Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 21:32:57 -0700 From: Charles Bigelow <bandh@usinter.net> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg3095$foo@default> Subject: Orchidarium and Nepenthes
Jason Ashley asked about Orchidarium and Nepenthes.
I have two Orchidariums (orchidaria), which are a kind of
Wardian case with built-in high intensity fluorescent
lights and a quiet fan that provides good air circulation.
I have a "Maui" model for orchids, and a "Bimini" model
for lowland Nepenthes (it's taller than the Maui).
I've been hapy with the quality and appearance of them.
They are great for orchids, especially warm to intermediate
temperature orchids. The light and air circulation promote
good growth and flowering, and the cases are pretty to look at
even when the orchids aren't blooming.
For lowland Nepenthes, they not bad, but not quite ideal.
The high levels of light, warmth, and humidity seem
good for lowland Nepenthes in general, but the high
level of air circulation stresses small, weak, or soft
Nepenthes.
Currently I grow in the Bimini Orchidarium, the following:
Nepenthes rafflesiana, N. madagascariensis, N. bicalcarata,
N. clipeata, N. truncata, N. alata x ampullaria, N. x 'trichocarpa',
and N. vieillardii, N. thorellii, N. ampullaria, and an
N. clipeata hybrid. A few are big, others are still small.
the N. clipeata has really prospered, growing in the high light
upper storey. Bicalcarata is doing well too, as are the hybrids
and truncata, though they started small.
N. thorellii isn't doing well. It seems to like much higher humidity,
like in a zip-lock bag. I keep the Orchidarium humidity at 60% - 70%,
but N. thorellii isn't happy with that.
The N. vieillardii isn't doing real great, but I have always had
a hard time growing that species. I've lost plants of it in warm
conditions, and cool conditions, in bright light, in low light,
in mixed medium, in long fiber sphagnum. I don't know what temps,
light, or growing media it really likes.
As the Nepenthes plants get bigger, they are getting too big
for the Orchidarium. This is more of a problem with Nepenthes
than with orchids, which can stay relatively small for years.
Already, I have an N. x 'coccinea' and an N. ampullaria x bicalcarata
hybrid that are too big, and I'm not sure what to do with them
over the winter. In the summer I keep them outside.
I think that a 50, 60 gallon or 100 gallon plexiglass fish tank
with fluorescents would probably do as well or better than
the Orchidarium, for the Nepenthes, which don't need the high
volume of air circulation that most orchids require.
I don't think the Orchidarium would be good for highland Nepenthes,
unless you have a cool room for it, so that the night time temperature
drop gets down to the low 60's or even 50's, and the day time temps
don't get above 80 F.
And maybe you would need a good mister, too.
Outdoors, I grow a number of highland Nepenthes, and they do fine
without much special care, except regular watering with R.O. water.
I'm in coastal southern California, where winter lows don't get
below 40 degrees or so, and are usually higher.
I don't grow the Holland hybrid indoors or out, so I can't say
how it does. It has some highland ancestry, yes? Probably it
would do OK in an Orchidarium anyway, since msny hybrids of
lowland and highland species seem less fussy about temperatures.
-- Chuck Bigelow
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:35:14 PST