Question
Greetings!
I bought a nepenthes Miranda from you about a year ago now and am having trouble growing new pitchers. When I got it, it was lush with about 20 pitchers and they did fine for a long time. I even had new pitchers grow in my apartment after alot of the old one died off. That lasted until about the winter. It is a monster now! Reaching put about 2 feet from the original pot that I bought it in. I beleive it's an 8 inch pot. Just today I trimmed off all the lower leaves that were yellowing to, hopefully, encourage new growth instead of putting all it's energy into keeping those leaves alive. I have it in an eastern facing window and it gets a lot of good morning light. She is green and healthy. The soil medium does not stink and drains well. I have concerned for quite some time and upon closer inspection noticed that the leaves had a nice thick coat of dust on all the leaves. To encourage photsynthesis, I cleaned them all with a wet rag. I have about 18-22 tendrils with pitcher starts on them but they don't seem to get any bigger or swell. Is this just a repotting issue? I read about misting, fertilizing, and other things that I have learned not to do to CP's. I have plenty of other houseplants around that get regular watering so I can't imagine it's a humidity issue. Oh! I water with distilled every 3-4 days. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Hi Neal,

This is a sun/light issue.  We have had such a nasty, rainy, cold spring/summer that I'm getting complaints from Nepenthes owners all over the Northwest.  In our greenhouse the Mirandas are just now starting to elongate their tendrils and produce pitchers.  Last year at this time we had lots of big pitchers on them.  In an east window with all our cloudy weather, your plant isn't getting enough sun.  See if you have a west window you can move it to.  Otherwise, it's just going to be a matter of waiting for the weather to change.

Good Growing!

Jeff Dallas
Sarracenia Northwest
http://www.cobraplant.com