like 2 weeks sometimes and it still manages as long as it get it's light.

I actually have found that lowland/highland plants do fine in the same conditions for me oddly enough.

I give it rain water and I water it every few days, (the soil is pine mulch, charcoal, peat, and lava rock) but I'm putting it outside under a tree during the nice weather we are having now. I't's breezy and about 37% humidity ouitside, so now I'm watering it every day.