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As promised on another thread, I've been busy with my camera in the highlands over the past few days.  Finally whittled it down to about 30 or so photos which will be put onto a gallery on our website tomorrow but here's a selection:

Here is the view from just inside the door of No. 5.  This is a production area and the plants hanging on the left are mostly N. burbidgeae, the ones on the right are mostly N. copelandii – Mt Pasian form, which have yet to be released commercially.
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Here are some Nepenthes in flower.  This is the protected “harem”.  When identified as such, boys are banned from this nursery and kept in another nursery building to prevent accidental cross-pollination.
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This is the first photo of the natural hybrid N. truncata (highland) x copelandii from Mt. Pasian on Mindanao Island, Philippines…
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A shot of the center of the stock area.  Working from front to back you can see N. boschiana, N. lowii – upper, N. lowii – lower and N. x trusmadiensis (N. lowii x N. macrophylla).  In between are all sorts of other things such as N. ephippiata, N. macrophylla, N. villosa N. truncata, N. burbidgeae and a host of other intermediate, highland and ultra-highlanders.  So you can see, it really is possible to grow these plants alongside each other in the same conditions.  Typical temperatures in this nursery are 25 deg C day and 12 deg C night.

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Here is the N. x trusmadiensis again…
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… and I like N. x trusmadiensis so much, here it is again!  I like this fabulous natural hybrid for many reasons, it's quite stunning IMO. This pitcher is 25cm or 10” from base to lid but this is still very immature. I have never been fortunate enough to see this hybrid in the wild, despite toiling up M.t Trus Madi several times but photos of wild specimens show immense pitchers.
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Our first upper pitcher of N. lowii.  This is a very compact plant being only 12cm or 4” from the surface of the compost to the petiole of the leaf with the upper pitcher on it…  
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Lower pitcher of a rather nice form of N. boschiana.  This pitcher is 30cm or 12” tall…
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Poor gecko.    R.I.P.!
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Hope you enjoyed.

Rob Cantley
 
Rob,
Absolutely stunning...And I always enjoy seeing your greenhouses and setup.
Being that we're stuck here in the Florida lowlands, I have always noted that all our plants do best during the "sweet spots" of the year: fall and spring. For the last month, we've had days around 29 C and nights averaging about 16 C. All of our Nepenthes are producing large pitchers and solid growth-everything from bicalcarata to maxima and eustachya. It seems to be a temperature range that supports the widest selection of species. Our summer nights are killer for highland plants with a typical low of 25 C. Have you experimented with different clones of highland plants to see their heat tolerance?
I was wondering specifically about the highland truncata and copelandii. There's many growers in areas like the southeastern part of the US that would be interested.
Again, fantastic photos. Keep 'em coming!

Trent
 
Thanks Trent,

Different clones of the same species seem to exhibit quite a wide range of vigor ant temperature tolerance. I have to say that I haven't tried growing true highlanders in lowland conditions with any degree of success. They seem to hang in there for a while and then start to go downhill.

The N. copelandii x N. truncata hybrid is a very vigorous and strong plant but alas it's not in tissue culture, otherwise I'd send you one. We have two plants only, both from seed.

Hopefully the future will see highland-lowland crosses that you will be able to succeed with in Florida too. So many of the more spectacular species are highland and I really do know how you feel. I lived 10 years in Brunei without any sort of highlnand facility and tried al sorts of tricks to keep highlanders going there without air conditioning but to no avail.

I believe that evaporative cooling techniques have been used successfully by Cliff Dodd to grow some spectacular highlanders in Florida.
 
Trent,

A little addendum. I misread your posting, I thought you were asking about N. truncata x copelandii. Now, realising you were asking about the species, I think there may well be potential for the highland N. truncata in Florida given the temperatures you quote. We've taken it as 6" dia. plants from the highlands here to the lowlands and grown them qute well for about 4 months before retardation set in. Our lowland conditions are extreme, 33 deg. C max, 28 deg. C min being typical, so you might well want to try it. Highland N. truncata comes in quite a variety of colorations too. I think it was the large plant as a centerpiece that helped us win an RHS gold and clinch a place at Chelsea for 2005.

Not sure about N. copelandii as I haven't tried it in lowland conditions yet.

Rob
 
Hello Rob,

the beauty of the plants and pitchers can't be expressed in words! I'm completly out of breath! The N. lowii is wonderful! How old is this plant (must be over 10 years old?!)and what soil do you use? I see some large N. villosa in big pots, do the plants need such large pots to reach this size? Is N. x trusmadiensis comercially availible at the moment?
Again wonderful pictures, please take some more!!! =)

mfG
Max
 
Great looking set up and plants.

