Pitcher plant: total n00b disaster recovery! Please help!

[gingergrows]

Early this year I picked up a little pitcher plant sproutling in some kind of gel at Epcot's Garden of Tomorrow or whatever it's called. I didn't plant it for months, and by then the little guy had actually detached from the gel, and I figured "Well, that's that." Apparently there was an empty pot in the house, no idea what kind of soil or what had been planted previously, but figuring this little guy was probably already dead, why not? So, I washed off the roots, and put it in this pot and read up a little about what to do. So, it was cold and I live in a rowhouse, so not a ton of natural light, but the thing hung on, and the weird growths on the tips of the leaves that I thought meant I was doing something wrong turned out to be... pitchers! Go figure! Ok, so I bought this little plant light on a flexible arm with a clip on Amazon, and it was like perfect! Combined with the water (tap, sorry, I know) this thing seemed to be thriving.

Ok. This is where... I just don't know. It's hard to talk about.

So, I thought, you know, inverse square law, this light is on a flexible arm for a reason, so I had kept putting it closer and closer to the plant, and it's an LED light, right? I put my hand on it, it wasn't that hot. I think I could touch the LEDs. So one night I put it really close, like not touching, but near enough, thinking you know... more is better.

I don't know, it was probably at least a whole day, maybe a day and a half. I want down to check on it, figuring the extra light would be fantastic, but, to my horror, like a dagger in my soul, I saw something I'll never forget! The black leaves! Charred.

It haunts me even now.

I thought all was lost, and maybe it still is. But one of the tips of the leaves was still green. I couldn't bring myself to go back to it for a day or so, but I gave it some water, just... just in case. Yesterday or the other day, just to be sure... I clipped off the black leaves, then I saw! Off the stem, which was itself a little charred, I saw an actual green leaf, off the stem, that had been hidden by the soil. So I brushed off the soil some more, and I realized the plant it solidly rooted in the soil. Last night I clipped off the tip of the stem.... not sure if that was right or not, but it just felt right somehow, I don't know.

So that's where I am now, and I just wonder if I'm just like watering a plant that's essentially dead, or if there's some way to bring this thing back... I don't care how hard it is or how long it might take, that's not the point! I want this thing to live, if I can help it out.

Any help much appreciated!

Thanks,
Colin

 

[tmurphy44870]

You might have to be careful but I've seen worse. Had a nepenthes Miranda that I thought was dead so I set the pot out in my back yard in northern Ohio and actually forgot about it. I needed a pot one day and remembered that one so I went to reclaim it low and behold it had come back and thrived with literally no attention for an entire summer in the hot sun. They are surprisingly hard to kill sometimes. That sounds like it made basal shoots or branches of a sort.


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[FLTropical]

A picture is worth a thousand words...

 

[bluemax]

You might want to start here for general growing info, to begin with: International Carnivorous Plant Society - Growing Nepenthes

 

[Grey Moss]

I agree a picture will help a lot. But nepenthes will be able to come back from a lot of abuse. I'd recommend using that lamp as a supplement to natural light instead of the primary light source. Those small LED lamps don't put out too much.