Question
I was reading through other questions and I saw you say that if you cut off the growing tip of a nepenthes it will start to grow pitchers lower.  Could you give me some more details on this I am interested in having a nepenthes without it vining.

Answer
Hi Jack,

If you do this, you'll need to wait until the vine is at least a foot long.  If you cut it while it's too short, the side shoots may appear higher up than near the base.  It sounds counter intuitive, but it has to do with the freshness of the vine.  The fresher the vine, the more likely side shoots will appear, which can look a bit weird for a Nepenthes.  Essentially you'll have branching closer to your cut.  However, if you wait until the vine has matured, the more likely basal shoots will appear.  You'll have a more compact, bushier plant.

(This concept is a bit difficult to convey in writing unless you've had experience with Nepenthes and other woody vines.  Suffice to say, wait until the vine is at least a foot long.)

To encourage basal shoots, cut the upper two nodes.  A node is where the leaf attaches to the stem, so you want to cut off a piece of the stem with two leaves attached to it.  This is your growing tip.  Without it, your plant will force up a shoot near the base.  This process, however, will take several months, so you'll need to be patient.

This technique is best done with plants that produce long vines very readily, like N. alata, N. ventricosa and N. sanguinea.  Other species, N. truncata, don't respond well to this technique because their vine is extremely compact and thick.

Good growing!
Jacob Farin