Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 21:33:23 +0200 From: Marcello Catalano <catalano@internode.it> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg1860$foo@default> Subject: N. merrilliana
I know, I'm late with this topic, but I want to give you the latest news
about the N. merrilliana I grow, as after all this is a rare plant and
everything about the way to grow it is always useful.
At the beginning my small plant (from Wistuba) was growing in simple
peat-sand-bark. It grew very well, with reddish leaves and making
always pitchers. Then I decided that the pot was too small, as I know
that the principal mistake with this species is to ignore that it has
long roots, so that it likes deep pots and dry compost on the top, as
all the plants that grow in dry environments. I put it in a very deep
pot, but still small in diameter, really the perfect shape (almost
impossible to find!). But I decided to try a compost of pure bark.
More drainage, less compost rot in a so deep pot. It failed. The
plants started to grow really slowly and with no pitchers. So I changed
again. I know that these are terrible shock for a nep. but using
superthrive I can reduce the stress almost to nothing and if the plant
doesn't recover in few weeks I know that the new compost is the
responsible, and not my transplanting. I changed compost with
peat-bark-peat pellets-vermiculite. During the transplanting I saw that
the plant had sent out a more long, big central root that was trying -
with difficulty - to go through the bark. This was the famous "deep
roots" about which all are speaking. Now, in the new compost, it made a
pitcher and seems to grow a little bit faster, but...after this pitcher
(in the first leaf produced after the transplanting) no others were
produced and the plant seems to grow again too slow compared to the
beginning. I can't find the laterite, and I think the fault is of the
compost. Suggestions? Maybe my compost is too acid? Is this the way
the plant react? It produce leaves always a little bit bigger, and red
and healthy. But simply with no pitchers! what's wrong? thanks,
marcello catalano
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