Question
Hello, I've been growing carnivores outdoors and in a sunny windowsill for around 18 months with largely successful results.  I have a nice collection of intermediate nepenthes species, but recently I've been tempted to try some of the fancier highland species. Humidity isn't really a problem in our house; the only issue would be cooling the plant at night. I don't have the space or money for a fancy terrarium setup, so is there any way I can provide cooling at night without hurting my wallet terribly? Thank you for your help.

Answer
Hello Corey,

There are a couple of methods you could try. One is the expensive route and would require a small room air conditioner to lower the temperature in just the room the Nepenthes will be in down to the desired levels. The cheap route would be more labor intensive and would require several plastic bottles or jugs about 3/4 full of ice. Just fill them partly with water and freeze them in your freezer, then place several around the plants you need to cool. By morning they will have melted and will need to placed back in the freezer. You will need to go by trial and error with the number, size and disposition of the bottles by using a temperature gauge near the plants. You would just need to remember to place the bottles each night. The bottle method might work out well enough if you only have one or a few species of small plants to cool, but as they grow in size and number, you would likely have to resort to an air conditioner. The problem then would be keeping your humidity high while cooling your plants as A/C tends to dry out the air.

Christopher