FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

First post here...also, sorry for the poor quality of the pics. I'm surprised this camera still even works considering it's been dropped in a water trough and has had all manner of stuff spilled over it.

I've always wanted to keep carnivorous plants and a few days ago, my mother gave me a great gift...this very lovely N. Alata (not sure if it's any sort of hybrid, or actually ventrata, as aren't alata supposed to be quite rare?) whom I have nicknamed "Spot". I will need to re-pot it as the soil is not looking the best.





It has two baby traps which have just opened their lids in the last day or so.

Welcome

Wow! That's a gorgeous plant; very healthy looking. Many congrats on your first carnivorous plant.

I'm guessing someone else will be able to tell you if it's a hybrid or a N. alata.

That looks exactly like my first Nepenthes! Same pot and everything, I'm pretty sure its a Nepenthes x ventrata. Very nice plant with a lot of pitchers. When you re-pot use 1pt peat, 2pt perlite, 1pt orchid bark and 1pt crushed sphagnum. There actually turned out to be 2 plants in mine, so that could be the case with yours as well.

Here is the thread from when I first got mine: http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/first ... t3628.html
Any how it looks now (minus a few newer pitchers): http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/n-ven ... t5158.html

Congrats on the great looking plant and welcome to the forums!

thats a nice plant, you sure you want to repot the plant looks happy enough to me,recon you gotta have two plants or one big mother

Nice one, and very big! But in my opion that's not N.alata, but N. x ventrata

Thanks everyone! Yeah, I am suspecting x ventrata myself.

It is indeed healthy, but the soil had a queer smell about it so I went ahead and moved it this afternoon (after a long hunt for the illusive sphagnum moss). Sure enough there was a weird moldy substance growing on a bark chip in there. I used the perlite,orchid bark and spaghnum mix that you recc'd, PitcherCrab. Hopefully it won't hate me too much for re-potting it but 'tis for the best. There seems to be just one mother plant.

By the way PitcherCrab, beautiful specimen!

I made sure the substrate was moist but not over-saturated. At the moment, the top layer feels lightly moist to the touch. Is this adequate water? I know these plants do not like to be dripping wet, but I want to make sure it is getting good amounts of stuff.

whoah, nice plant.

blupilot wrote: I made sure the substrate was moist but not over-saturated. At the moment, the top layer feels lightly moist to the touch. Is this adequate water? I know these plants do not like to be dripping wet, but I want to make sure it is getting adequate amounts of stuff.

Yeah, that sounds fine. Really what matters most isn't the top of the substrate, but whats under the surface, so just stick your finger in a bit and see if its moist and if so your good to go. I find the top of my sub dries out super quick but the rest stays wet for quite some time.

PitcherCrab wrote:

blupilot wrote: I made sure the substrate was moist but not over-saturated. At the moment, the top layer feels lightly moist to the touch. Is this adequate water? I know these plants do not like to be dripping wet, but I want to make sure it is getting adequate amounts of stuff.

Yeah, that sounds fine. Really what matters most isn't the top of the substrate, but whats under the surface, so just stick your finger in a bit and see if its moist and if so your good to go. I find the top of my sub dries out super quick but the rest stays wet for quite some time.

Will do, thank you for the advice.

welcome to flytrapcare