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  • #21
Hey Trent,

Those photos are stunning....STUNNING!

You put that much effort into your merri, eh? Yikes. All I do is water mine less frequently. :S

I found a solution to repotting plants that don't like their roots disturbed: Pot them in something you can cut away from the medium. That way you don't have to knock the plant around trying to get it out of the pot. You simply peel away the pot itself!
 
  • #22
Hi Dave,
The N. merrilliana in the photo has a leaf span of 18 inches on the main vine and nine inches on the ground shoot. It is potted in a five gallon pot. N. merrilliana has a huge root system. We didn't want to make it sound like it's that much trouble to grow, but they are a little more touchy than most lowland neps. Getting them to produce consistently large pitchers is the trick. Keeping them alive and growing is easy.
We are delicate with all our neps when repotting. They usually come out of the pots as one big mass of roots in the shape of the pot. The photo below is showing a N. bicalcarata being "moved up" to a three gallon pot. Note the square root mass on the bottom.
N.%20bical%20root%20shot%20no1.JPG

The roots are completely molded to the shape of the pot, it just slips out, no knocking the plant around. While we haven't taken a photo of N. merrilliana during repotting, the same holds true.
Glad you enjoyed the pics.
T & M
 
  • #23
Hey Trent,

Ok, it sounded like they were so hard to grow. However, you may be right about the pitcher size thing - my plant is about 5 or 6" across, and the largest pitcher is only about 1 1/2 to 2" tall....Though there are a LOT of pitchers, and two ground shoots. Should I be getting larger pitchers at this point, or is it still too young?
 
  • #24
Great looking plants!!! My poor plants are confined to the basement! A Nep greenhouse in Michigan would be expensive to operate, then there is the danger of a power failure. I've always liked Florida maybe I should start working on my wife.

Keep posting, I never tire from looking at beautifully grown plant pictures.

Glenn
 
  • #25
Dave,
Sounds like your N. merrilliana is doing appropriate sized traps. Considering it is one of the largest pitched species in the genus, we would like to get our big plant doing larger traps. We brought it inside the house for the hurricane (the first one) and it really didn't like being moved from its growing spot. Since then, it's been doing smaller traps. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Now that it's winter, our big N. merrilliana grows slower because of short day light hours. Next summer we want to get it to produce those soccer ball sized pitchers!
smile_k_ani_32.gif

Yours is still just a baby, it's great that it's pitchering frequently and consistently. Interesting to hear that your young plants have ground shoots, we have noticed they produce ground shoots while the main plant is still doing lower pitchers (it doesn't have to be a hanging four foot vine). Wish some of our raffs would do that.

Glenn,
Because of the power failure issue, we have a propane heater. Also great for the electric bill. Glad you appreciate the pics, we'll post more in the future.
 
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