Can they adjust to fullsun like a VFT/Sarr takes? Or are they just best left under a tree with filtered light? I remember reading last year that someone was growing their neps in fullsun and I was wondering if anyone else had success doing so.
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How much sun can neps take?
- Thread starter Outsiders71
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I believe fc3srx713b can help you out. He transfered his neps out into the sun. I'm trying to find the thread right now, as soon as I do I'll post it. there you go
Neps will take as much sun as you give them (just don't transfer them from say 10% to 100% sun at once). There are many species growing atop plateaus on 2000m mountains, the light intensity is incredible, many times more than any sarr or VFT would expect to receive. I think growing in full sun makes them more compact and the pitchers more colourful. Might also flower sooner.
For me, they seem rather more difficult to get adjusted. I give my plants great care when weening to the outdoors but I inevitably fry the Nepenthes despite this. Go slow, reeeaaall slow.
the problem with individuals such as Tamlin, Jeremiah H., Tony P. and I, as soon as we would get them weaned out and into full sun it would be time to bring them in before they froze so a large number of growers are not able to actually try it, a south window or greenhouse is as close as we will get to using full sun. doesnt Capslock have a few out and in the sun on a balconey or something? there is a fellow in Hawaii who has a x Ventrata taking over his mailbox in what appears to be full sun
seedjar
Let's positive thinking!
See: Neps Around the House
I don't know about your climate though; Nepenthes need consistent conditions year-round and wouldn't like being moved twice a year with the seasons. I'm not sure having the plant in full sun would be worth the loss in growth you'd see from moving it with the seasons and in the process of hardening it up to full sun.
Best luck,
~Joe
I don't know about your climate though; Nepenthes need consistent conditions year-round and wouldn't like being moved twice a year with the seasons. I'm not sure having the plant in full sun would be worth the loss in growth you'd see from moving it with the seasons and in the process of hardening it up to full sun.
Best luck,
~Joe
Interesting. Well I'm going to take it upon myself to experiment a little and see what happens. I would love to be able to keep them outside until the fall, they're drooling for bugs if you know what I mean.
I've never tried growing Neps in full sun, or even outside for that matter. All I know is that the Neps I grow HATE when the temps get too high, like over 95 degrees. I would love to try maybe a N. bical outside here in Southern California.
rattler_mt
I think you might be tlaking about Michael. He is a member of pitcher-plants.com and he has a nepenthes haven in his backyard and maybe, as you suggested, a few in the front yard. They are all of amazing size and the closest you'll get to a wild habitat of neps. in cultivation. His collection is simply amazing and if you would like to see his neps just come to pitcher-plants.com (forum)
and you will just be amazed at what you can accomplish with neps when you grow them outdoors.
P.S. His s/n is Rainforest Carnivore
I think you might be tlaking about Michael. He is a member of pitcher-plants.com and he has a nepenthes haven in his backyard and maybe, as you suggested, a few in the front yard. They are all of amazing size and the closest you'll get to a wild habitat of neps. in cultivation. His collection is simply amazing and if you would like to see his neps just come to pitcher-plants.com (forum)
and you will just be amazed at what you can accomplish with neps when you grow them outdoors.
P.S. His s/n is Rainforest Carnivore
he is/was a member here cause i saw the pic on here but i believe we are thinking of the same guy.
there is an individual(stone_jaguar IIRC) somewheres south of the border(Guatamala?) who has them growing out in their yard also
neps(atleast some) can definatlu take the strongest sun yah can give them if acclimated properly. however for those of us living in the frozen north its idiotic to try because if yah aclimate them right yah only have a few weeks of growing them in full sun before bringing them in before the first frost
there is an individual(stone_jaguar IIRC) somewheres south of the border(Guatamala?) who has them growing out in their yard also
neps(atleast some) can definatlu take the strongest sun yah can give them if acclimated properly. however for those of us living in the frozen north its idiotic to try because if yah aclimate them right yah only have a few weeks of growing them in full sun before bringing them in before the first frost
I no it really stinks living in NJ
Few weeks? What do you consider a few weeks?
lets see, last danger of frost is the first few weeks of june for me, take a good 6-8 weeks to get it acclimated properly to our hot sun(if it will even stand the 30% humidity) that puts us to what august sometime? first frost is usually bout the first few weeks in October. so depending on when my first and last frost is, i get between 4 and 8 weeks of optimal growth *IF* it adapts and starts growing right away which it may or may not, ive had neps pout for 3 months after moving them from 2 flourecent lights to 4 lights while keeping humidity the same. after the maybe 4-8 weeks of growing i bring it back inside to beat the frost and it goes into a pout again because of less light. makes alot of sence to me
honestly i dont think its worth the effort if you cant keep the plant outside for atleast 10 months out of the year and i have an opening of what? maybe 5?
honestly i dont think its worth the effort if you cant keep the plant outside for atleast 10 months out of the year and i have an opening of what? maybe 5?
