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New N. x ventrata

Okay, I've a got little guy from Capslock and Im wondering if there anything special I should do for it as a cutting...lol! Kinda funny that I saw my first nep leaf that didn't have a pitcher...ol gubler nep made me take the fact that all its leaves had pitchers for granted. How long should it take for it to settle down and start to pitcher?


Also, how fast do these guys grow?


How old/tall will it have to be to survive outdoors?

Also, is there any way to encourage the growth of the sphagnum moss that came along? I'd like to se a carpet in this and eventually my other cp pots.

Said this to Capslock already, but I couldn't thank him enough for the little cutting
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Edit: okay, now we all know where the plant came from!
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N x ventrata is a easy Nepenthes and one of my favorite just for that reason.

If you plant is an unrooted cutting, I have had excellent success rooting N. x ventrata cuttings in cups of distilled water : almost 100%. The second method that works equally as well is to place them in pots of damp sphagnum moss and enclose the pot and cutting in a large zip lock bag.

Roots should start to form in about a month and when they are about 1/2 inches long the cutting, if rooted in water, can be potted up. If already potted, the bag can slowly be opened to allow the plant to acclimate to lower humidity levels (60% is min for pitcher production in my experience). New pitchers may take another month to develope as the plant does have to get acclimated to its new environment.

The plants can grow very fast. My first N. x ventrata plants grew over 4 feet in one year. I currently have 100 cuttings from my plants waiting to be potted and cut again.

The moss should take off on its own. Most of my pots that contained sphagnum moss now contain live moss.

Happy growing.
 
When did you get this from me? I don't recall selling any plants for months.
 
Sorry swords, kinda got you mixed up with capslock. Maybe it was that steak I ate last week.....its going to my brain...
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Capslock has told be it isn't sphagnum...its actually carpet moss. He said its harmless. Whatever it is, its sure cool lookin in there with the nep!
 
That's alright. I've had people ask me if I was running Cook's Carnivorous plants too... hehe!
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I don't think you will have much of a problem with N. ventrata. This was either my first, or almost my first Nep which I got as a cutting from my uncle some years back and I've made plenty of new plants from it over the years (reducing it to cuttings whenever it gets too big for it's terrarium). My uncle grows it in a window (for at least 10 years now) and his does not ever pitcher because of lack of humidity and maybe light. I took a cutting home and put it in my terrarium and it pitchered very easily. As to size, my uncle bought it as an established plant in a hanging pot (like you see from Pet Flytrap's catalog). A larger plant will be sturdier for windowsill or outdoor growing but not if it has been grown in very high humidity and them moved to much drier air, if you do that it will often wilt. It's good to get in the habit of finding one good growing location that doesn't change much throughout the year and leave your plant there. Instead of moving it from the window to outside, then into a terrarium, then back outside... it has to reacclimate every time it's growing conditions change.

Sphagum is good, carpet moss is not so good. It's pretty but it smothers out sphagnum (which is much slower growing) and will even grow on your plants and pitchers if they happen to be resting on the stuff. If there isn't much yet I'd say pick it off and throw it away or use it on a bonsai tree pot or something but keep it away from your neps.
 
Josh,
I used the term carpet moss probably incorrectly. There is a moss growing in my pots that is not sphagnum. Here's a picture of it:
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I don't see that it could actually grow ON the plant or pitchers. What is this stuff, and is it dangerous? I wouldn't think so as it's present in small plants I've had for quite a while with no harmfull effects.

Capslock
 
Bah that won't harm anything, but it tends to crowd out smaller plants like sundews and Dionaea species. In Nepenthes it's harmless, adds a bit of a new dimension to your growing areas.
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I have introduced it to my collection and find it quite attractive. It helps to reduce fungal problems as well as algae infestations.
 
So right now it needs humidity, but after it gets bigger, I could just treat it like a houseplant but with distilled water?


Would a window facing East work(my room, wher it is right now)? Are house is odd in the fact that it only has one little window facing North(directly into are neighbors house).
 
That's not the carpet moss I'm speaking of. That stuff in the photo is Ok fluffy stuff that I've had in my peat pots (when I used to use peat). The nasty sort of carpet moss I've got may be some kind of moss native to MN since my highland chamber is pulling fresh air from outside my window year round. I wish I had a better book on moss than Mosses, Liverworts and other Miniatures one that showed photos and had descriprions of all the mosses in a monograph style, I suppose it'd be an enormous book...

Basically, a well established plant could be moved to a new location but it should be done slowly. Say in six months your N. Ventrata is looking good and you'd like to have it out of the terrarium and on a window sill or whatever. People say to take 3 or 4 thin bamboo stakes and stick them evenly around the edges of pot and cover the plant, stakes, pot and all with a big clear plastic bag (the stakes will keep the bag from sitting on the Nep leaves or pitchers and causing them to rot). Then over the period of a few weeks open the bag a little more every day til eventually the bag is all the way off. After this you will likely need to mist it a couple times a day. Supposedly this will acclimate them to lower humidity. I don't know for sure cos I don't grow any Neps out of their chambers. At my house alocasias, palms and amorphophallus (thanks Troy!) grow with daily misting but Neps won't pitcher and orchid flowers shrivel soon after opening unless they're left in their chambers.
 
  • #10
Hey swords!v No fair! I asked if you were RELATED to dean I didn`t say you WERE HIM!
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