Highland photos

[swords]

I'd been wanting to do some photos so here are some of my favorite highland plants and their current pitchers:

Nepenthes aristolochides pitcher 2.5 cm in height

N fusca plant is 45 cm in diameter pitcher 17 cm high

N macrophylla 6 cm in diameter 2 cm pitchers

N hamata 30 cm in diameter latest pitcher 17 cm tall

N hamatas waiting jaws

N rajah 32 cm in diameter

N. rajah pitcher 5 cm in height

The hamata, fusca and rajah attained these sizes since last June when I got 'em between 5 and 10 cm in diameter. I can't wait to see what they look like by next June!

Thanks again Tony great plants!

 

[rajah]

Hi Swords,
You have done a great job with your plants.
They are all beautiful !!

Kind regards

Rajah

 

[Grim]

tHE Hamata lookes great, Wish i had enough room for one

 

[Jeremiah Harris]

wow
absolutely love the rajah!
great job!
Jeremiah

 

[sarracenialuver]

Very nice plants! I wish I had plants like that!
Kevin

 

[D muscipula]

Wow!  Very impressive!  What kind of container and medium is your hamata in, and what are the low/high temps?  I got mine from Tony, too, and it looked great, but i think it got a bit toasted by USPS or something, because the growing tip was dead as soon as the first new leaf had unfurled.

Is it likely to put out a shoot from a leaf axil with just five or six leaves on it if the tip is dead?  I sure hope so, but i'm preparing myself for tragedy.

 

[Phil traper2]

Is the growing tip just broken. Or is it black and dieing. If it is black and dieing ask Tony if you can refund for a different Hamata. Ifyou can then put a insurance on the package. So if USPS does something bad again they will have to pay.

 

[Tony Paroubek]

Hmm that's not good. Keep me posted on it. It is unusual for the growing tip to have died inside the unfurling leaf. Perhaps some moisture got in there and caused it. If it progresses and the plant dies or you want to send it back for exchange since you just got it, let me know. N. hamata is a tricky one. It damages easy and really hates shipping. N. hamata will send out side shoots even at the size I sell them.

Sorry Phil... Postal service insurance is against loss of package only. It does not cover killing live contents. (O how I wish it did&#33

Tony

 

[Phil traper2]

Thanks for telling me that Tony.

I thought it was either way.

 

[swords]

Hey that's something I didn't know either (insurance covering only a lost package, not destroyed contents).

My highlanders are all in the same mix of aproximately: 25% small chipped orchid bark, 70% Long Fibered Sphagunum and 5% (or less) small charcoal chips.

The only deviations are that I have added laterite clay granules to one N. rajah (not the one shown but an offshoot from the one shown) and Seachem's Flourite granules to another N. rajah offshoot to experiment with a heavy iron and heavy iron/magnesium contents in the soil. So far the small rajahs have gone from 2 cm to 8 cm with no problem but nothing exceptional has happened with the extra elements.

 

[Tony Paroubek]

well technically it will cover damage but with live stuff there are a whole bunch of restrictions. Even non live stuff you have to prove various things such as proper packaging and what not..

T

 

[Andenes]

Dude you have got to be one of the most luckiest collectors ever!

You have an amazing collection of cool and rare highland plants, specially with that Raja!

Man I would love to have one! Keep that work up!

 

[D muscipula]

Yeah, it was weird. The day after i got it the new leaf unfurled, and the tip and the base of the growing tip looked fine, but the middle was a bit black. Of course, the rest of the tip above the dead area eventually shrivelled and turned black, too. There is about half a centimeter of green tip left, and it has a bit of a cleft in it like it's trying to unfurl again. I'm hoping it somehow does, and comes back from the dead. I was debating whether i should cut the blackened portion off to free it to open more easily, but hadn't the courage to do so until today when i saw that a bit of mold was on the dead portion!!

Temps have been down to about 55-57F most nights, and 80 or sometimes a bit over 85F in the day (which i think is too high-right?). My main concern is that currently i can't give it air movement - it's either high humidity or airflow, and i figured humidity was the more important with hamata. After seeing swords' plants, i want to mimic his conditions as much as possible.

What are your temps, swords? What kind of lighting does your highland terrarium get?

 

[swords]

I can sympathize with the hopeless feeling of watching a prized plant slowly melt.
I don't know what hapened to my N. mikei but it curiously did the same thing as your hamata is doing now. I had it for several months and it had started to make new leaves and pitchers and then suddenly total meltdown. The forcast for your plant isn't good if it's afflicted with the same problem (perhaps too wet soil). I cut the blackened tip off with a sterilized scalpel but it did not help for long the plant simply sat stunned for a while and then continued to disintergrate at an even faster rate. It was a small 5 cm plant that arrived bareroot and almost dry, I thought since it was producing new (but small) leaves and pitchers it was settling in but looks apparently were deceiving. The whole meltdown scene took about a month, infact I threw the pot out saturday.

