Caring for a Tropical Pitcher Plant (Nepenthes alata)

what's up youtubers and plant lovers it's Justin coming to you from the Big Blue Nation once again and today I was going to talk to you about a tropical pitcher plant more specifically Nepenthes a lotta [Music] [Music] now I'm sure a bunch of you have probably heard it a the winged pitcher plant I think they also call it a nap in fees a lotta blonko it does have a couple different names this is kind of a plant that has a problem with just a general outline of what the plant is supposed to look like the pitchers are can grow up to about seven to eight inches long and they can be all kinds of different colors they will not all look identical but this is a really great plant to have it is really easy to take care of and it is a very fast kind of quick growing plant it is a vining plants kind of in the tropics and in certain places where it's grown can actually kind of stretch out to about four meters in height vining out typically it'll be on the ground kind of under bushes where or trees where it can kind of just leave in and out and support itself and put out new pitchers kind of branching on bushes or trees so you got to keep that in mind as you can tell mine is actually getting kind of long right now he's in about a four inch pot I think after a winter time I'm gonna try and repot him and I will do an update video on that like I said these are really beautiful and unique kind of plants as I was saying that pitchers do have a nice size to them and they work really well because they get these lids on top of them that actually kind of secrete a nectar and that in nature attracts any kind of pissed or bug or even some kind of vertebrates also that are drawn to the nectar that is secreted out and they're not careful with their footing they can actually fall down into the pitfall traps and get caught and digested down there so that's why they're really kind of popular plants they eat just about anything so they actually kind of do work for you too I know a lot of people have a problem with fungus gnats a feeds any kind of pests in particular and if you do have a problem with these guys I would strongly encourage getting a carnivorous plant it doesn't have to be a pitcher plant it could be one of my favorites is the butter wart and they just work because they have the sticky leaves that will actually catch anything that isn't too large that will kind of sit there and get stuck on them now I know a lot of people will say well with these kind of pitchers they don't always dissolve everything and some insects actually can fly out if they know what they're doing but for the most part a majority of them will actually get caught down in there in this kind of liquid that's down in the pitchers and they won't be able to get out but if you notice that what the kind of wet substrate that you have to have for these guys at almost all times that might actually attract aphids or fungus gnats so I would recommend getting a butter wart to kind of put around it thataway when they come around there they'll land on that and get stuck but for the most part these guys don't have a problem with any kind of pest I'm sure they could get spider mites or something like that but I've had this guy for about 2 or 3 years now and I've never once had a problem with anything except for occasional fungus gnats or something just trying to get down into the soil or the substrate and actually trying to lay eggs down in there but like I said I bought it to butterworts and said I'm kind of close in between this guy and a couple more kids and the butterworts really clean up with a kind of infestation that you would experience with something that does kind of have what soil or substrate at all times now in nature they're kind of found around the tropical regions of like Borneo Sumatra and the Philippines and they're not really particular when it comes to a certain range in temperatures I think during the daytime they like around 70 to maybe 86 degrees so they're also found at different elevations in nature also I think they really kind of fill most at home between like 550 meters all the way up to like 2,000 meters so they can really be in the lowlands and that kind of hot muggy areas down around there or they can be up on mountains where it is kind of cool and the temperature kind of fluctuates a little bit more up there so you do want to kind of keep that in mind it really is gonna be hard for you to take care of one of these guys if you don't have like a temperature and a humidity reader I have one of those that I'm able to kind of keep a closed monitor on how much humidity this guy gets and about what the temperature is and the pen thiis they really do not have a dormancy period so they will kind of whenever we have the lower light situations the shorter days might send them into the slower system but they really won't go dormant but you can unwanted like life go kind of ends is normal for these guys and as long as the temperature stays around the same all year long and the humidity stays around almost high all year this guy really will take off and thrive now with light conditions these guys really like it to be kind of bright shade in nature like I said they're found on the ground and they kind of grow up through bushes or trees but they're also found kind of like epiphytes where they'll grow up in the top of the tree canopy and they'll get a lot of bright filtered light up through there so with him in the wintertime I have him underneath one of my LED grow lights and it's done really well but you can kind of tell he's been growing a little bit to the left and on this side there's a lot of dead space but that comes from last year when I had him at the old house he was kind of up against the pole and he was towards the end of the grow light so he's kind of shifted a little bit and I'm really gonna have to work on that I've had to reposition this but I've got him in a good spot now and you can tell he's actually