You raise an interesting point. Obviously, growers will have different
experiences, but I have found that for Sarracenia you are correct.
Sarracenia's want as much light as possible. Humidity matters, but seems to
come second.
As for Nepenthes, humidity seems to come first. Light has not been as crucial
an element for me. My Neps are all either under lights or outside in natural
sunlight. When I move a Nep into a terrarium, it is being moved from "under
lights", to "under lights in an enclosure". It is true that the biggest
pitchers I have obtained for some species have come about outside, but other
species seem to do very well in light levels that the Sarracenia definitely do
not like.
As an example, I recently had a N. alata that was not doing well. I repotted
in live sphagnum, separating the several plants into two pots. One I put
outside while the other went into one of my terrariums. The terrarium plant
recovered and is pitchering very nicely with textbook diffuse red and green
pitchers, while the plant outside continued to decline to the point where I
thought I would loose the plant. About three weeks ago I put it in the
terrarium and it has already dramatically improved. Now, the light levels
outside are defintely higher than the terrarium, and the humidity outside,
although high, is still lower than the terrarium. Anyway, that kind of
experience has lead me to my conclusions. - - Either that or the little
suckers are playing with my mind.
Tom in Florida - Be glad your paranoid, otherwise all those people really would
be out to get you.