Nepenthes in winter

[nepenthes99]

I have many huge nepenthes but they are getting to big to take care of. they are forming huge vines but not producing any pitchers because I can not offer any humidity. They have grown out of the terrarium. whenever a new leaf forms the bud at the end just dies. the plant ends up having huge leaves and tall vines but no pitchers. all i have room for are 10 gallon terrariums. I live in a homeowners community and cannot get a mini greenhouse and i have no room in my house. Is there any way to get them good humidity?

[ICPS-bob]

The bathroom is often a location with the highest humidity. Take lots of hot showers!

[yimmz]

I've also heard of people using a tray with like decorative rocks under the pots and keeping that fillled with water under the pot your Nepth's are in. Supposedly this gives the plants a feel of higher humidity from the surrounding water.
I have no experience in using this method i suggest finding out more information before trying it but it's an idea.

[nepenthes99]

Thank you.

[sbowe23]

You could also try putting a humidifier in the room that they're in. That's what I've been doing (in addition to the pebble tray and daily misting) and it seems to be helping.

[coldcoffee]

What I would do in your situation (I will be doing this soon as I have nepenthes that are getting kinda big) is try getting a wire shelf set- hook up a good light fixture to it (or heck, why not hook up 2), the get some greenhouse plastic and sort of build a mini-greenhouse of sorts but wrapping the plastic around the shelf structure. Just make sure you get good ventilation! You could also try getting one of those mini greenhouses (which I now call death boxes) and place some trays of water at the bottom.

[coldcoffee]

Incidently, I have not done either of these yet with nepenthes- they are just ideas.

[nepenthes99]

Thats a great idea, but my family probably would not allow it.

[jdallas]

Nepenthes99,

Most likely your problem this time of year is light and possibly temperatures. When the photo period for Nepenthes drops below 12 hours most species stop pitchering. In our Nepenthes greenhouse we watched this year after year until we installed metal halides to keep the photoperiod up. There was no lack of humidity in the greenhouse. Even Sam Estes's nursery in Hawaii he says that he sees a drop in pitcher production in winter, and there the daylight decrease is small, yet there's more rain, hence more humidity in the winter. You wouldn't know it from seeing his plants in winter, but he says summer is spectacular by comparison. Conversely, I find I have many Nepenthes that I grow in windows in house will be pitcherless in the winter, but in May, they start up with a fury. Our relative humidity is less here during the summer.

The bottom line here would be to focus on getting your daylight hours up, and provide them more intense light. Also, if you been misting your plants frequently, stop. As I quiz folks on this more and more I'm finding almost to the person that people having trouble with their Nepenthes pitchering are also avid misters. From the research I've done with growers of other plants I'm finding that misting is a "feel-good" thing for us, but it is of little benefit to the plants, and in the case of Nepenthes may be a stumbling block. The reason is that it causes a see-saw effect on the plant's humidity causing some stress. That little bit of stress seems to be just enough to trigger the plant to conserve resources and not grow pitchers.

Jeff

[coldcoffee]

What kind of nepenthes do you have by the way? That could make a difference. I think Jeff is right about humidity. I have about 5 species of nepenthes right now (N. alata, N. ventricosa "red form", N. hamata, N. jamban, and some unknown hybrid I got from Lowes). My suspicion is that humidity is nice and will result in better pitchers but not always an absolute requirement. With all of my CPs, I try to focus on consistency rather than absolute perfect conditions. With the exception of the N. jamban, all of my Nepenthes are growing in relative humidity below 40% (my open lided terrarium maintains the humidity around 30-40%), my Nepenthes alata lives in less than that, around 20%. The N. jamban lives with my Heliamphoras in an RH closer to about 85%- that is an experiment. All live is very bright light- although I have been experimenting with light levels as well. (Oh I actually just realized, I have two Nepenthes hamatas, one is in the heliamphora tank the other is in the main terrarium. This is an experiment I am doing to see how humidity effects pitcher production in N. hamata)

Here is the kicker- ALL are currently producing pitchers! Some are producing them quite profusely! I think consistency is far more important than perfect humidity. I fought the humidity game for a while until I realized the fluctuations were actually causing stress on my plants- not helping the situation. I never mist my plants (Except the Heliamphora tank- twice a day until I can get a good humidifier to hook up). Lately, I have even been growing my Drosera alicae in my bedroom under a spot lamp (RH in the house is around 15-20%), it does not look wonderful right now as I just pulled it out about a week ago but dew production is now starting to come up again and the plant appears to be pretty happy. Light (and correct soil moisture of course) is the biggest factor with Droseras IMO, not relative humidity.

Alright, sorry, I went on a rampage. I guess what I was getting at is I think (or rather my personal experience thus far suggests to me that) humidity for Nepenthes is nice if you can keep it pretty consistent. If you cannot, harden them off to your ambient RH (With some species I would be more hesitant of this.... but most of the commonly available ones, I would try it personally...) If they have been living in an RH of 80% their entire life then don't rip them out of the terrarium and expect them to keep all of their pitchers, acclimate them slowly, they will likely do fine after a hardening of period.

[coldcoffee]

By the way, the N. jamban lives in high RH as I was experimenting which seeing what pitcher production would look like in higher RH, I will be taking it out and hardening the plant off to lower RH at some point.

[nepenthes99]

My very large vining ones are-
-ventrata
-ventricosa
-alata
-miranda
-mixta
-maxima
-spectabilis pangulubao
-red leapord
-many unknown leilani hybrids

I have them all under powerful fluorescent lighting, and they are right next to the window in a bright sunroom.

[nepenthes99]

I also have a humidifier, and I mist them often.