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Carnivorous Plants
mukaketupat

I've tried everything! I still cant make my plant grow pitchers!!

mukaketupat
17 years ago

Hi everyone,

I hope someone is kind enough to help me. I got a pitcher plant for a gift for christmas. It was in a small pot with about 4 pitchers. I left it hanging on the balcony, gets about 2-4 hours sun everyday. All the pitchers dried up in less than a week. I mist it at least twice a day and kept the soil moist. Spray it with liquid organic fertiliser once in two weeks.

Its been 4/5 months, the leaves are twice as much, but no pitchers at all. I've just repotted it last night with a mix of sphagnum and moss, and theres a lot of baby leaves coming out from the roots.

So i dont know what this means? At the end of every leaf, theres like a small hook that looks like it could potentially be a baby pitcher, then it turns brown..

So what should i do next? Where do i go from here?

Here is a link that might be useful: heres my blog

Featured Answer
  • mutant_hybrid
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hello mukaketupat,

    I take from the description it is an Asian Pitcher Plant of the Nepenthes genus? What exact species is it?.. Was it from a hardware store, bought from a nursery, or ordered online? Some species are more difficult to get to pitcher than others.

    1. Light: Nepenthes like a lot of light, but can do with partial light, like what they would get under a tree. Some shade. Full sun is not necessary, but good partial light is. Without enough light, the plant will not make pitchers.

    2. Humidity: When Nepenthes are first bought and taken from higher humidity to lower humidity, they loose their pitchers. If you had a higher humidity, or the same as what the plant had to start with, it would have kept it's pitchers. It will have to get used to your humidity, which it should have done by now after 4-5 months.

    3. Water: Make sure the plant gets distilled, rain, or reverse osmosis water with all the minerals extracted. Hard water of over 50-100 will harm the plant and eventually kill it. Make sure the soil remains moist, but never dry or waterlogged. Do not keep the planter in a tray, let the excess water drain out. You can catch the excess water to use on the Nepenthes later, in a couple of days, thats no problem.

    4. Soil: Nepenthes like their soil loose and with good drainage. The sphagnum peat moss is good, but you might want to add some perlite or orchid bark and coconut husk to it to give good drainage. About one third peat moss with two thirds perlite or one third each of peat moss, bark, and coconut husk would be good. There are other soil mixes you can use that would work just as well. So long as the soil is acidic, what the peat provides, and drains water fast and gives air to the roots. Make sure none of the ingredients you use in the soil or water have fertilizers, minerals, or salts added.

    5. Fertilizer: While it is possible to fertilize Nepenthes, it should be done by weak foliar feed wiped on their leaves with a damp cloth or cotton swab in a 1/4 or less solution of orchid blood meal fertilizer once every two weeks or once a month. It is very easy to kill a carnivorous plant by fertilizing, so less is better. Never add fertilizer to the soil as that will weaken and kill the plant eventually. Sometimes growers will use fertilizer on the Nepenthes leaves when they loose their pithcers as this helps to stimulate pitcher production. Once it makes pitchers, stop fertilizing and the plant will catch it's own insects.

    Some problem areas to consider are that Nepenthes are allergic to copper, so any chemicals or water sprayed in the soil or on their leaves should not contain copper or any other minerals like calcium or magnesium or potassium salts found in hard water. Copper sprayed on their leaves, like in copper based fungicides, would inhibit pitcher production. If you use pesticides use pyrethrines, and if you use fungicides on the plant, only use sulfur or neem oil based products. There are some other ideas for fungicides, but the idea is to make sure no dangerous minerals or fertilizers get on the plant.

    You indicated that baby leaves were growing from the roots, this tells me that your plant is getting ready to vine. It will send up several new shoots and start growing longer. It might be saving energy to vine so it might not produce pitchers while it does this. As long as it makes new leaves and grows, it is ok. Keep giving the plant what it needs and it should start pitchering in a couple of months.

    Comments (32)

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