8 QUICK NEPENTHES TIPS FOR GROWING MORE PITCHERS

hi i'm Geoff this is tropical plants at 53  degrees north now i've done a video about   growing more pitchers in the past but today  i thought i'd try and condense that into a   list of about eight things with a couple of  bonus things right at the end these are tips   which i have not only researched but i have done  a little bit of trial and error and from my own   experiences and it's worked so here just for  as much as my own reference as anybody else's   here are my eight quick tips to grow more  pitchers on your nepenthes so let's jump in   and we are in okay so i'll be as brief and  quick as i as possible because i understand   people are in a rush these days so i'll quickly go  through the few nepenthes i've got over here i've   got several more in the greenhouse but they're  all small ones so i'm not going to show you those   i'm going to show you these more mature plants  so you're looking at at the moment nepenthes   gaya which is a beautiful nepenthes plant you  can see the lovely colours on it the beautiful   markings on it it did have quite a lot of red  on it at one point which i'll go through that in   a little moment to the right of that these very  dark almost black pitchers this is nepenthes   rebecca soper moving along we've got nepenthes  burkii with loads of pitchers on there and   then another rebecca soper at the end those were  joined at one point and i divided them and you   can see loads of pitchers on those so i'm going to  show you these three hybrids here three cultivars   should say uh two of them are the same so  first of all if you have seen my other video on   growing more pictures on pitchers you'll  see it was a little bit more of a rambling kind   of a video which of course i know i'm well known  however i'm hoping that this is a little bit more   condensed a bit more to the point um so i'm going  to go through the eight things that i've tried   that last video talked about the care needs in a  little bit more detail but here i'm just going to   list them off the things that i've tried that have  worked that helped me to get my nepenthes to grow   more pitchers of course if you live in a tropical  area then you'll probably find that you don't need   any of these or maybe just a few of them but if  you live in a temperate country like mine now   live in the north of the uk it's certainly not  tropical and left to their own devices in this   greenhouse they would not pitchers and in fact they  weren't doing until i did these eight things so   we'll start off with number one - high light not  direct sunlight but they need as much light as you   can possibly give them it's going to be diffused  it's going to be through some kind of shading   however as much as you can they will tell  you if they're getting too much you can see   just on top there you can see the reddening of  the leaf that's what happens if they get too much   light but most of those leaves now are green i'm  happy to say at one point they were going very red   this one up here the rebecca soper goes red very  very easily and different nepenthes from different   places whether it's highland or lowland which  extreme of the highland or lowland it comes from   that is what really determines how  easily those leaves go red however   the first tip is that you must give them  as much light as possible so tip number   two you don't want to be giving them any  kind of rain water that comes off a roof   if it comes off a roof then it's likely to have  nutrients in them these plants grow epiphytically   they grow in moss usually or the forest floor  but again it's going to be in sphagnum moss   and the likelihood is that there is not very much  nutrition there this is why they've developed this   rather wonderful mutation of growing these  pitchers on the ends of the leaves which is   a fantastic thing and it amazes me every day  to think how that has evolved over millions of   years from just a single leaf so you need to give  them either R.O. water that's reverse osmosis water   i do have a video on that somewhere on how to  set one of those systems up just show you there   look at the look at the teeth around the edge  of that pitchers isn't that lovely really really   nice pitchers shame they're all pointing in the other direction so if you don't want to give them   our RO water or you don't have the facility for  that then some other kind of filtered water or any   kind of water that you can get hold of that you  know doesn't have any dissolved solids in it you   can always test it with a tds meter so that's tip  number two tip number three and i'm going to come   back to because it's my favorite one and the  one that really i think moved the needle for me   tip number four water them daily and you do not  want them sitting in water you notice i've got   mine in hanging baskets but that absolutely  ensures that they're not sitting in any water   all my other plants are sitting in gravel trays  and when i had them sitting in gravel trays it was   very easy for the water to kind of go through the  bottom and they sat in a little bit of water at   the bottom i don't think that's a good idea they  prefer to be well drained so by putting them up in   baskets somewhere then you're not likely to have  that happen to you tip number five high humidity   now this is one which i've put on there however  some very credible sources that i've   researched and read have said that that is really  negligible however i'm going back to where they   come from in the tropics and i'm guessing that  these kind of rainforests that they come from it   is high humidity so it certainly wouldn't hurt  if you can give them some kind of high humidity   over in the uk we very often have high humidity  anyway even though i do have a hydro fogger   keeping it at the minimum of 70% humidity so that's  certainly something to try if you're struggling to   get more pitchers number six warmer temperatures  should really go without saying but of course   mine produced the most pitchers during the warmest  part of the year so that tells its own story   i have here a couple of lowland nepenthes couple  of highlander nepenthes the highland ones are   the gaya over on the left and the burkii  the one that i'm pointing at at the moment   they're both highland nepenthes so they  will go down to 12 degrees celsius however   you need that temperature to go up again during  the day and this is one of my biggest problems   because i have a cool side and a warm side to my  greenhouse on in the cool side yes i can keep a   minimum of 12 degrees celsius so they're not going  to get damaged and you know you should really take   that really seriously that minimum of 12 degrees i  did have i think it was nepenthe's bloody mary and   that did go slightly below 