My highland chamber has a yearly temp range of 65-85*F daytimes 45-60*F nighttimes the temperature ranges are the highs of summer and lows of winter. Temperature averages for 3/4 of the year is 75*F days and 50*F nights thanks to living in Zone 4a I can rely on the outside air to be almost perfect at night and only need to be humidified most of the time, from June til September I need to run an Air conditioner for my nighttime cooling but Isimply hook it up to an appliance timer and set my duct & fan from the window in front of the AC output when the lights go off the AC comes on and starts cooling the tank depending upon the ambient temps of the evening the temps will be droped to 50-60*F - 65*F on the very hottest nights of which there is rarely any. The humidity is always about 90% and the air is moving. I have the humidifier hooked up to a humidistat which is set just below 100% so just as water begins to condense from the fog the humidistat shuts off from a few minutes til the humidity drops about 5-10% then the fog kicks in again.

Highland plants grow better in winter because they like the constant cool temps but these ranges seem to be sufficient for the species I am currently growing. Remember keeping the air moving also helps cool the plants down. If you have a fan inside the terrarium blowing on the leaves (along with a humidifier) they will become cooler simply by movement of the air and action of condensing humidity. Attaching everything to automatic timers makes doing all this a lot easier than it sounds!

 

[nepenthes gracilis]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (swords @ June 24 2003,02:15)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Highland plants grow better in winter because they like the constant cool temps.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
That is if your heater in your greenhouse doesn't go out on you.

 

[RTB]

Hello everyone. Kinda new to this place.

swords, do you use any fertilizer on your plants? They are truly beutiful! What kind of lightning setup do you have?

Best regards

Robin

 

[eplants02]

Very nice Rajah.

 

[swords]

Hello RTB, Yes, I do fertilize occasionally (every month or two) with a weak solution of 1/4 tea spoon of Urea Free Orchid Fertilizer per gallon of Reverse Osmosis water. I also use a balanced trace element supplement (1.0 ml of the liquid stuff sold for planted fish aquariums added to the fertilizer water). For a while I was fertilizing more often (bi weekly to monthly) but it was affecting several of the plants negatively. N. ramispina did not like fertilizing at all and quit pitchering now it is back to making a 4" pitcher but it would probably be making even larger pitchers by now had I not fertilized it. I feed the active pitchers every month or so with a fresh frozen (and defrosted) cricket and insect feeding is what really seems to make the growing difference (of course along with good light, pure water and high humidity) but fertilizing is fine if not done in excess.

I use power compact flourescents over the highland tank that the above plants are from. There's aproximately 300 watts of PC lights over the highland tank. The color temp of these lights are 6500K and 9250K (or something like that) as I was originally going to be using them for a saltwater reef tank but things changed. When I replace them I will switch to 5500K and 6500K to come closer to tropical sunlight.

Hope that helps!

 

[RTB]

Hmm, ok. I'm having some trouble with my light setup caus it gets too hot at summer. Totally I got 348W over my highlanders. Earlier I only had around 60W. The problem is that I can't give it the air movement that's required I think. Gotta do something about that. Can I cool the plants down with ice on the hottest days? I can see that my rajah is suffering in the heat so I gotta do something quickly. I don't wanna cut down on the light caus the plants aint happy without my additional 300W either. I will take a look at some small fans that I could use tomorrow but I fear that the humidity will be effected if I use a fan. I'm relying on water at the bottom of my terrarium for humidity. I don't own a hydrometer either, he maybe I should get one tomorrow as well if I find any. The rest of my plants are happy with some cool water sprayed at them but the rajah is not.

Yeah well, good night, gotta go.

Best regards

Robin

 

[nepenthes gracilis]

Robin,

A hydrometer/hygrometer is not a necessary tool for the culitivation of Nepenthes. Most meters (unless you want to spend 50$ and upwards for a good one) are not accurate. The best indicator of your conditions (humidity) are the plants. If they are happy you can assume that humidity must be decent and/or they are hardened off to the climate. You could cool them with ice if you prefer. It would work in the day for a little cooling but not by much. Maybe place a small battery-powered fan in back of it? It would make a small evaporative effect with it blowing the air from behind the ice and maybe cool the enclosure down a few degrees if you are lucky.