Arvetis

Ah, thanks, I did not know that. As long as I'm asking newbie questions, should I provide structural support for my nep to climb? I've seen plants that have twisty bits in their pitcher stems that look like they're meant to grab onto things, but my plant doesn't have those. It is beginning to bow a little bit under its weight, though.

I wish I had a working digital camera so I could show you this, but I'll just have to describe it. My garden center mutt Nepenthes looks very bad towards the bottom of the plant - it's brown and lifeless and withered. But the rest of the plant is fine, and it's even been pitchering more lately. It's been like this for a couple of weeks. It's really strange. Is my plant dying?

Judging by the condition of the plants, that may be a misconception and not a typo.

It's not looking very good anymore. One by one, the pitchers are beginning to blacken. It starts at the edges of the lid, which turn black, and kills the whole pitcher within a couple days. The leaves seem unaffected, and the growth points look healthy, but now there's only one small trap with no black on it. I don't see any visible mold or fungus. Is this just shock from its new environment? A root disorder? The windowsill does get a few hours of direct sunlight in the afternoon at this time of year. Is it possible that this is too much direct light for it? Edit: I've got some pictures now. http://img26.echo.cx/img26/2980/sadplant15tw.jpg http://img26.echo.cx/img26/9065/sadplant24ay.jpg http://img26.echo.cx/img26/8851/sadplant39ze.jpg

Sorry, I'm in Maryland, USA.

I was at the Home Depot yesterday picking up some peat for my Sundew cuttings (bonus pic at the end of this post), and I noticed they had a display of small Nepenthes. They were just dinky little garden center mutts, but they had them in a dark corner of the warehouse and I just had to try and rescue one. Problem is, it may be in more danger in my hands than at Home Depot. I'm a complete Nepenthes newbie. I don't have any kind of greenhouse or terrarium for it, only some warm, bright windowsills. I've looked up some Nepenthes guides, but I'm afraid I'm a little too ignorant to glean much from them. I have no idea what the difference between a lowland and a highland species is, for example. I don't know which of these categories "garden center mutt" falls into. Also, I'm worried about the plant because each new leaf has a brown, shrivelled, abortive attempt at a pitcher. I can only assume that they didn't work out because of the unfavorable conditions in Home Depot. Should I worry about it? Here are some pictures. Here's the nep. For reference, the trap on the right is about two inches tall. Here's the nep from a different angle, showing the sad little failed traps So, any tips for a nep newbie? I have two windowsills I could keep it in. One gets direct afternoon sun, which I use for my Sundews and Venus Flytraps, and one gets diffuse but brightish light, and never direct sun. My instrincts tell me to put it in the diffuse one. Is this correct? Also, should I water this guy from top, or from a tray? I've heard about nep roots being sensitive, so I'm thinking tray might not be a good idea. And finally, as promised, here's a picture of the capensis cuttings I'm using as a hydroponics experiment, complete with little baby plants.

Well, the capensises seemed to pull through, but the spatulatas aren't looking too well; they're stringy and covered in dirt. The new potting medium is beginning to grow some white and green fuzzy mold, which I'm worried will spread to the plants. I moved the pot to a more open location and put a powerful full-spectrum light on it. Will that help with the mold?

Hey Kazr, Petr here :q: It does look like long-fibered sphagnum, but I'd be careful. There's a kind of moss called "green moss" that is sometimes sold as sphagnum but isn't really, and it draws nutrients from the substrate that could otherwise be used by your plants. As an initial guess I'd say you do have real sphagnum moss, but it's hard to say without better pictures. Good luck with your Nepenthes!

Don't worry. D. capensis and spatulata are easy growers and are hard to kill. Just keep them moist and in a partially shaded location for a couple of weeks and they will recover. That's why I did them first. I also have to repot some flytraps, but I figured the Droseras would make good practice. I suppose this really should go in the flytrap forum, but does anyone have tips on how to not kill my flytraps?