12 degrees and i lost  it which was such a shame because it was a very   expensive plant over here so yeah in the winter  my problem is i can get it to 12 degrees but it   will not go higher than that and i can't afford  to get it any higher so i've just got to accept   that even though i'm keeping them alive  through the winter i'm not going to get   very many new pitchers so if you can get them  higher during the day that will be wonderful   obviously the lowland nepenthes these they need to  be kept a minimum of about 16 17 degrees celsius   so that is number six one with temperatures  number seven the lighting you know again in the uk   we have very short days in the middle of winter  down to about six seven hours so what i do is i   supplement with grow lights so if you can do that  and try and keep the lighting at about 11 12 hours   a day i won't go beyond that because that's more  than they get in the tropics about 11 really is   about it's about correct about 11 12 hours a day  of as much light as you can give them then that   will definitely help number eight tip number eight  is to let them catch their own prey now because   i'm in a greenhouse i have these vents up here  and i have louvre windows down at the bottom   underneath the benches and i do get insects in  here and you might have seen on my instagram page   and if you don't follow me on instagram by all  means go and click on the link in the description   and you'll find me over there and you'll see  very often i post pictures especially of this   nepenthes gaya over here catching its prey it  seems to be in a spot that is very very attractive to insects by the way some of these  pitchers are filled with all sorts of insects it's really amazing to see because i come in here and  i don't see any insects until i go and have a   look at those pitchers so that's number eight  and i've got a couple of bonus tips for you   that has uh just kind of sneaked its way into this  top eight that i kind of thought of a little bit   later on so a couple of bonus tips i would say  that if you need to repot them then clearly you   cannot repot them in anything that has some  kind of nutrients in them because of what we said   earlier they don't like nutrient-rich soil if they  have those nutrients then again it might not kill   them but they're not likely to produce pitchers  you've got to starve them this is partly what this   is this is more or less exactly why we use RO  water or distilled water to water them with if   they're getting those nutrients then they do not  need to produce the pitchers if they produce the   pitchers then as i've seen quite often over  the last couple of months then they will produce   more and more and more pitchers on there really  are looking great at the moment and they're   producing more pitchers than i have ever had on  these nepenthes and your bonus tip is to buy more   mature plants i have got some very small plants  i'll just quickly show you there's a couple of   them over here and even though they are producing  pitchers if you've never grown nepenthes before   you'll know that nepenthes or you won't know the  nepenthes take a long long time to get to maturity   and then they do grow quite quickly but they stay  in that very small stage for quite a long time   so unless you've got the patience of job it's well  worth you buying and paying a little bit more for   plants about the size of these these are much more  mature we're talking like three four five year old   plants now over here that means quite a lot of  money a lot of these plants are above 45 pounds   which obviously it's a risk if you're in the  uk because you don't want to go and lose a   plant of that expense and some of the other more  interesting nepenthes are way more than that i've   seen them priced at 130 140 pounds which isn't  really something i'm inclined to pay that's great   that pitcher there it's just grown in the moss on  the surface and that is actually how a lot of the   pitchers grow in the wild so that's my eight  tips plus two bonus ones however i missed off   my number three which i said was my probably  most important tip i think all these things   taken into account make a difference but the one  thing that made a difference for my nepenthes   rebecca soper which just wasn't producing  any pitchers if you did see that last video   it was just a vine i was letting it vine and it  was probably vining it was up to about four feet   and my tip is don't let them vine if you're  really keen on pitchers and you're not interested   in seeing the flowers or pollinating or  cross-pollinating then don't let them vine   cut them off and you'll find that the basil shoots  which obviously come at the base these ones are   far more likely to produce pitchers for you and  as soon as i stopped them vining then i started   getting all these different pitchers and like  this one over here there's it's like it can't   it's like they're going out of fashion i think  they can't produce enough pitchers there's loads   that is a real big change for me compared  to what it was like when i was letting them   vine yes they both did bloom however the blooms  are nothing to look at they're nothing special   to look at unless you're interested in that kind  of thing so i would definitely say for me anyway   that was the game changer that and the RO water  and for now anyway i am getting some wonderful   pitchers i expect that to change as the weather  changes here and we're going to autumn i expect   them to slow down because they won't be getting  that raise in temperature and they won't be getting   like the full spectrum sunlight throughout the day  even though i've got grow lights that will help   but it's not as good as the sun coming through the  window is it so i hope those tips helped i think   all in all we've got 10 tips for you there if your  plants are still not growing pitchers then have a   look at your care and see if you are following all  those rules that i've put out there for you i hope   that helps and please if you've got any other tips  that you think i might have missed stick it in the   comments below i'd love to hear from people  and for now i'll see you on the next one bye

Channel: TROPICAL PLANTS at 53 Degrees

Views: 28,950

Keywords: 8 QUICK NEPENTHES TIPS FOR GROWING MORE PITCHERS, how to grow more pitchers on nepenthes, how do i get my pitcher plant to grow pitchers, Nepenthes burkei, HOW TO MAKE NEPENTHES PRODUCE PITCHERS, nepenthes rebecca soper, nepenthes bloody mary, Nepenthes, why won't nepenthes produce pitchers, when a nepenthes doesn't grow pitchers, Nepenthes gaya, pitcher plant, nepenthes care, Nepenthes pitcher plant, carnivorous plants, pitcher plant care

Id: uWrkCFbcqW4

Length: 12min 49sec (769 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 11 2020