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Cephalotus being pot bound....

Cephalotus, inducing stress for faster growth....

I'm curious if anybody has an opinion about possibly speeding growth of Cephalotus with induced stress (please keep reading). Originally, I purchased three plants. I had grown this plant with great success for about fifteen years. Therefore, I never really had any questions regarding them. Call it beginners luck, or possibly just good growing conditions.

Initially, I followed the literature that I had read, which explained this plant has a long tap root, therefore should be grown in a deep pot. After maybe my second year of experience, I potted one in a six inch deep plastic pot and the other two in a plastic bonsai pan, appx 6"x 4"x 2". The pot thrived but never did much other than that, the plant kept a neat rosette. On the other hand, within two years, the bonsai pan was full, edge to edge with a dense mat of adult pitchers (it never flowered though). Ultimately, I divided this plant up and sold the numerous divisions and kept a few for myself thinking "why not sell it off, in a couple years I'll have a repeat performance." I repotted these extras in standard three inch pots.

Eventually, I gave a couple away to friends and kept one. For the last three years this plant has produced four offshoots, but the pitchers will not mature. After a sudden crash of the primary plant (not certain what was the reason), I unpotted the plant, divided it and repotted three plants, again in three inch pots. All divisions have survived. The root system was not extensive by any means, and unfortunately one of the divisions had no roots at all, yet has survived and is actively growing.

After all this, my question appears to be, does being pot bound increase/improve the growth and size of the plant, and if so, is it possible that having put this plant into a shallow tray, it triggered a stress response which in turn caused the plant to spread at an accelerated rate?

Just curious, I'm ready for some mature pitchers, Thanks
 
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