TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk
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I am going to get a Nepenthes, but which one should I get: the rafflesana or the gracilis?? They are both cool but I don't know if i want a vine or not. Which one would you get?
Actually I have never grown a gracilis but I am going off reports of other people. So 'No' I have not LITERALLY blown one up
I have however doused a different plant in kerosine and lit it on fire, then chopped up the what was left and threw it in my mulch bag and a month later I had 50 of the buggers
Wesly, I would go with either one. Gracilis will vine and become a pretty plant while Rafflesiana will be more of a low grower with a fabulous display of lower pitchers in a small rossette.
A Devil's Backbone. I use them in my desert terrariums now (because I can't get rid of them.) The thing is a hang on from my first try at CPs more than 10 years ago!!! NAturally all my CPs died but that thing hung on and is still hanging on. And that isn't the only abuse I have put it through, it has been frozen, ignored for a year, left in a closet for 3 months and (the worst fate for any plant) let with my mother.
If space is not a huge issue then go with the N. rafflesiana. It is much more dramatic! A small plant will stay short for a while and make a nice rosette. I think they are more tolerant to lower humidity and will still pitcher well also, so can be grown on a windowsill easier.
Tony
The key issue here, in my humble opinion, is space. N. rafflesiana can get to be very large.
I have several plants that are 3 or 4 m high. Furthermore, this species tends to get very
tall before producing basal shoots, which could be a real problem if you're trying to grow it in
a terrarium. So, unless you've got a greenhouse, or some sort of large enclosure, I
really recommend gracilis. In particular, there's a nice red clone floating around that is
very attractive. Here's a link to a picture of it: red gracilis.
I would recommend N. gracillis unless you have a lot of room. N. rafflesiana will stay small for awhile, but it can be a very large plant. N. ventricosa can be a nice first plant. Also, hybrids such as N. x ventrata make for a nice, easy to grow first plant. Good luck.
Temperature requirements for those plants are somewhat different from my experience. The N. rafflesiana clone I grew did only well when temperatures stayed above 18deg over night. My N. gracilis is harder and even grows well under much colder conditions down to 13deg. But this may strongly depend on the clone you do get.
I'm going to go against the grain a little bit and recommend rafflesiana unless you have a lot of room.
. I know that it does in fact get much larger (the raff), but in my experience so far, I have had more problems with the gracilils. It's just a weed. I had one for about a month before it was growing out of my terrarium.
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