FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello everyone,

This spring, I would like to venture into growing a cephalotus. I have so far been able to grow fly traps, pitcher plants, sundews, and butterworts with success.

I live in New Orleans, zone 8-9. Summers are hot.

Can anyone give me details on their successful cephalotus setup? Has anyone had success in a windowsill? Grow light? Regular lamp? Terrarium? Out doors?

So far for me it hasn't been nearly as hard as people make it out to be. I had him outside for a long time, around 4 hours in direct sun, watered once a week, and was getting decent growth.

I then took the plunge and made my own highland terrarium for a couple of neps I wanted (plus in the future I can put heli's in it as well), and threw him in there. He has exploded with new growth, large pitchers, and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Here are his conditions in the tank:
LED growlights
Day temps: 75f-80f
Night temps: 55f-58f
Humidity: 85-99%

Here is the tank he is in now:
simple-highland-tank-setup-t37084.html
im going to do an update to that post and my growlist here soon, i'll be sure put before and after pics of him up

Thank you!! Do you think the cephalotus would do okay without any extra temperature manipulation? I wonder if it would do okay just under an LED grow light.

Rammplins wrote:So far for me it hasn't been nearly as hard as people make it out to be. I had him outside for a long time, around 4 hours in direct sun, watered once a week, and was getting decent growth.

I then took the plunge and made my own highland terrarium for a couple of neps I wanted (plus in the future I can put heli's in it as well), and threw him in there. He has exploded with new growth, large pitchers, and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Here are his conditions in the tank:
LED growlights
Day temps: 75f-80f
Night temps: 55f-58f
Humidity: 85-99%

Here is the tank he is in now:
simple-highland-tank-setup-t37084.html
im going to do an update to that post and my growlist here soon, i'll be sure put before and after pics of him up

The only time my Ceph ever died was when I went on vacation and someone didn't understand that in order to water a plant you have to give it more than a teaspoon of water per week. It was fairly large, filling up a 6 inch pot, getting ready for a repot. I've found they grow pretty well just sitting on a shelf under some cheap hardware store fluorescent lighting. No special temp fluctuations, no attempt to increase humidity, just moist (but coarse) soil (50/50 peat and red lava rock), decent light and and feeding the pitchers with MaxSea ever so often.

Thank you!! What kind of container do you use? Do they have deep roots like the VFT, or can they be in a more shallow container?

SundewWolf wrote:The only time my Ceph ever died was when I went on vacation and someone didn't understand that in order to water a plant you have to give it more than a teaspoon of water per week. It was fairly large, filling up a 6 inch pot, getting ready for a repot. I've found they grow pretty well just sitting on a shelf under some cheap hardware store fluorescent lighting. No special temp fluctuations, no attempt to increase humidity, just moist (but coarse) soil (50/50 peat and red lava rock), decent light and and feeding the pitchers with MaxSea ever so often.

I agree with what everybody said and I would add they seem to shock when traveling. They like to stay in 1 spot and not be moved around. When you first get it, you should put a humidity dome over it. keep the soil moist and the plant humid if possible. don't let it dry out, but it doesn't sit in water either. idk but seems to me the cephs I have have very short but extensive roots. the ones I have are only 1/8th inch tall and the roots are probably 1/16th inch.

https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/ ... 1041265970

this is a bulb that I use. it puts out 500 lumens and uses 7.5 watts. its a very white light. my ceph seems happy under it and is continuously putting out new growth and has nice color. there are a variety of led bulb manufacturers. I have the bulb in a regular table lamp. I also top dressed the ceph with sand. I mist it every day. happy growing

They have fairly deep roots. I don't know if they get as long as a VFTs but they branch out so they need some width too. I had a young 1.5-2 inch cluster with roots that pretty much filled a ≈4" FTS cup. They can survive with limited root space for an extended period but their growth will stall.

xr280xr wrote:They have fairly deep roots. I don't know if they get as long as a VFTs but they branch out so they need some width too. I had a young 1.5-2 inch cluster with roots that pretty much filled a ≈4" FTS cup. They can survive with limited root space for an extended period but their growth will stall.

I am glad to hear that they can have deep roots... all I know is I pulled mine up with a tooth pick. it didn't have hardly any roots.

Cephalotus are known for being busy below ground. They can develop very elaborate root systems.

Matt wrote:Cephalotus are known for being busy below ground. They can develop very elaborate root systems.

Cephalotus seems like really growing tree and I don't know about its actual growth rate but its growth is amazing.

I am growing my cephalotus seedlings under a led growlight, the ones with the 2 flexible stems advertised on eBay. I have a small desktop fan to give it a bit of air movement to keep away the botritis mould.
They are grown in a 50/50 peat perlite mix and the growth tray is a clear fast food type of container like those you may purchase a curry in, I know it's unconventional but i had to try.
They will be transferred very carefully into proper plant pots this year without hopefully damaging any roots.
They have grown and are doing well, not all have sprouted yet but they are slow to anyway, I keep the temp between 18-20°c
Hope this helps you

As others have mentioned the roots can be extensive. Mine was eventually in a 6 inch deep pot where it grew very well. Some people say that they prefer to be root bound or that they hate repotting, but I would just follow common sense and repot after the doors/plant has seemed to fill out the size of pot you have it in. I put my ceph that 6 inch pot after it had 5 or 6 adult pitchers on it, and it helped it grow much larger over the course of the next year.