FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

What are the best soil mixes for Heliamphora? I just got one, but im not sure what to put it in. I am tempted to put it in pure long fiber spaghnum just like my ultra highland Nepenthes.

hm.. i seen people plant them in the standard vft mix with vft. (50% peat 50% perlite)

doku wrote:What are the best soil mixes for Heliamphora? I just got one, but im not sure what to put it in. I am tempted to put it in pure long fiber spaghnum just like my ultra highland Nepenthes.

I have 3 of my Heli's in Live green moss and the other 3 are in 50% peat 30% peri and 20% sand

ZackNJ wrote:I have 3 of my Heli's in Live green moss and the other 3 are in 50% peat 30% peri and 20% sand

I plan on using either live sphagnum or the 50% peat/30% sand/20% perlite that I use for all of my plants. I know that some people use 1:1:1 peat:perlite:silica sand.

from what ive heard they like to always be wet, but dont like standing water, so it has to be pretty well drained. Mine are planted in sphagnum and sand (mostly sphagnum). Heres something i read when considering soil

SOIL MEDIUM AND WATER: I have found that my plants grow best in a light,well-drained soil medium. Live sphag-num moss seems to be best. I have trieda mixture of live sphagnum and perlite,but the plants have generally done some-what poorly. On the other hand, a sphag-num and peat mixture seems to be tooheavy to allow good root pentration. Sincethe plants, except for H. minor, are fairly large ( 15 - 2 0 cm pitcher), I have found a 20 cm diameter plastic pot to be a goodsize. Ten cm pots are too small and the plants easily topple. I have tried clay pots, but, for some reason, the plants in plastic pots have grown much better. I have also tried 25 x 40 cm plastic dish tubs with the bottom filled with perlite and the top 3/4 with live sphagnum. Again, the plants in the 20 cm pots grow much better.
My Heliamphora absolutely do not grow well in water-logged conditions. They also do not like to be subjected to standing water. Drainage is a must. One problem I have found with live sphag-num is that even though the surface is green and growing, a few cm below the surface the moss begins to break down and, within a year, forms a rather water-logged medium. I have found it best to repot the plants in fresh live sphagnum once a year - preferably in the spring. If left in the old material they seem to progressively become less thrifty and more susceptible to rot. I water the plants from the top every several days so that water freely flushes through the medium and the pitchersremain full of water. Once, through a lack of attention, I al-lowed the sphagnum to dry to the point where the plants wilted. However, with a thorough rewatering, the plants sur-vived, although the tops of the mature pitchers were killed. I believe it is better to keep Heliamphora slightly on the dry side rather than too wet.

I'm growing my H. Minor in a standard VFT mix but more airy and they do fine. I experimented on LFSM with perlite and they respond really well too.

hb

I have mine in my Nepenthes mix - mix of dried LFSM, orchid bark, charcoal, and perlite with a generous top dressing of live sphagnum. I'll admit that I have only had the plants for like 2 weeks, so no idea if this is a good mix, but I have read some odd stories about using peat. Some say they plants hate it, others have no bad effects. This might have been with a particular species, but I wasn't going to risk it.

I like this mix because it has incredible drainage - Heli's don't like standing in water.

ZackNJ wrote:

doku wrote:What are the best soil mixes for Heliamphora? I just got one, but im not sure what to put it in. I am tempted to put it in pure long fiber spaghnum just like my ultra highland Nepenthes.

I have 3 of my Heli's in Live green moss and the other 3 are in 50% peat 30% peri and 20% sand

I repotted my 3 Heli's that were in the 50%/30%/20%. They didn't seem to happy in the mix. I repotted them in to Chilean Sphagnum moss with some orchid bark(b/c i don't have any live moss I'm in the process of ordering it).

I use pure live sphagnum moss for all of my helis.