Save the gecko!
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Trent,
I think your best chance is to build a 2000 m mountain in Florida, lol
Is there such a place in the US that has that kind of temperature range..maybe the mountains in Mew Mexico and Arizona?
Rob, most spectacular. Is the lowii witht he upper from a cutting? I am trying to justify that upper on such a short stem, but not having grown plants like that, I have no clue.

Cheers,

Joe
 
Rob:

Beautiful, ulcer-from-envy-inducing plants!

Brgds,

SJ
 
Great photos Rob
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I think I've died and gone to Heaven
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cheers

bill
 
  • #10
Nice Rob ;>

Interesting on the N. truncata hybrid. I haven't seen anything like that here so must be uncommon.

Will have to check out the website for the rest of them!

Tony
 
  • #11
Now I know where I'm going for my vacation (or move) after graduating uni! Thanks for sharing Rob! Those plants are as amazing as ever!

Amori
 
  • #12
Thanks for sharing Rob. Great pics! I'll look on your site for the rest of them. I'm having serious job envy
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Man, I would be standing right there staring for half a day. In fact I would pull up a chair!
No red spots on any leaves!

Very nice Sir.
 
  • #13
Wow, that lowii is very interesting considering it has virtually, no vine! Was that a cutting, if so I can understand the upper pitcher, if not....then could you explain? Thanks again!

Good growin'
 
  • #14
*starts clapping and jaw falls open* I'd like all of those plants please!
 
  • #15
wow that place is awesome! It looks like a dream! that is a huge amount of healthy nepenthes. I would go crazy in there!
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poor gecko
 
  • #16
Marvelous, Rob! Thanks for sharing those images!
 
  • #17
Good morning everyone, pleased you like the photos.  There are a lot more but I won't clog up the forum with them.  Leon will have them as a gallery on the website in a few hours, I'll post here when they're ready.

Sorry elgecko, I hope he wasn't a relative.  I would have tried the kiss of life but he was a bit past it I'm afraid  
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[b said:
Quote[/b] ]How old is this plant (must be over 10 years old?!)and what soil do you use? I see some large N. villosa in big pots, do the plants need such large pots to reach this size? Is N. x trusmadiensis comercially available at the moment?

Not far off Max, 8 years in fact, grown from seed.  Jeff Schafer has one with uppers too, he posted photos of it about a year ago.  After breakfast I'll go out and take a photo of the stem, it's very compact and surprised us by going straight from lower pitchers to a true upper with no intermediate stage.  Four weeks ago when I was last up here it was just a bud on the end of the tendril - imagine my delight!

No N. villosa in big pots I'm afraid, that must be somethig else but there are many in small pots hidden away in that photo.  The largest N. villosa we have is actually growing in the front garden here and is only 4" across  
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To the best of my knowledge N. x trusmadiensis isn't commercially available except possibly very occasionally from cuttings.  It's not in tissue culture anywhere to my knowledge.  We do have several that came up out of N. lowii seed.  I think Tony ended up with some that were sent to him as young N. lowii by mistake.  I offered to replace them as they were hybids but for some reason he hasn't yet taken me up on that particular offer  
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Joe, I too am puzzled by the N. lowii upper on such a short stem.  In habitat the plants with uppers are usually enormous.  I can only put it down to the huge fluctuations in light levels that occur during different seasons here.  We've had one of the wettest monsoon seasons on record and now the sun has started to shine again after 5 months of cloud; that may have done it.  Things are flowering left right and center for the first time too.
 
  • #19
Hi Rob,

Regarding your N. lowii, I have several plants which are similarly compact, but which have produced upper pitchers. Moreover, all are grown under artificial light, which is quite uniform, so my suspicion is that variations in light intensity may not have much to do with upper pitchers produced on relatively small plants. Of course, I have not seen the species in the wild, so cannot comment upon your observations, but I do know that there are a number of growers who have also had fairly compact specimens of N. lowii produce upper pitchers when grown under both natural and artifical light, so this does not seem to be unusual.

In any case, the specimen you have is quite lovely, and I appreciate you showing it here. If I may ask, how old is the plant, and in what medium are you cultivating it?
 
  • #20
Hi Jeff,

I've been owing you a mail for some time now - sorry!

Interesting about the compact growth on your plants too. It seems that my guess is off then. Perhaps it's just high light levels - period. In the wild they grow amongst stunted trees and don't usually get to see the full sky until they have climbed a bit.
 
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