I think the conditions here in my apartment aren't also that good for any plants and Finland generally is a very hostile ground for sub- and tropical plants. 😁 But I have extra light, almost every plant near the window that faces west, perhaps a little south-west and I have water bowls under my plants (the ones on the floor are repeatedly emptied by my furry meat eaters because the best water apparently is 1 to 2 week old plant water that has dead flies floating in it) and I mist the Nepenthes often with water that has been in the plant mister at least for two days.
This one is the latest one. It says Nepenthes Alata on the plastic pot. One of the traps has opened today and is looking pretty good. When I got it I immediately had to divide it as I counted three separate plants.
Fortunately I got them separated well and the two other sister plants seem to be well. Although it's only been like 5 days so we'll see.
This is my previous one. I got it as a present couple of years ago and never got any better name for it than Nepenthes. But I'm guessing it's one of those Nepenthes that has red traps and no stripes. I think there still are many options and I'm no plant expert. I'm just calling it Nepenthes Red.
Just yesterday I divided it in to three other pots. I thought it has sister plants but it turned out that they were stems or branches without roots and after searching info from the internet I decided to cut the stems and plant those.
I hope I can keep them moist and that they thrive. I'm misting them every few hours whenever I'm at home.
Wowww the pockets (they are called pitchers? not sure...) are so cool! Especially the fully red ones.
You grow them in bark like orchids?
Thy would have plenty of light here, but I would not be able to provide the humidity they need. Not sure about temperatures either - it gets very hot in the summer. I tried to grow some orchids that like medium temps and they just died within few months :p
Sorry for the late reply.. I am terribly late this week.
Yes, pitchers is the correct name I think.
I use a mixture of ordinary soil, coconut soil and bark. Ordinary soil and coconut soil because when I bought these this was the kind of soil they were in. Orchid soil (bark) because I read in the internet that you should do that. I have these in double pots, the inner one is plastic one and the outer one is glazed clay pot and there's always some water on the bottom of the outer pot where the plastic pot is on top of rocks so that the soil isn't all wet, just moist. The last layer of soil is bark because it's nicer looking than just ordinary soil. I also have separate water pots around the plants for extra humidity.
I saw an YouTube video that said that it's nearly impossible to get the Nepenthes to thrive because mostly the dry air indoors, so one should keep these in terrarium but I don't have enough space for one so I used every brain cell in my brain 😁 to think about ways to keep the air around the Nepenthes humid enough and I think I've succeeded in that. I've even put short macrame cords from the clay pot water to the bark on top (capillary action) for possible extra humidity. (I've cleaned enough times the floor from water after one of my cats dragged it's catch, a woolly sock to her water bowl and the sock gets all wet and the water magically shifts from the water bowl all over the floor to know that capillary action should work for my benefit too, not just to make me clean the floors more often.)
I've never tried to grow orchids though, I hear they are even more demanding. Even reading the instructions on how to take care of orchids makes me exhausted.
Don't worry about the late reply, I usually am a late replier so no worries. :)
Hahah after I read what you do with your plants, orchids seem like easy peasy :D
I definitely do not pay so much attention to them. But it is good to pick the ones for your environment. I think Masdevallia and Miltoniopsis orchids like it cool. The would never grow for me here. I am not even trying :p
I really did try my best to keep the Nepenthes alive as it was a present. 😀 And now that I know my methods work, I did the same with the plant I bought. At least I don't have to repeat this every week, it's only one time and perhaps some misting but otherwise I just let the plants be.
Masdevallia and Miltoniopsis have such beautiful flowers! I have never seen this kind of orchids sold here in flower shops, just common butterfly orchids with different colors. Summertime may sometimes be too hot for cooler climate plants, it depends. If future summers are like last summer was, three moths of 30 to 40 degrees might be too much. Then again you never know what Finnish summers will be. 15 degrees of Celsius or 30-40. Fortunately I'm not into orchids so I don't have to worry about that. :D