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Mould and correct water depth


martyp

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Hi all,

It's been a few years now since my last Cephalotus which seemed to have a good run of a fair number of years on the bedroom windowsill (south facing) before its demise.

I have got a new one as attached as a birthday present in May and have kept it on a table near the French doors to the patio so gets lots of fresh air flow when the door is open and periods of sunlight during the day but generally quite a bright position. I have it in a plastic tub and add rainwater to about 3/4 inch and fill up again when it goes.

I came back from holiday at the weekend and noticed grey/white mould. I don't know if it's Botrytis but in an effort to improve airflow I put it out on the patio but left it out overnight and now sadly there are holes in the pitchers from slugs I suspect so worry I'm making a bad situation worse and hoping to get it to recover. I removed the dead pitcher and a new pitcher that was just a stalk and covered in mold visible in the first picture. The top parts of the other pitchers aren't looking great.

Any advice would be hugely appreciated as I absolutely love Cephalotus and really want this one to do well.

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Whilst it is always best to find the root cause of an issue and resolve that, changing conditioms too quickly can be detrimental to Cephalotus. Moving one from an inside environment to outside without acclimatisation will almost definitely cause issues. Mold is quite common in Cephalotus and you are right that increasing airflow should help, together with letting the soil moisture levels drop a little. If kept constently wet then this will promote mold, even if the airflow is good. 

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Many thanks mobile, much appreciated. I'll let the small amount of water in there go and only water a little bit for a while. The airflow is probably increasing as well from having a big fan not far from it to keep cool in the living room. I'll leave it where it is and hope for the best.

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Image 1 - Albany Pitcher Plant

I wondered also about these, I believe they're tissue cultures from the Netherlands possibly but appear healthy. Seem to be mass commercially grown looking at the label. Can anyone advise? Are these a generally short lived purchase that just looks attractive initially but prone to disease etc. more than those propagated by other methods?

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4 hours ago, martyp said:

I wondered also about these, I believe they're tissue cultures from the Netherlands possibly but appear healthy. Seem to be mass commercially grown looking at the label. Can anyone advise? Are these a generally short lived purchase that just looks attractive initially but prone to disease etc. more than those propagated by other methods?

That's most likely a Carni Flora ceph. I've not heard of any issues with them.

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Thanks mobile, I actually got a really good price on one and it arrived this morning so wanted to give it a go as it seems very vigorous. I'm hoping to settle it in after arrival following the advice on your website. I've put it on a North facing windowsill for now due to the heatwave, thinking I'd move it to the south facing bedroom window with my other CPs (Drosera, Sarracenia and Nepenthes) on Wednesday? I didn't want to risk it near the other one in case it has anything that might be passed on as such. I did have a problem with aphids on my Drosera binata but they seem to have gone and was thinking it was scale that was more of an issue with Cephs than aphids?

I'm going to persevere still with the other one of course and fingers crossed if it does die back it might come back from the roots.

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Edited by martyp
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  • 4 weeks later...

Signs of hope...

The attached was the state of my 1st Cephalotus on 30th July after I removed all the dead foliage.

Then amazingly I checked today and there's signs of life...really pleased and just hope it recovers fully.

I've stepped up the watering again a bit more after having let it dry out a bit more often.

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Thanks all, I'm hoping it grows back again stronger and have left it alone in the same place and just watering with the tray method, filling up to about an inch when the water goes down. It gets quite good South facing sun quite often during the day and good air flow. I wondered about watering from the top to flush through and also whether to risk a little bit of orchid fertiliser or best to let it come back more first?

I was definitely surprised and very pleased to see it growing back, really didn't expect it. Certainly not this soon after it all totally died back.

Unsure if the attached orchid fertiliser is any good at all generally for cephs, concerned about the urea content?

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Edited by martyp
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  • 1 month later...

Hi all,

I just thought I would post a couple of pics of how the plant looks now. After the normal leaves there are now a number of pitchers coming out. A little worried about the two leaves yellowing so am going to make it less damp and might not water from the top for a bit as I have been. Not sure if that sounds like a good plan to prepare for the Winter months?

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Hi,

i would remove the moss with tweezers! It prevents the exchange of oxygen! This moss makes an extremely dense layer. The water in the substrate can evaporate better and allows the roots to breath again. I have basically been doing this for a few years. You can replace the removed moss with pure quartz sand 1-2mm.

best regards

Tobias

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Thanks Tobias, much appreciated. It does seem like the moss has grown very thick in recent months. This is one of two Cephalotus I bought. I don't know what the composition of the compost is in either but this one the water seems to drain through instantly when too watering and the other (from the Netherlands) the water stays on the surface and slowly drains through over a minute or two.

I'll get onto the moss situation.

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