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Largest nepenthes for windowsill

So I'm thinking about getting a nepenthes or two. I'm in the houston area of Texas, so I have generally high humidity and warmer temps. I haven't grown CP's before, but I've gardened for years and have a bad habit of trying to grow a little of everything. I have a south facing window where I think I could grow a couple nepenthes inside. I have some humidifiers I could put in the area, though I'd prefer not to have to mess with temperature. And what I'm really interested in are the varieties with the largest and fanciest pitchers.
I've seen some lists on various forums of nepenthes that are more adaptable about temperature and humidity, but I couldn't find anything that ranked them by pitcher size. I'm thinking the giant strain of N. rafflesiana might be a good balance of adaptability and size, though I can't seem to find it anywhere. Any other suggestions? If I can settle on one or two to track down maybe I can find someone willing to trade for shiitake mushroom spawn :grin:
 
Nepenthes Truncata is a species that will grow very large pitchers when mature and isn't that hard to find for sale. The drawback is that they are pretty slow growing when small and are pretty expensive which you may not want as a first time grower. One plant that gets pretty big pitchers, is easy to grow, and easy to find is nepenthes 'Miranda'. It's a hybrid that you can find at garden centers from time to time for reasonable prices that is very adaptable. The pitchers grow to be about a foot tall, which is decently large.
 
N. maxima, N. "Miranda", N. ventricosa, and N. "Ventrata" are the quintissential windowsill Nepenthes, but if youre looking for giant pitchers Id narrow it down to N. maxima and N. "Miranda." The pitchers get fairly large on both of these plants, slightly less so on Miranda, but Miranda is significantly easier to grow than maxima.

Like Greymoss said N. truncata makes huge pitchers and is fairly adaptable, but is slow growing.
I would suggest trying to find a hardy hybrid, between an easy growing species and something known for making huge pitchers, like truncata or sibuyanensis. Something like N. ventricosa x truncata is going to have the speed and adaptability of ventricosa with the huge pitchers of truncata:

nEO_IMG_DSC_8390.jpg


Or N. sibuyanensis x ventricosa
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Thanks for the ideas. I've looked around a bit and I'm currently thinking about Miranda, truncata x ventricosa, and truncata x spectabilis (I really like the idea of large and showy pitchers. Maybe I'll break down and get all three.
 
Thanks for the ideas. I've looked around a bit and I'm currently thinking about Miranda, truncata x ventricosa, and truncata x spectabilis (I really like the idea of large and showy pitchers. Maybe I'll break down and get all three.

Personally, I'd say just get one to "cut your teeth on" before going all out.
 
Well getting one to start with is probably good advice... Actually though I already ordered two: truncata x ventricosa, and truncata x spectabilis. I have a south facing window I'll put them at, along with a humidifier I have. I'll be sure to read up a bit too. Wish me luck!

I do have one question though - do hybrid/intermediate nepenthes tend to benefit from a moderate nighttime temperature drop? I know that's more or less essential with highlanders, though I've seen some lists of day and night temps for lowland and intermediate nepenthes that still has some drop. I'll have a small natural temperature drop in the winter, but in the summer inside is a pretty constant ac temp of 77 since even the lows outside are in the 80's. I can rig something up with ice packs if I need to, I did that several years ago with hard to germinate flower seeds, that took several weeks to sprout and only if the night temps are like 40 degrees lower. Summer's a long way off I guess but I'm not sure if I should plan for that when I make a small bench for them.
 
I've found that intermediate and low elevation highland species can tolerate warmer nights for at least part of the year if they get nightly drops for the other part. I would not be too worried with your two plants however. All the parents are relatively easy and tolerant.
 
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