Pitcher Plant
Pitcher Plant
Nepenthes spp.
❦ ❧ ❦
Difficulty — IntermediateSome call her the monkey cup, after an old traveller's tale that monkeys drank from her pitchers. I have yet to see a monkey try. What I have seen is one of the cleverest contraptions in the plant kingdom: at the tip of each leaf a tendril grows, and at the end of the tendril a little lidded jug slowly swells, colours and opens. Its rim is waxy, slick and sweetened with nectar; the visiting insect leans in for a taste, loses its footing, and slides down into a pool of digestive fluid from which there is no climbing out. She is a climbing vine from the tropics of Southeast Asia, and she looks her very best spilling over the edge of a hanging basket.
Notes on Cultivation
☀Light
Bright, indirect light with a little gentle morning sun is ideal — an east window, or a few feet back from a south one. Too little light and she will grow leaves but no pitchers; harsh afternoon sun will scorch her. A grow light makes a fine stand-in through the grey months.
❦Water
Distilled, reverse-osmosis or rainwater only, as the minerals in tap water build up and burn her roots. Keep her mix evenly moist, like a wrung-out sponge, but unlike her bog-dwelling cousins she must never stand in a tray of water — let the excess drain away freely. There is no need to fill her pitchers yourself; she makes her own fluid.
☁Humidity
Humidity is what makes her pitchers. At 50 percent or more she will set them freely; in dry air she keeps her leaves but quietly stops producing jugs. A humidifier, a bright bathroom or a spot among other leafy plants will do wonders, and the common hybrids will adapt to ordinary rooms if you bring them along gradually.
✵Temperature
The easy hybrids sold as houseplants are happiest between 65 and 85 Fahrenheit, and do appreciate nights a few degrees cooler than their days. She is tropical through and through and needs no winter rest, so keep her well away from cold glass and anything below 55.
❧Soil
An airy, nutrient-free mix of long-fibre sphagnum moss with perlite and a little orchid bark, in a pot or basket that drains freely. Never use ordinary potting soil or anything with fertilizer mixed in.
❀Fertilizing
She feeds herself. Indoors, an occasional live insect or a freeze-dried mealworm dropped into a pitcher is all the supper she needs. Never fertilize her soil, and never pour anything rich into a pitcher — it will rot.
✿Propagation
Take a stem cutting with two or three leaves and at least one node, trim the leaves by half to save moisture, and set the node into damp sphagnum moss under a dome or clear bag in bright, indirect light. Roots form in one to two months, and the first little pitchers follow soon after. For her, as for my other carnivores, I set the clear cup of Fluval Stratum aside, since its rich aquarium soil is the one thing such plants cannot abide.
Field Observations
Each pitcher lasts a few months, then browns from the lip downward. That is its natural life, not a sign of trouble; snip it off once it has fully dried. If new leaves arrive with tendrils but no pitchers, she is asking for more light or more humid air.
Once a vine grows long and bare, cut it back. She will answer with fresh shoots from lower down, and the cuttings give you another plant besides. She is not known to harm pets, though she is not on the common safety lists either way, so I keep her basket hung above Winston's interest.
— faithfully recorded by Mr. Phileas Plant
✿Have one of these at home?
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