FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi, I was wondering if anybody can tell me why my nepenthes ventrata is dying. I recently created a ten gallon terrarium for my 2 nepenthes ventrata plants and one of them is doing fine, but the other is beginning to die off. The nepenthes that is doing well is sitting in a pot on the bottom of the terrarium, while the dying one is planted in a planter I created in the back ground. Both are planted in pure LFS, and that has always worked for me. The planter in the back ground is made out of a half of a plastic water bottle covered in great stuff that is coated in silicon and sphagnum peat. The planter did not have holes and I checked to make sure the soil was not water logged, but today I poked holes in the bottom just in case. I have looked over the plant and checked for pests and didn't see any visible ones. I'm worried about the plant and if anyone could help me that would be great.

All neps should be grown in containers with drainage holes, ideally. If you're talking about the leaves near the base of the plant turning yellow/black, that's natural - old leaves eventually die. As for the top of the pitcher turning black, also natural - no pitchers last forever, and stressors such as repotting can cause such changes.

If the leaves do feel floppy then it may be due to lack of water - possibly the recent repot with inadequate watering, or low humidity in the terrarium. What's the relative humidity in there?

Also, Nepenthes x ventrata will quickly overtake that terrarium, so you will likely find yourself having to cut it back periodically.

Bluemoon wrote:All neps should be grown in containers with drainage holes, ideally. If you're talking about the leaves near the base of the plant turning yellow/black, that's natural - old leaves eventually die. As for the top of the pitcher turning black, also natural - no pitchers last forever, and stressors such as repotting can cause such changes.

If the leaves do feel floppy then it may be due to lack of water - possibly the recent repot with inadequate watering, or low humidity in the terrarium. What's the relative humidity in there?

Also, Nepenthes x ventrata will quickly overtake that terrarium, so you will likely find yourself having to cut it back periodically.

I'm not sure about the humidity of the terrarium, it doesn't have a cover on it but it feels relatively humid when I put my hand in it. I will have to think of a plan for when the plant gets bigger, my window is north facing and I have a nepenthes in front of it and it doesn't really do much, probably because it isn't getting enough light so I won't be able to put it there. I'll poke larger holes in the bottom of the planter and prune back the dying leaves, I'm just worried about the plant because it started dying pretty quickly when I repotted it. I feel the LFS every other day or so to make sure it's moist and if it starts to get dry I give it some water. Thanks for the help.

If the plant is recovering and doing better now, then I'd attribute it to the shock of being repotted. You can check the relative humidity in your terrarium with a hygrometer - they sell for around $25 on Amazon. It's a pretty good long-term investment in my opinion.