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Nepenthes with aerial basal rosette

  • Thread starter staze
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Hi All,

I have a many year old Nepenthes (I believe it's a ventrata, but I honestly am not sure (a subject for another thread)). A few years back, it was vining and got knocked over and broken. I took what cuttings I could salvage, and potted them up, but the main "plant" had nothing left but a woody stem. I left it be and managed to get it to form a new shoot, but it's a basal shoot (I think), and it's a good 2" above the soil line (it only started barely above the soil line). This is largely due to the length of the woody stem I had to deal with once there was nothing left.

It's growing super slow (makes sense). I'm curious if I should attempt to repot it, and get that basal rosette down into the soil. If so, should I treat it like a cutting and bag it, or just normal growing and hope it'll grow some new roots out of the base of the rosette? Or just leave it as is, and live with it?

For reference, it's in LFS, Charcoal, and Bark. I think about 2:1:1-ish. Pot is a relatively small Rand Aircone pot (I love these things).

See attached picture.

Thanks!

Nepenthes aerial basal rosette.jpg
 
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Hello!
What you are dealing with from the main plant getting snapped off is one of the nodes activated and began growing and formed a basal growth. Over time as that matures it will grow taller and eventually become a vine. There is no reason to repot it and try to keep that growth close to the ground, I wouldn't even suggest it... That IS your new plant and what you would hope to happen in such an instance. I don't think repoting it would help- it's probably just slow since it used up a lot of the stored energy to produce that growth without the plant actively making any new energy. I would expect it to be growing pretty close to regular by now- or very soon though looking at the plant. Maybe feeding it could help give it a boost and really get going for you, looks pretty healthy from here though! =)
Andrew
 
Hello!
What you are dealing with from the main plant getting snapped off is one of the nodes activated and began growing and formed a basal growth. Over time as that matures it will grow taller and eventually become a vine. There is no reason to repot it and try to keep that growth close to the ground, I wouldn't even suggest it... That IS your new plant and what you would hope to happen in such an instance. I don't think repoting it would help- it's probably just slow since it used up a lot of the stored energy to produce that growth without the plant actively making any new energy. I would expect it to be growing pretty close to regular by now- or very soon though looking at the plant. Maybe feeding it could help give it a boost and really get going for you, looks pretty healthy from here though! =)
Andrew

Makes total sense. It's been a while since it's been like this, but it just gave me a pitcher that I dropped an osmocote into. =)

My thought about replanting it was to hopefully encourage new basal growth... but I guess once it's tall enough I'll just take more cuttings and start more. =)

Thanks!
 
If the plant is already slow... I wouldn't really want a basal a the moment... Unless you're willing to cut off the main growth, since the basal growth tends to slow top growth- and sometimes even affect it so bad the top growth ends up dying off.
Getting a pitcher is definitely a good sign that the plant is willing to put out the effort!

Edit:
It's not generally a great idea to cut off the top growth and hope for an activated node, it doesn't always happen. Usually you would want to have an activated node at least before you got chopping the top growth off.
 
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