Spraying Nepenthes

[curtisconners]

Hello, I have nepenthes alata that I have been spraying every day with distilled water. Is this beneficial? Would it be better to just add live spagnum to the pot? What about a combination of the two? Would this also benefit a maxima? Which I plan on getting soon.

 

[AnIsleAteHer]

From what I've gathered, the water evaporates so quickly that it only raises relative humidity for a very short amount of time. If you are looking to increase humidity overall I would go another route.

 

[curtisconners]

Live spagnum it is then.

 

[theplantman]

The only benefits I would anticipate from misting a plant with water are:
--Cuts down on mites
--Cools the plant's leaves down as the mist evaporates (only in high-heat situations, like the top of a greenhouse)

Drawbacks
--Facilitation of diseases, especially foliar

As mentioned, the impact on humidity is negligible. When I want to get the greenhouses more humid, wetting the floor is much better than wetting the plants.

 

[curtisconners]

Would adding live spagnum moss to the pot help with humidity? I don't have a greenhouse.

 

[BigBella]

I regularly mist my plants; and, all things being equal, have found the practice beneficial . . .

 

[Whimgrinder]

Would adding live spagnum moss to the pot help with humidity? I don't have a greenhouse.

Yes - but..... if humidity is a problem already (I assume thats what your goal is: to increase humidity in a dry-air indoor space) then you are not going to keep Sphagnum alive for long without misting it every five minutes. Sphagnum is notoriously difficult to maintain inside the dry air environment of a living space. Even in my full sized greenhouse with air and humidity controlled within very precise parameters, I have to wet the live Sphagnum at least once a day to keep it from drying excessively. Its more work by far to maintain living Sphagnum (Unless you build non-draining, saturated bog containers for it) than it is to maintain the Nepenthes in my greenhouse. FAR more work!

 

[theplantman]

Yes - but..... if humidity is a problem already (I assume thats what your goal is: to increase humidity in a dry-air indoor space) then you are not going to keep Sphagnum alive for long without misting it every five minutes. Sphagnum is notoriously difficult to maintain inside the dry air environment of a living space. Even in my full sized greenhouse with air and humidity controlled within very precise parameters, I have to wet the live Sphagnum at least once a day to keep it from drying excessively. Its more work by far to maintain living Sphagnum (Unless you build non-draining, saturated bog containers for it) than it is to maintain the Nepenthes in my greenhouse. FAR more work!

Second that opinion. I gave up a looooooong time ago on having luscious Sphagnum. Since Paul has it in spades, I just look at his photos to get my Sphag fix. It really makes you appreciate how pristine the habitats must be in the wild.

 

[curtisconners]

I would not have guessed that spagnum moss would be harder to keep than the nepenthes. Any other ideas for humidity? What about dead spagnum or some other moss?

 

[Benurmanii]

I wouldn't really worry about humidity with ventrata. It will tolerate extremely dry air.

 

[curtisconners]

I wouldn't really worry about humidity with ventrata. It will tolerate extremely dry air.

What about pure alatas though, which is what my plant is marked as. It does, however look a lot like a ventrata.

 

[Whimgrinder]

What about pure alatas though, which is what my plant is marked as. It does, however look a lot like a ventrata.

We've had this discussion on TF recently. Most plants sold as N. alata are in fact Ventrata.

 

[curtisconners]

I think I saw that in the classifieds. Well, I still like it. Thanks for the help.

 

[curtisconners]

I just google imaged nepenthes alata, it's definitely a ventrata.

 

[hcarlton]

N. x ventrata is not a plant that needs to worry about humidity. While it will pitcher better in higher humidity, there are people around here who get it to pitcher when humidity might have an average max of 25%, and hover around 10-15% often. As for spraying the plant, I think it's basically been covered already but there's little real benefit unless there's some niche requirement it's fulfilling. It won't wet the soil enough to act as watering unless you soak the whole plant with mist, it can cause burning on the leaves if bright light is present, it may promote algal or fungal growth in some cases, etc...

 

[squidfengshui]

Oddly enough (to play devil's advocate here and go against the majority), I have experimented with this on some of my nepenthes hybrids that I do grow on a windowsill, and have found that while in some cases it doesn't really make any difference at all, in others, some plants definitely seem to prefer it and will pitcher noticeably more/will keep more pitchers longer if I do it (and this is with keeping constant temperatures/light and generally stable environmental humidity, so it's definitely not just some fluctuation of one of those things)...obviously this is not a hard and fast rule, and I would agree strongly that ventrata adapts to low humidity perfectly well. So, in your case, I wouldn't think it would be necessary or particularly helpful. Try it out and if you see a noticeable difference, you'll have your answer.

 

[nimbulan]

Yes - but..... if humidity is a problem already (I assume thats what your goal is: to increase humidity in a dry-air indoor space) then you are not going to keep Sphagnum alive for long without misting it every five minutes. Sphagnum is notoriously difficult to maintain inside the dry air environment of a living space. Even in my full sized greenhouse with air and humidity controlled within very precise parameters, I have to wet the live Sphagnum at least once a day to keep it from drying excessively. Its more work by far to maintain living Sphagnum (Unless you build non-draining, saturated bog containers for it) than it is to maintain the Nepenthes in my greenhouse. FAR more work!

I can certainly vouch for that. I grow several Nepenthes and even some Heliamphora without any supplemental humidity, but any tips of live or dead sphagnum sticking up out of a pot will quickly dry out and turn black.

 

[NotMyRealName]

I've had zero problems growing my "ventratas" in low humidity environments, albeit pitchering slows down some. I don't have that problem during the spring and summer most of the time, where humidity is generally over 50% most of the time.
I've also experimented with just putting a "fine mist" onto the newly developing pitchers and they seem to produce very rapidly and with no drying and shriveling of pitchers.
Just my .02 worth.