Nepenthes (hardier types)

[agustinfranco]

Hi all:

I would like to ask the Nepenthes experts if they can provide everybody with a comprehensive listing of the species that can grow without hassles under both heat (up to 90 F) and cold (Down to 50 F) under constant high humidity conditions. I'd be very grateful if somebody can provide us with such a listing. The more one can list the better!!!. Thanks


Agustin

 

[nepenthes gracilis]

Most any Nepenthes except for the more finicky ones (N. villosa, N. lamii, N. lowii, etc) can stand 90F for a few short minutes if cooling is quickly applied. Mike Catalani had his swamp cooler kick on at 90F in the summer and it cooled quite quickly. Temperate is not the super big issue...it's the length of time the plant is exposed to the extreme. 90F for 5 minutes might not do any harm but fi your cooling device fails then 90F for 15 mintues or longer and you'll have a Nepenthes salad!

Suitable plants I would nominate? I don't have a particular list but just stray away from Ultrahighland and Ultralowlands. Examples like N. rajah, N. villosa, N. diatas, N. lamii and lowands like: N. madagascariensis, N. merrilliana, N. bicalcarata, N. northiana.

The more you stray away from temperamental finicky Nepenthes and more towards hybrids and intermediate classifications of Nepenthes, the better the chance you have of success with such a temperature variation. Most lowlanders will tolerate 50F at night, they will not die but they will not do thier best...but if the daytime high hits 90 then maybe you will have better luck. if you could lower the daytime average to let's say 80 or 85F then highland plants would be a much more suitable choice. Having 80 in the day and 50 at night. But raise the night time temperature to 65-70 then lowland plants would be more suitable.



Hope that helps you out.

 

[agustinfranco]

Thanks. N. Gracilis:

I wanted to ask you then, where can I get a good listing of intermediates Nepenthes??

Agustin

 

[Joachim Danz]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (nepenthes gracilis @ July 13 2003,01:34)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Most any Nepenthes except for the more finicky ones (N. villosa, N. lamii, N. lowii, etc) can stand 90F for a few short minutes if cooling is quickly applied.
<snip>
...it's the length of time the plant is exposed to the extreme. 90F for 5 minutes might not do any harm but fi your cooling device fails then 90F for 15 mintues or longer and you'll have a Nepenthes salad![/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Hi,

hardy grown Nepenthes easily survive these temperatures. They might look stressed and stop pitchering, but the plants won't die. Extreme conditions also occure in their natural habit and the plants are used to this. I've seen pictures of N. sanguinea in conditions one would expect a cacti to grow well. The plant didn't look like the ones shown on pictures in books, but was very helathy.

Of course soft grown plants will not be able to stand these conditions. The waxy coating of their leafes is not sufficient and they loose too much water under these conditions in a few minutes time.

Joachim

 

[Tony Paroubek]

The question for me is if you mean 90/50 day/night all in the same day for days/months on end.

In my experience lowland plants will take it quite cold at night but only if they have nice warm days. Perpetual cold days and nights combined is what seriously hurts them. The same for highland plants if they are exposed to prolonged periods of warm days and nights.

Tony