getting a little bit better color on his leaves and his pitchers are recovering some of them over here look better they've got the full caps and they've got kind of a little bit of a solution down in the pitchers so you want to keep that in mind too I always keep a little bright bottle with distilled water in it and about every other day or every three days I'll go around and kind of check the substrate make sure it's nice and moist you don't want it to be standing in water but you do want it to be a little bit wet they do kind of like muggy kind of wet conditions but not like really saturated and the pitchers you want to make sure that they have some water distilled water down in the pitchers as well and really all you have to do is just kind of take your frey bottle and spray down in the pitcher and make sure it kind of fills up a little bit with some distilled water now if you don't your pitchers will dry out like that and they can start to dry out from the top down around here and it just is really unsightly so but you can kind of just spray in each pitcher and kind of spray your substrate too it won't hurt to kind of spray over the leaves as well now ideally rain water is probably your best situation depending on where you're located I'm from a large city so the rain water we get isn't the health so I don't use rainwater I use distilled water in this distilled water as water that's been superheated and condensed and it is very clean water because it doesn't carry any kind of chemicals or any kind of silt or anything like that all that stuff has been removed when it's been superheated and allowed to reconvince so you know that there isn't really any kind of poison or anything in there that's gonna hurt your plant so I always recommend using distilled water when you're dealing with these guys now a lot of people say that you can use well water but that related kind of depends on your location too I know in Kentucky we have a lot of hard water it's got a lot of sediment in it from the limestone rocks and it's just got a bunch of chemicals and stuff in it that's probably not the best for a pitcher plant so again I use the distilled water but soft water also is really bad for plants too because they use a lot of salt to kind of help soften the water so you'll dry your plant out that way and you'll probably just kill it so just be mindful of that distilled water is probably the best way to go with these guys especially with their substrate you can kind of make your own I've got a bunch of sphagnum Moss in mine kind of like a long green Spagna moss but you can use coconut husk fiber some perlite some sand orchid bark and some tree fern fiber also works really well so you can kind of play around with that and see it really needs to be kind of a low grade nutritional value with the substrate because these plants normally in nature are kind of tucked in between rocks on like a stone cliffs or they're just in areas where they don't get a whole lot in the way of nitrogen and stuff so that's why they are developing these leaves they are kind of formed into a pitcher so that they can actually trap the insects and get the nutrients they need that way so the only thing I can tell you about the substrate though is they kind of do it like to for it to be a little bit of this only acidic side so you might need to actually purchase an acid booster something that you would probably use for your blueberries or roses or something like that would really work well and I don't feed mine at all they're able to get some food from the little gnats and stuff that fly around and every once in a while I have frogs so I'll stick your cricket down in a couple of the pitchers just to make sure that the plant is getting the added nutrients it needs so you can kind of keep that in mind as well now after you're done kind of spraying in the pictures with your little spray bottle I'll go ahead and show you how to trim up some of this unsightly dead mess any kind of parts on the leaves try your best to kind of trim around the dead parts and leave the green parts intact as best you can and if you have to just kind of cut into the green a little bit it's not gonna hurt the plant too bad these pictures that look like they're drying out from the top of the pitcher down you can just kind of cut off where the dead part is and leave the rest of the picture intact and then that won't actually hurt your picture at all but after you've cut it make sure you do kind of spray it out and put a little bit of water down in there so it doesn't dry out any more again for pictures that are completely dried out just cut where the stem touches the base of the leaf off to remove the picture entirely and then for leaves that look like they're kind of down on one side I just they're not connected to anything I just cut them off across just for aesthetic purposes I think I've heard someone say that you can use the Osmocote the little grain pellets that they use for fertilizers and you can stick one of those down in the pitcher plant if you don't have any bugs that you want to feed it but I would be very careful when using that because some of those might have some chemicals that might interact with your pitcher plant in a weird way but if you do want to feed it I would recommend sticking a bug in there once a month maybe two just one or two pictures on there but the great thing about that Nepenthes alotta is that they are really good at developing a whole bunch of pictures at once so if you want one that's really easy to take care of that shows a lot of pictures and really kind of symbolizes that you really know what you're doing because of all that I would recommend the Nepenthes alotta they are great plants to have now as I was saying the humidity really needs to be at a high level at all times the lack of developing pictures generally means that it's not able to get a lot of humidity or that the humidity is on the lower side so if you don't see a lot of pictures on your plant you