Maybe I'm just worried because I've never done it before, but it looks really messy to me. The smaller plants barely have their roots below the surface, and their leaves are all covered in peat. I washed off what I could, but sundews are pretty sticky.

Well, I just did my first repotting ever: A bunch of Drosera Capensis and Drosera Spatulata. They had both each grown from one plant, and were crowding each other out. I'm worried I did a sloppy job and they're going to die. Their roots were pretty tangled up, and I basically had to yank them apart in a few instances. Also, I couldn't get the roots down very deep when I was repotting. The new pot they're in is pretty large, about 8" in diameter. Will that be a problem for watering from a tray? Worried

My capensis caught two flies on one leaf, one above the other, and literally tied itself in a knot!

Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to put together a nice experiment like that. I'm just nervous about putting my plants outside over the winter, as our winters get pretty cold (much colder than North Carolina), and the only outdoor location I have is a balcony which gets only an hour's direct sunlight per day.

As I said, 1" is the size of the smallest trap. The two hanging over the sides are more like 1.5", and one that it had at the GC but has since died was larger. As I said, those are the ones that are easily visible in the picture. Every lobe of every trap has six hairs. Three are laid out in a large triangle, and three are laid out in a small one in the base of the trap. Every lobe of every trap has six hairs.

I know feeding it isn't a medicine, or strictly necessary, I'm just trying to figure out whether I want to do it or not. The traps are all at least 1". They have six hairs on each lobe. If you look at the picture, you can easily see five on the top lobe and four on the bottom.

What kind of Sundew? Looks like a Spatulata.

Helping to derail my own thread here, but can anyone confirm this? It would make me feel much better keeping my VFT indoors rather than exposing it to the cold winter.

I picked up a VFT at a garden center a couple weeks ago that wasn't marked as anything special, but the traps are huge so I assume it must be one of the "giant" varieties. Anyways, I noticed that one of the largest traps caught a relatively small spider. After it opened, I was examining it to see how such a small bug set off trigger hairs so far apart, and I noticed that there are two sets of trigger hairs! One set is spaced normally, and another set of smaller, closer hairs are down in the base. Here's a picture: Is this normal for the "giant" varieties? All of the traps are like this. Also, the plant seems to be going through some shock adapting to its new environment. Here are some pictures of the whole plant; you can see it's not a very happy camper. It does have new growth at the borrom, however: Is it going to be OK? Should I do anything special? I'm debating whether or not to feed it. I know a lot of people here opt not to feed their plants, but I've found that an occasional "booster shot" of bloodworms helps my other, normal-sized VFT grow faster. I don't want to risk one of this plant's few healthy traps, though.

I've never successfully grown VFT seedlings. How much sun are you giving them? How will you ever separate them?

They are very pretty, but they're miniscule. That shot is an extreme closeup; they're only about a centimeter across. From a distance, they just look something like a bland sprig of clove, but you can see the colors close up.

I'd thought about this... is there a time of day when it likes to flower? Early morning? Does each flower open only once?

The central water garden area is new, and that's where most of them are. There are some scattered here and there in the rest of the Gardens, but they were difficult to find.

Nothing too special, just a garden center Spatulata flowering, but it's the first thing I've let flower, so I'm proud of it. Right now they're just buds, but I'll post some pics of the opened flowers later. I have a question, though. I want to self-pollinate the plant, and I think that's possible with Spatulata. I've never done it before, though, so which naughty plant bits do I stick into which other naughty plant bits to make it work? Here's a shot of it a few weeks ago when the flower stalks began forming Here's what it looks like now A closeup of the plant itself And a closeup of the tops of the stalks

No idea, they were just labelled "Nepenthes." The second Nep was actually bigger, you just can't tell the scale in that picture.

It was $13 US. A little pricey for a VFT, but not too bad. I haven't repotted it yet because I'm out of peat. Also, it has some really tiny growth points that I don't want to kill.