Texas Gardening: Lookie Lookie LOOK...its a weird one!, 0 by bettydee

bettydee wrote:
Nepenthes have 2 types of growth: rosette and vining. Often the pitchers look different in one stage compared to the other stage. I couldn't find the photos of my N. alata in the rosette stage to show last year's pitchers. The pitchers were a deep reddish maroon and between 6 - 8 inches high.

This is my N. alata's second year. I bought 3 for $7.00 each and planted all three in the same pot. Early this spring I thought I had pruned off all the vining growth and later discovered I had missed 2 branches. I left them to see what would happen.

This is a photo of the plant now. I've discovered that leaving the vining branches on reduces the size of the pitchers on the rosette sections. The vining pitchers look the same and are about the same size, but the color is greenish rather than maroon.

Aggiecorgi, I also read that Nepenthes prefer rainwater or water near pH7 so I went out and bought either spring or distilled water. That started to get expensive. So I put the plant in my orchid greenhouse and gave it an ultimatum: live on well water or die. I haven't had a problem, but I do let plenty of water run through the pot everytime I water it.

Sylvia, If the plant has high humidity and is growing well, it will produce it's own liquid in the pitchers. Then again rainwater enters the pitchers in nature so I let some water go into the pitchers as I lightly mist the leaves everytime I water. I'm always on the lookout for bugs to feed my plant. Jumping spiders are my favorite prey. I react badly to their bite so I try to decrease their population whenever I can.