Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 21:24:18 -0700 From: Charles Bigelow <bandh@usinter.net> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg3123$foo@default> Subject: N. vieillardii
Hi Chris,
Thanks very much for your advice on N. vieillardii.
I think it will be helpful.
By the way, isn't New Caledonia where the famous
tool using crows live?
I've shopped around local aquarium supply stores for
lateritic clay, with no luck. I found some ceramic
balls used for orchid growing, some kind of granular
fired clay used for aquaria, and some deramic hexagons
used for filters.
I'm currently growing two small plants of N. vieillardii,
both in sphagnum, well drained, with a little tree fern
fiber and aquarium filter clay or aquarium ceramic
gravel as the substrate. They are growing very slowly
but not dying. One is in an Orchidarium, with temp range
from around 68 night to 82 day, and fairly bright light.
The other is outdoors, in a terrarium (top mostly uncovered
for air circulation) with temps now falling to around
52 degrees at night, and day highs around 75 degrees,
less light than the Orchidarium.
It's hard to say which plant is doing better, maybe the
indoor one.
I have warm and cool growing conditions, but not intermediate.
I believe that fertilizing caused or hastened the demise
of two earlier N. vieillardii (one I grew outdoors in Hawaii,
and one indoors in California). But, I have persisted in
trying to grow it.
Curious about ultramafic soils, about eight months ago,
I started giving my various highland Neps a dilute solution of
micronutrient fertilizer, either General Hydroponics "FloraMicro"
- around 8 drops per gallon, or Ironite - a few granules dissolved
in a gallon of water, on a schedule once every two months.
These fertilizers are low in N-P-K, but have iron, zinc, cobalt,
boron, manganese, molybdenum, calcium, etc. The highland plants
don't seem to mind it, and some species have developed better color
oin their pitchers. N. vieillardii doesn't seem to respond
particularly well or particularly badly to it.
-- Chuck Bigelow
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