I have a question about fertilizing and repotting. How does one go about repotting? What do I need? Also, my plant gets plenty and I mean PLENTY Of insects! I look in the pitches from time to time and see loads in there so does it really need to be fertilized if it's getting plenty of insects?
This is a BIG MISCONCEPTION regarding nepenthes culture. While your plant is absorbing lots of NITROGEN from insect matter, it is lacking big time nutrients that insects cannot alone provide. Once the insect bodies have decomposed (yes after decomposition, bacteria can then break down the bodies to form simple Nitrogen that goes through similar processes as they would in the soil, bacteria converting them into nitrites for absorption. But even the roots need to absorb more than just nitrogen to keep a plant healthy and active. They must also absorb things like cobalt, magnesium, manganese, aluminum, calcium, etc. but in very minute amounts. Most of the soils we use are lacking this (Long fiber sphagnum is virtually sterile, and so is the many soil-less peat mixes. The addition of nutrients is an essential regime to encourage even growth in plants. Most hobbyists who just depend on insects for the plants' total food reserves usually encounter plants with weak and poor root systems. It's like if you never use your legs, after a while you won't even be able to stand up. So one must keep the roots active and growing. A healthy root-bound plant will produce lots of roots, make the plants flower and encourage healthy basal pups and keep a tall vining specimen to sustain itself. Nepenthes growing in the wild do not grow is sterile conditions, on the contrary, their environment is rich in nutrients and water is the agent that transports it into the plants. Insect prey is only a supplemental food source and allows plants to absorb nitrogen, the missing element in nature. Their soils are often high in toxic micronutrients, like lime stone, magnesium, etc. These soils have micronutrients not really needed in large amounts yet the plants have adapted to absorb nutrients with the aid of these nutrients already present in high doses.
Matured upper pitchers require vast amounts of nutrients from plants and a plant just getting its only food source from bugs in a pitcher will soon eventually experience die-back and pitchers getting smaller, and smaller until no pitchers are produced. Here is an example os very large uppers while the plant can flower, make seed and make basals all without sacrifice to the plant's health or well being. {{gwi:555249}}
Thanks for the great advice! Where would one find fertilizer? I live in Panama City, Florida and as far as I know there only the big box stores here. Would the big box store sell something like the sea weed fertilizer?
will a orchid fertilizer provide those needed nutrients? because I can get my neps to grow, but they only grow small lower pitchers, and if orchid fertilizer doesn't work than can the right kind of fertilizer be found in stores like Home Depot and Lowes?
Try Peter's Orchid Special, or just Peter's General soluble fertilizer will work well too! Add solution to ROOTS not the pitchers, these fertilizer preparations have too much salt, adding them to pitchers will cause premature browning. You must flush your pots regularly when using these kinds of fertilizers. let the water run out from the drain holes after fertilizing with Peter's. Your plant is really going, you should be sure they have enough light, water, and fertilizers to keep this going. I would repot this into a slightly larger pot so they can adapt and expand slowly.
Will fish emulsion work? I looked for the seaweed extract everywhere, but no one had it. also does the Peters stuff work the same way as the seaweed or does it have a different effect? By the way your plants look great!
I advise never to use Miracle Grow/Miracid, Fish Emulsion, Osmocote-any timed release ferts or Manures. The best is something that is water soluble that can be added to the soil by way of their roots. Frequent in-between flushes of plain tap water is also key.
Rainforest guy is there really no benefit of foliar feeding? I grow Giant pumpkins and I spray them with miracle dissolved fertilizer and then they get much greener and grow significantly faster. Their leaves are very thin, hairy and absorptive, so I can't compare them to the thick, possible unabsorbative leaves of nepenthes. I know the nitrogen compounds cannot be broken down on the leaf surface but can't the plant bennefit from the potash, potassium(or whatever the other one is), and in the case of orchid fertilizer, nitrogen as well? You are saying not to use those fertilizers just on nepenthes right? I use miracle grow fertilizer all the time because it's the only water-soluble solid fertilizer I have seen in stores. I also use Fish emulsions almost every day because I have this superstition that it has really good micro nutrients that miracle grow doesn't. I also use manure all the time. If you think there is a better alternative to my miracle grow and fish emulsions, please let me know.
Getting green is no means a sign of foliar feeding working. Minerals like iron can move through tissues but do no real advantageous growth. making something very green has little to offer in the way of food transport from nutrient uptake to fruit or flower. Ultimately your goal is to get bigger, better pitchers. Making leaves green isn't what you're after. Pitcher development needs nutrients only obtainable through its roots. The water that is already in an unopened pitcher comes directly from root origins, not from foliar water. You can test this if you want. Cover the pot with roots in a plastic bag and water and feed exclusively by foliar feeding. I hope this plant was sacrificial to throw out because the plant will just die from lack of water and nutrient absorption through its roots. Seeing is believing. Water and many other things passes through the roots that leaf absorption (even from pitcher contents) cannot match.
Alrighty. You answered most of my question but I still not sure if potash and phosphate can be absorbed through nepenthes leaves... I guess they are too thick skinned. I did not know that the greenness of a leaf was not directly related to its photosynthetic capabilities. So I guess then that it could actually be counter-active because the darker color means more light is being absorbed causing more transpiration and wilting?
When venticosa are grown from seed, there is much variation in form, coloration and growth. {{gwi:555251}} Fertilizing is key to getting them to their potential and even feeding through its roots will make your plant seem like a weed. {{gwi:555253}} Of course good sunlight, air movement and water must also follow suit. {{gwi:555254}} Seed grown plants are highly variable. the ones available through garden centers are tc clones (all the same plant, same sex same everything) with no variation. {{gwi:555255}} Limits are drawn on the tissue cultured clone so it cannot get any larger than what it already. {{gwi:555256}} Growing seed originals also has advantages of getting darker colored or better growers of the species in variations. {{gwi:555257}}
I went on vacation for a weekend, when I came back all of my neps that I fertilized with the shultz stuff had gone on a growing frenzy, I now believe that what I thought was a ventricosa I was growing is probably either ventricosa 'red leopard' or ventricosa 'jungle bells'. By the way, CorpsmanCooper, your plant looks great, but it deffinetly needs to be repoted so that the roots have more room to grow, before it gets rootbound.
Allowing a newly growing plant to continue and grow with the passing of warms days is a blessing for those living in a temperate climate where plants must be taken indoors in less than favorable conditions. {{gwi:555258}} Keeping them growing with root space, and nutrients to grow in will make a huge specimen in short time.
I repotted it a few weeks ago. I also went back to the store I originally purchased my 1st one and got two more for free because most of their pitchers were dead. I brought them home and trimmed them up. They're very healthy and have a lot of new growth at the top.
I've been using Maxsea seaweed based plant food, available from Amazon, with some amazing results (my epiphylums love it). My pitcher plant has done much better with it and this fall I've got 13 pups growing from the lower main stems of the 2 plants.
tommyr_gw Zone 6
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