probably need to increase the humidity if you see kind of spindly looking leaves that don't really have a lot of normal coloration to them that generally is a sign that it's not getting enough light so as long as your plant is getting kind of a bright shade or some filtered light it'll really kind of be at home maybe in a windowsill with some blinds or curtains and as I said I have my own kind of on the edge of its little grow light so we can get some but not a whole bunch temperature-wise especially in the winter time you got to keep in mind that this plant is in your house where it's often bone-dry and really hot so the heat is okay as long as it's not up in like the upper 90s but your home is really dry you want to use the humidifier to kind of help your guys out and maybe even spray it a couple of times to make sure that it is happy with the humidity make sure also that you don't have it near a drafty window or door so if you do have it on the windowsill make sure that it's not gonna get really cold or drafty because that will kill your plan code snaps what these guys will kill them they are tropical plants and they do like the temperatures to get no lower than about 55 degrees I wouldn't even tempt it around that it really has no business getting too much colder than about sixty degrees especially at night the temperature can go down about the low 50s and it'll be alright but during the daytime it really needs to kind of be up in the 60s or 70s water is very important to not just with the humidity I think in the wintertime continues just as normal so the guy does not need to dry out at all and if you notice that your substrate is drying out go ahead and add some water to it I really don't think that you can over water a pitcher plant just as long as you're kind of monitoring it but be careful because with a whole lot of added water you run the risk of attracting certain pests so aeration is very important you make sure that you want to have some kind of flowing air around there just to make sure that you don't get any kind of rot or any other kind of disease or pests because if it's just really quiet and there's not a whole bunch of air moving around pests will then kind of come in and run rampant with it so if you do have it in a kind of grow area or in a greenhouse or something make sure you do have some air movement around there so the pests won't find it so easy to kind of in there as well as I said last a couple weeks ago when I did my last pitcher plant under the Nepenthes of intra cosa I know a lot of hybridize errs have now kind of crossed the Nepenthes alotta with the ventura cosa to make a more robust and easy forgiving plant by the name of Nepenthes event rata so if you see that one out there that's a really great beginning plant for someone who's kind of new to the carnivorous plants and wanting to start off like I said they're very forgiving and they're a little bit more tolerant with the light and the humidity but as always Nepenthes a lotta sanguine iya event rata there's a whole lot of them out there that are really kind of great to beginner plants for someone who's just getting into the carnivorous plant way of life so if you know somebody that's wanting started out I would suggest maybe even trata a lot of sangria or venture cosas those are some of my favorite ones that are really easy to grow if it kind of add on a lot of mass and a lot of pictures and they're typically a little bit more forgiving now they can't go without water and great light for a long time but they are a little bit more forgiving than your other ones that need more kind of seasoned experienced growers as well well guys that's really all I know about this plant like I was saying it's a great plant to have it's beautiful and it's one that will kind of add on a lot of mass and do well with the pitchers especially if you kind of monitor it a little bit but I really have always been a fan of carnivorous plants I love the tropical pitcher plants and I love the North American pitcher plants too those are completely unique they have their own set of requirements and everything like that so I hope to have videos out on those guys and the Sun pitcher plants - those are my favorites even if you don't have a problem with any kind of insect or pest or anything like that they are great plants to just kind of hang up and look at and watch them and love on they're easy to take care of as long as you've got high humidity a nice little bottle of distilled water to kind of spray in the pitchers and kind of spraying down and bright shade this guy doesn't really need much in the way of anything else now if you guys have any questions or concern leave them in a comment down below and I'll do my best to kind of get back to that for you really do go enjoy going through the comments and see them what people like and what they don't like how their experiences with their plants because you know I'll do all these videos and show these pictures and everything and I just kind of want to see your plants as well if you haven't already done it hit the subscribe button or the bell next to it that way you know anytime that I've uploaded a new video you guys take it easy have a good one and don't forget I always plant prudently thank you YouTube [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Green Alchemist

Views: 66,334

Keywords: Plants, Botany, DIY, Do it yourself, Indoor, Gardening, Garden, Repotting, Transplanting, Pruning, Care, Green Thumb, Green, Outdoor, Tree, Shrub, Bush, Orchid, Grass, Big Blue Nation, Home Improvement, Lowe's, Home Depot, Lawn and Garden, Meijer, Information, Greenhouse, Home, House, Absorbs, Toxins, Purify, Filter, Air, Beautiful, Amazing, Mystery, Vlog, Blog, Educational, Seeds, Compost, Soil, Home Decor, Interior Design, Houseplant, Cactus, Tropical, Pitcher Plant, Carnivorous, Nepenthes, Alata, Ventricosa, Ventrata, Sanguinia

Id: BgLY2qu325M

Length: 16min 38sec (998 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 21 2019