Alata or ventrata?

[Nannanep]

Hello everyone. I've been lurking for a while, but this is my first post; tell me if I'm doing anything wrong!
I have one of those typical garden centre neps. It was labeled as alata, but as far as I understand that is often not accurate. When I do a google image search, I see plants that look a lot like mine both when I search alata and ventrata .. But I guess some of those might be mislabeled too. After looking at some similar threads on here, I'm thinking it's a ventrata, but it would be nice to be completely sure.

Thanks in advance, and I hope to be able to contribute with something a bit more interesting at some point :b

 

[Whimgrinder]

That is N. Ventrata. And although it may not be the most glamorous of the Nepenthes, it is far from uninteresting! I have a big specimen of it in my greenhouse and I enjoy it a lot.

Your plant looks healthy, and if it is making pitchers, then you are doing things right! In case you haven't encountered it before, the ICPS has a very good care sheet on growing Nepenthes you can access here: http://www.carnivorousplants.org/howto/GrowingGuides/Nepenthes.php

And welcome to TF

 

[Nannanep]

That is N. Ventrata. And although it may not be the most glamorous of the Nepenthes, it is far from uninteresting! I have a big specimen of it in my greenhouse and I enjoy it a lot.
*picture*

Your plant looks healthy, and if it is making pitchers, then you are doing things right! In case you haven't encountered it before, the ICPS has a very good care sheet on growing Nepenthes you can access here: http://www.carnivorousplants.org/howto/GrowingGuides/Nepenthes.php

And welcome to TF

Thanks for the confirmation and the welcome!
Yours is very red, which certainly makes it look more interesting in my opinion. I wonder if that is just natural variation, or the fact that you probably treat it way better than I treat mine, haha.

I've actually had this plant for about 1,5 years, and it did go through a 1 year adjustment period with almost no pitchers (and the few it did get were TINY). Admittedly, I have far from ideal conditions. The pitcher in the picture above is actually the biggest one it has made under my care so far, and it has more on the way, so yay

Oh, and thanks for the link. I have been everywhere and seen all of the guides though, haha. Now I just need to actually absorb all of the info and put it into practice.

 

[Whimgrinder]

It is fairly safe to assume that most (all?) the plants of N. Ventrata in collections are the same clone, so any differences in appearance are mainly down to cultivation differences. Mine is grown in a dedicated Nepenthes greenhouse, so conditions are close to ideal. Mine tends to get very dark red in the summer, as you can see. On that point, I noted that your plant's foliage is a very bright green, which tells me you may not be giving it enough light for optimal growth. I assume its living on a windowsill? Facing which direction, and is there shade from trees outside? If you acclimate the plant gradually, it will tolerate almost full sun exposure (some shade during the heat of mid-day is likely best, depending on where you are on the continent), and the color and size of pitchers will improve significantly. Just don't go putting it out on the lawn in the blazing sun, if you currently have it in a low light position -- acclimate it gradually!

 

[Nannanep]

Yes, it is living in windowsill conditions. More precisely, it is on the floor in front of a floor to ceiling balcony window. It is an east facing window with no trees or anything in the way, so a lot of morning light. But I live in northen Europe, so I guess the light levels here are always relatively low.

 

[Whimgrinder]

Can you move it to a west or south facing window?

 

[Nannanep]

Sadly, no. I'm a student in a small apartment; this is my only window :b Last summer I used to put it out on a table on the balcony on warmer days (which, again, are not that warm here) and take it back inside in the evening. Though I'm not sure if it was a good idea. I imagine moving it all the time might have caused some stress, and I'm not sure the extra sun made up for it.

 

[PsychoSarah]

A grow light might help then, that is what I use to grow my plants in my college dorm and in my small room at my house during the summer. And it would involve less moving the plant around.

 

[Nannanep]

You're right, it's just a money/priority problem right now (good grow lights are really expensive here, don't know what it's like in the rest of the world). Also, I'm going to be moving to an even smaller place next summer, and I'm not sure which plants I will be able to keep and so on .. So as long as my current ones seem to be doing okay, I think investments like that will have to wait D:
Man, the day I get a house ..