Maybe it's just the location you are in. In Ohio our last danger of frost is near the end of May and frost won't come again until sometime near Halloween. We also have plenty of humidity, floats around 80-90% humidity and temps usually high in the 80s. Currenty conditions are 67F w/ 90% humidity.[b said:Quote[/b] (rattler_mt @ June 27 2006,10:32)]lets see, last danger of frost is the first few weeks of june for me, take a good 6-8 weeks to get it acclimated properly to our hot sun(if it will even stand the 30% humidity) that puts us to what august sometime? first frost is usually bout the first few weeks in October. so depending on when my first and last frost is, i get between 4 and 8 weeks of optimal growth *IF* it adapts and starts growing right away which it may or may not, ive had neps pout for 3 months after moving them from 2 flourecent lights to 4 lights while keeping humidity the same. after the maybe 4-8 weeks of growing i bring it back inside to beat the frost and it goes into a pout again because of less light. makes alot of sence to me
honestly i dont think its worth the effort if you cant keep the plant outside for atleast 10 months out of the year and i have an opening of what? maybe 5?
like i said though some neps CAN AND DO pout for several months after being moved. its not worth breaking a sweat over an amp to do nothing, and i mean NOTHING for 6 months after changing conditions. my bongso and ventrata, two of my hardiest an most adaptable neps pout for 2 months after changing conditions(bongso doing lil, ventrata throwing mutant pitchers), unless they can stay outside year round or atleast for 10 months all i can see is that your continually stressing your plant. not that im not for experimentation, hell im all for that. its just that it seems an effort of futility if your only dealing with a six-ish month window of good weather.
BigCarnivourKid
It's been one of dem days
Make the best of what you have. If you have a hardy nep, put them outside in the shade. Last year I stuck my 3 N. ventricosa outside in hanging baskets and hung them in my apple tree. I figured even the dappled shade under the tree would give them more light than they would get through the window I had them hanging in front of inside the house. The window's got the coatings on it that block IR and UV light frequencies. They handled temps from 85°F during the day down to 45°f at night and humidity as low as 20% or less. Pitchering slowed down for a couple weeks while they got used to their new conditions before taking off again. Here in the valley, the last frost is at the end of May to the first week of June and the first is usually around the last week of October to the first week of November. An easy way to get around frosts is to bring them in for the night. I brought mine in on the nights it looked like it would drop below 40°f and stuck them back out the next day. That streched my season a couple of weeks.
and for me thats the other problem, temps and humidity fluctuate horribly during our summers. in a couple weeks we go from 40 degree nights and 80-90 degree days(end of May/begining of June) to 70-90 degree nights and 85-100+ degree days(starting end of June/begining of July) with ht humidity at anywhere from 20% to 100% at any point during any temperature kinda rough on tropical plants like neps
I skimmed this thread pretty quickly and it doesn't seem to get into the whole highland-lowland thing. It must be as easy to grow Neps outside in Guatemala as it is to grow dandelions here, as long as they're lowland Neps at low elevation and highland Neps in the mountains.
A thick-leafed Nep like N. maxima adjusts to sun & wind much more easily than a thin-leafed one like N. khasiana. Or, even if it doesn't, it hides the damage better than a thin-leafed one. The only ~lowland Nep I have is a N. rafflesiana and it doesn't get anything like the sun all the others do. But it otherwise has to deal with the same growing conditions.
A thick-leafed Nep like N. maxima adjusts to sun & wind much more easily than a thin-leafed one like N. khasiana. Or, even if it doesn't, it hides the damage better than a thin-leafed one. The only ~lowland Nep I have is a N. rafflesiana and it doesn't get anything like the sun all the others do. But it otherwise has to deal with the same growing conditions.
Greetings, folks!
Since my name came up here and this is a subject that interests me a great deal, I thought I'd give a brief summary of my experience so far this year.
Yes, I can grow highlanders, alpines and some lowlanders outside year-round in full morning sun, dappled midday and afternoon sun, and produce absolutely gigantic (>10 m lianas)plants.
