FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I'm a tad obsessed with certain highland neps such as inermis and aristolochioides (which I can apparently now spell properly without googling it). Alas, I don't have a highland setup, and I don't want to build a fancy set up out of laziness and lack of space.

That said, I have a theory that some highland neps may be able to grow outdoors here as there is a noticeable temperature drop between days and nights (I'm in northern california). Average high/low temperatures are between 60/45 F in the winter and 75/60 F in the summer. I wouldn't mind having to put the neps in a terrarium if they end up needing more humidity... I just want to avoid having to mess with cooling systems.

Is there a chance this could work or am I destined to fail?

I'm also thinking of testing out this set up on a 'guinea pig' nep so that I don't feel bad if it ends up kicking the bucket. Aristolochioides and inermis are a bit pricey so I'd prefer experimenting on something else. What would be a good candidate for this 'guinea pig' nep?

For a ‘guinea pig’ nep, I would recommend a hamata hybrid. Hamata x ventricosa and hamata x spathulata are relatively inexpensive.

I would keep them in a terrarium- aristo and inermis like extremely high humidity.

I grow all of my plants outdoors and I'm way outside of recommended conditions for nepenthes. Our summers get to 45c on rare days and you'd think highlanders would rebel, but mine do fine. Average summer temps are:

Summer: 16c - 29c (but we do get quite a few days over 30 and some in 40's)
Winter: 9c - 16c (but again, we get colder and hotter days, very rarely frost)

Average humidity:

Summer: 31% - 33%
Winter: 58% - 64%

There's a few things I do.

I grow them in a partially shaded shade-house - shade cloth on 3 sides, the open side gets direct sun for the morning up till maybe midday / late morning.

I use big pots - big pots with a good soil help protect the roots against temperature extremes. Currently my biggest pot is 8.5L but when plants like Rajah get big enough I'll probably go bigger again.

My soil is high drainage but remains damp so I can keep them in water trays or a small dish of water year round, but also because they are tall pots - not such a good idea for a short pot in a water tray.

I grow live moss across the top - live sphagnum particularly will help keep plants moist, cool, control humidity and help encourage a healthy micro-flora in the pot.

I am also trialling various methods of increasing soil health, including beneficial nematodes, using peat moss that has live cultures of bacteria, fungi and protozoa's rather than sterilised, and about to trial a product called "Great White" which has a whole bunch of growth promoting bacteria and Trichoderma.

Trichoderma is known to improve plant growth conditions when they are experiencing environmental stresses, and I assume some of the other bacteria in there do similar things. I've heard some people have plants suddenly die when using Trichoderma on it's own, possibly to do with an imbalance of proper microbes in the soil. Something like Great White is probably better because it's a culture of microbes that work together. One friend who used Great White greatly increased the root growth of his nepenthes.

Nepenthes0260: hamata hybrid sounds like a good idea... will keep an eye out for them. Thank you!

PlantsWithTeeth_01: very interesting! what neps are you growing? do you have any pictures? Glad to hear that they can grow in relatively low humidity

I'm also planning on using live sphagnum as a top dressing... in my current plants, it does a great job at preventing algae growth. Pellets of perlite that turn gross and green with algae just irritate me.

You should share the results of your trial run with 'great white' once the trial run is done! I, for one, am curious.

I've got a couple of photos on my instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plantswithteeth/

Have to add more still. Some of my highlanders are Attenboroughii, Platychilla and Sibuyanensis, all doing well. I've even got some lowlanders growing outdoors well, Mirabilis QLD and Hookeriana (althought the specific hookeri I've got doing well is the more temperature tolerant clone). I've got others that are recent additions and plan to try more lowlanders in our cold winters.

I think the key with some species, aside from getting all of the other conditions right like soil, etc, is to buy them in a season for you that's as close to their natural temperature as possible, to allow them to acclimate. For me now it's winter, so it's a good time to get a cold plant like Khasiana. In spring is probably the best time for me to experiment with acclimatising lowlanders to the new humidity, light, soil conditions, etc. By the time it's winter, they will have gotten used to their new home, and will only have to adjust to the temperature change.

I couldn't find any affordable hamata hybrids so I ended up getting a glabrata for testing purposes. I think that temperatures will be fine in the near future (as nights are colder than days), but during the winter, day temperatures will be around 60 F, which is a bit colder than required. Will it be necessary to bring them indoors or find a way to heat them?

Humidity is typically around 70% outdoors. Would having a mister periodically mist the plants provide any benefit?

If you can reach the humidity I’d say go for it. I wouldn’t worry too much about temperature drops in the summer time, everyone has bad temperatures in the summer. I live in Georgia and have a greenhouse for highland nepenthes. I use an air conditioner for temperature drops and mine stay in the mid 70s and low 80s in the summertime when it’s 94 outside. As far as temperature drops I have been been able to drop them to 60 at night for most of this summer. Obviously in the winter it will drop for me to 50 f at night naturally and I’m good in fall sprint and winter. What is your humidity percentage outside? I would suggest misting their leaves every morning or doing something like that to up the humidity if it’s dry. Here’s a picture of a nepenthes dubia that just came in the mail. Close family of inermis.
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