Question
Hi! First of all I'd like to congratulate you for your website. It has been a great help for me. I live in Portugal. I've been growing Dionaea for 3 years in my backyard without any problems. Where I live the temperature reaches about 42篊 on the hottest summer days and goes down to arround 0 or -1篊 on the coldest winter nights. Summer is hot and dry, and winter is rainy.
I bought a Nepenthes ventricosa last year, on september. It's big (arround 40cm high). I'm growing it near a south window that's somewhat opaque, so, the light is filtered, but very bright. This Nepenthes had big and colorful pitchers when I bought it. But then, the pitchers begun to dry.. In the winter there weren't any pitchers left.. I thought the plant was going to die, but this spring it produced a few small pitchers (4cm). But now it's not producing any more.. I mist my plant every day, more than 3 times a day and water it every other day. The leaves look always great.. I'd like to have big pitchers. What's wrong? Is the plant still aclimatizing to lower humidity?

Just a few weeks ago I bought a Drosera aliciae. It was looking good, with dew. The leaves were green. I left it in my backyard. With a lot of light the leaves were turning red. But the dew production decreased. I placed the plant in a south window that gets only about 1 hour of direct sunlight. The dew production decreased even more, and some new leaves got burned because of the sun.. I think the sunlight through the window is too strong for the plants.. The plant doesn't have any dew right now. What should I do? Maybe this plant is aclimatizing to the new conditions.. The max temperature right now is arround 35篊 outside.

Thanks in advance!

Marco Caetano

Answer
Hi Marco,

With your Nepenthes, low humidity could definitely be a factor.  While it is possible to grow it as a regular houseplant, if your humidity is too low (20% or less), then this will affect your plant's ability to produce pitchers.  But since you're watering your plant frequently, I would imagine that this would help increase ambient humidity around your plant.

So my concern would be both with your water and the soil.  Since you've been growing flytrap fro three years (Outdoors!  YAY!), your water must be low enough in minerals.  If you're using a different type of water with your Nepenthes, that might be an issue.  Very high minerals in the water will sometimes cause a Nepenthes to stop producing pitchers.

The soil is also another factor.  Some nurseries are not well informed about the needs of carnivorous plants, so they will sometimes repot a plant in regular soil with lots of fertilizer.  If you haven't repotted the plant since you got it, do so.  I'm not sure what you can find in your area, but if you can find dried sphagnum moss and pumice (or perlite), use equal parts of each.  If you can't find them, use 1 part peat moss and 2 parts pumice or perlite.  Give your plant a month or so to see if it produces new pitchers again from the repotting.

Drosera aliciae is actually a mountain plant, so it likes it bright but cool.  I'm afraid the temperatures you indicated are too warm for this plant.  Hence, the decrease in dew production that you've observed.

Protect your sundew from excessivly warm weather, so grow it indoors.  Some of the leaves are already damaged from a combination of heat and intense sunlight.  Let those leaves die off.  As long as you see new growth coming up the center of the plant, you can still nurture your plant back to health.  Keep the light as bright as possible, but make sure it doesn't get too warm (30癈 or less).

Good growing!
Jacob Farin