FlyTrapCare Forums

hey,
been a while since ive posted. since then, ive had alot going on and my other nepenthes all died. i put them outside hoping the rainy warm weather would be good for them, BUT, it musta killed them because they went downhill FAST.

anyway, getting back into it, i bought from petflytrap.com a Nepenthes Bicalcarata. i been wanting one of these since i first saw one. this is the Brunei Red Flush. im not gonna put this one outside. hopefully it will do as good or better than my last ones.

first time with the Bicalcarata, any tips?

Bicalcarata is one of the care free plants where I live.

Not sure what's your growing condition.
I have it under partial shade. Temperature at 32/27C day/night most of the days. The extremes are 24/35C min/max.
Humidity always above 60%. Growing medium is in mixture of sphagnum, peat moss, and perlite. Moist all time.

Given such condition, it will reward with healthy growth and nice pitchers. It is a large plant though. Starting from 15cm 2.5 years ago. It is now having leaf span of 0.5m, about 0.7m tall.

Enjoy growing!

Yep, agree or with other words - Bical is lowland plant and grow well under those conditions.

ok, so sounds like i may have better luck with this species than the others i've tried. ive had highlands and altho they did good, they wasnt GREAT. i plan on growing inside. nepenthes for some reason are EXCELLENT for elimination of house flys/gnats. figured they may get one or two here or there, but i was bug free when they were growing in the house, i noticed pictures with flys, gnats, spiders, all sorts of bugs that i didnt even know were in the house.

my windows do not get "direct" sunlight but for a couple hours a day. the rest is kind of a shaded day of good light. i even built a dome over my last ones trying to help them and no luck really. from reading, i think lowland actually might grow better.

as far as size, im not concerned, the bigger the better, but right now its small.

the conditions u mentioned that they thrive well in will perfect.

cant wait for it to grow and grow its first pitchers for me. its got one that it came with, and another forming if it dont die from shipping shock. AND, im ready to see some "fangs" lol

its been my experience that bicals are fairly tolerant of high temps, low temps(for a lowland plant they can tolerate lower than most) low light and high amounts of light within reason...however they don't do well if you let the humidity drop for any period of time. oh and never let the soil dry out...think that will quickly end any nepenthes.

personally i give it 85f d, 75f N, 10,000 lumens of light and 80-85% humidity and it does fairly well for me.

that works for me. my last 3 nepenthes i was working outta state for several weeks but it was really rainy. so i put them outside with hopes it might be good for them, but they went downhill,. there were bugs that would eat the pitchers off, ants that eat the leaves, and not sure how the climate affected them. i know they didnt ever dry out.

so this time, after the hard long search to finally get a nepenthes bicalcarata, im gonna keep this one inside so it can thrive hopefully like my others and better. reason i say better is from everything i read, lowland plants seems to match my conditions better than highland which is what i had before.

Lowland plants are more tolerant to soil saturation but if it is prolonged they will fall to root rot. bical was my first nepenthes and in my experience a fairly hardy plant....other than humidity a bical isn't hard to please. Leaving it unattended and not happy will result in a dead bical; leaving it unattended and happy will result in a big bical

After a while you will get a feel for the plant's natural rhythym and will be able to distinguish when everything is alright or not. Only other things I can think of keep the soil damp but not wet and bical's seem to have dips and peaks in their growth cycles which can sometimes mislead you into thinking something is wrong when it isn't.

hope this helps...happy growing.

Try giving ur bical the coffee method, Im still shocked lol.

no not yet although I am a little intrigued.

Now there is a red form of Bicalacarta that is a highland. My N. Bical is a red flush and is a Highland so when growing take that in account

The red form of Bicalcarata is actaually a Lowlander still so don't put it in highland conditions. Good luck!