This year, I reworked my back garden and put out a "full sun" wooden high table for Heliamphoras and Nepenthes at the beginning of the year when sun angle was lower, and temps dipped every night into the high 40s/low 50s F. Everything appeared fine until early April when I started to see some sun stress in certain plants. We had an extraordinarily warm, subhumid and bright dry season (Dec-April)this year and, having spent a lot of time working in that part of the garden, can assure readers that the sun was a real scorcher for the later part of the summer, even with SPF 45. I'm at 1,600 m, so elevation has a real impact on burn capability.
Plants in trial that burned rather severely included young rajah, older spathulata, bongso, lowii and "black" singalana. All of these plants had been grown previously with very high light conditions and 15% shade. A very large (1.50 m diameter) highland truncata that had never shown any sun stress and was NOT moved did develop large bleached patches on the leaves that have only now started to recede.
Plants in the trial that showed little or no stress include medium rigidifolia, large petiolata, small platychila, small argentii, small epiphiata, small ovatas and very large muluensis. The rigidifolia has responded to the move by producing very large leaves with extremely heavy substance.
I did not attempt to try any of the spp. that I know to favor shady conditions, but I am seeing much better growth in some of these spp. (hamata, aristos, macfarlanei, pilosa, etc.) since I increased light intensity by pruning tree shade marginally.
The rains came with a vengeance in late May (by yesterday we had already exceeded 40% of average total precipitation) and days with very bright mornings followed by 8-10 cm of rain and resultant 1000 % humidity makes for very happy Neps. Cloud cover every day at midday has also shielded the plants from a sun that is now almost directly overhead, but light is very, very bright even when cloudy.
Need to find a new photo dumpsite to add some images to this. Apropos this subject, I have a great pic of a huge old red alata that has climbed up and out of the shade cloth covered atrium downstairs, through the wrought-iron grid and onto the patio where it's elongating and pitchering beautifully right on the concrete beside a huge old mamillaria cactus and receiving nuclear burst-intensity sunlight all day long with nary a red spot on its leaves.
Hope this was of interest,
SJ
Since my name came up here and this is a subject that interests me a great deal, I thought I'd give a brief summary of my experience so far this year.
Yes, I can grow highlanders, alpines and some lowlanders outside year-round in full morning sun, dappled midday and afternoon sun, and produce absolutely gigantic (>10 m lianas)plants.
This year, I reworked my back garden and put out a "full sun" wooden high table for Heliamphoras and Nepenthes at the beginning of the year when sun angle was lower, and temps dipped every night into the high 40s/low 50s F. Everything appeared fine until early April when I started to see some sun stress in certain plants. We had an extraordinarily warm, subhumid and bright dry season (Dec-April)this year and, having spent a lot of time working in that part of the garden, can assure readers that the sun was a real scorcher for the later part of the summer, even with SPF 45. I'm at 1,600 m, so elevation has a real impact on burn capability.
Plants in trial that burned rather severely included young rajah, older spathulata, bongso, lowii and "black" singalana. All of these plants had been grown previously with very high light conditions and 15% shade. A very large (1.50 m diameter) highland truncata that had never shown any sun stress and was NOT moved did develop large bleached patches on the leaves that have only now started to recede.
Plants in the trial that showed little or no stress include medium rigidifolia, large petiolata, small platychila, small argentii, small epiphiata, small ovatas and very large muluensis. The rigidifolia has responded to the move by producing very large leaves with extremely heavy substance.
I did not attempt to try any of the spp. that I know to favor shady conditions, but I am seeing much better growth in some of these spp. (hamata, aristos, macfarlanei, pilosa, etc.) since I increased light intensity by pruning tree shade marginally.
The rains came with a vengeance in late May (by yesterday we had already exceeded 40% of average total precipitation) and days with very bright mornings followed by 8-10 cm of rain and resultant 1000 % humidity makes for very happy Neps. Cloud cover every day at midday has also shielded the plants from a sun that is now almost directly overhead, but light is very, very bright even when cloudy.
Need to find a new photo dumpsite to add some images to this. Apropos this subject, I have a great pic of a huge old red alata that has climbed up and out of the shade cloth covered atrium downstairs, through the wrought-iron grid and onto the patio where it's elongating and pitchering beautifully right on the concrete beside a huge old mamillaria cactus and receiving nuclear burst-intensity sunlight all day long with nary a red spot on its leaves.
Hope this was of interest,
SJ
