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Nepenthesis

Formerly known as Pineapple
My N. x 'Ventrata' got a bit too dry, dried out completely, despite the high humidity in the terrarium. The mix doesn't hold water at all... It's like some weird dusty stuff that just drains water right through it, with lots of bark mixed in. Going to repot it in some sphagnum, I have enough to do it. I'll get some perlite too. Maybe 2/3 sphagnum, 1/2 perlite. Just curious how I should go about repotting it. It will be moved to my greenhouse in a week or so, it's the hardiest and biggest in my collection, so I thought it would be the best to test out first. Any techniques to repotting to keep the nep in the best of shape? Is it a good idea to repot as I test it out as the first nep in the greenhouse?

It has maybe three or four little basals growing from the giant mother vines. They foliage is so thick from the mother vine that they don't get much light and there's no room for them to grow, so I was going to break them off and pot them separately. Is there a technique to pulling off basals? I want to make it will survive, so I won't pull it unless it has roots, which it probably does since it has a pretty big leafspan and is pitchering. Any care tips for removed basals?
 
It's generally better to bring the repotting stuff to the plant than vice verse when they're really big. I'm not the most experienced grower but if the previous media is OK I just get rid of the excess and leave the roots alone as much as possible then make a hole in the media in the new pot and put the plant's roots in that and bury it. If the previous media is crap then I gently wash off as much as I can in a bucket of lukewarm water without disturbing the roots too much.
I recently repotted all my plants this way into a 1:1 sphagnum : perlite media and they all carried on growing immediately after, you might find that they abandon some of their pitchers after due to the stress but this is normal. I'd say definately repot a bombproof plant like Ventrata before any of your more fussy ones as your technique will improve with each repot.
Thats just my 2 cents, hope it helps.
 
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