Hello Geoff just came across this video on feeding Nepenthes and thought mention the food you suggested for Tomatoes, saying it's high in Nitrogen ? In fact Tomato food is actually high in Potash, as Potash stimulates Flowers and Fruits which is why used on Tomatoes etc. Where as High Nitrogen is used mainly for Leaf growth. So yes need high Nitrogen for Carnivorous Plants due to poor soils etc they grow in ( were the insects providing Nitrogen ) eg: Nepenthes and others, so I believe you made reference to wrong type of fertiliser, won't kill it but better with a more Nitrogen type solution. Hope not mind me mentioning it . Best wishes Peter
Yeah I stand corrected on that one - high nitrogen but not tomato food. Pity you can't go back into a video and change a little bit of it!🤷♂️ I'll pin this so people can see.
It does seem to help doesn't it Wayne? Difficult to say if the plant would have done any worse without it, but if they look healthy then why stop? And of course, if both these esteemed authors think it's wise, who are we to argue?!
This was so nice to see as it validates my care of nepenthes. My pitcher plant lives in a greenhouse cabinet and only gets gnats every once in a while. However, I water weekly with distilled water infused with superthrive and liquidirt. Both are as directed. Both are known as plant vitamins rather than fertilizers. It’s how I water/feed all my plants weekly. I pitcher plant constantly produces new pitchers. While still juvenile, she produces mature pitchers.
Good info! It did inspire me to give my only Nepenthes, a young ventricosa, a sip of orchid fertilizer on the roots. Maybe I can break the new leaf on top-drop one on the bottom cycle.
It was quite a surprise to me. You just tend to think of carnivorous plants as needing insect trapping measures because they don't get nutrients from anywhere else. But both these authors say it's a good idea. I've been spraying mine with 200ppm orchid feed for a while and they certainly don't look any worse for it.
Hi Geoff. I know I'm a little late, as this video has been up for a while. I'm new to this plant and just started trying to grow them. I use Maxsea fertilizer, one quarter teaspoon per gallon. I drop a few drops in the pitchers with a syringe and needle every two weeks. So far I've had no issues. Thanks for the great vids.
Yeah I’ve heard people using Maxsea with good results. You can’t buy that in the UK. Fish flakes work well too and are my current choice. Although in summer in the greenhouse small flies do the trick!
Nice video Geoff, I must admit since I was advised by a Nepenthes Grower over a year ago, I started to use seaweed extract diluted down on all my nep's during the winter months especially on all my divisions, which hasn't caused any arm but I have never tried a folia feed so might give it ago.
Cheers Mick! It's like all plant feeding I suppose - it's impossible to know whether it's had any effect as you can't try it both with feed and without! I'll take the advice of both Adrian Slack and Peter D'amato though! 😀
Hi I. Glad I've found ur channel as I'm from East Sussex UK and can now learn how to keep my plants alive following u. I'm dying to know of any update on ur Bougainvillea? As I was planning to buy a Bougainvillea this March and that's how I found u as I always like to do my full research before buying a plant so I can give it my best so it can have it's best fighting chance of surviving in UK weather. Cheers. I'm going through all ur vids from start to learn all about all the plants u have as I saw quiet a few on ur Bougainvillea that I was planning to buy. Cheers.
Thanks Reza I'm glad to be of service. Check out the playlist on Bougainvillea - it'll take you through my 'journey' with it so far. You can see it in full bloom in October at this link: th-cam.com/video/BSoW5Dj6O78/w-d-xo.html (the link should take you straight to it). And if you look through the 'What's blooming in...' video (usually out every month give or take) and look in the chapters in the description you should be able to track it through the year. It looked even better in September and through the summer months. A Spanish subscriber has just confirmed for me that their plants do indeed lose leaves through the winter - despite the RHS stating it's a an evergreen plant - so that's a comfort to know!
I have seen a documentary where a mice and a carnivorous plant had a semi symbiosis where the mice was eating the nectar from the pitcher and then pooped into the pitcher. Does that mean that I potentially can use the droppings from my rats as fertiliser and drop it in the pitcher?
Yeah you’re referring to I think lowii which is used by a shrew. That’s a specific relationship so might not work with other species and hybrids. Additionally I’ve no idea what constitutes rat droppings! I suppose you could just try it in one pitcher and see what happens!
Well they sell osmocote and maxsea on the California carnivores website so it should be good. And they say that they use it and the nepenthes benefit a lot more than no fertilizer.
I’m sure they know better than I do. I’m merely reporting what I’ve seen happen when people drop osmocote pellets into the traps but if it works for you then go for it. Either way, I’m advocating for actively fertilising Nepenthes.
I see no reason why you can't feed smaller plants. Just keep it fairly weak. And yeah, Nepenthes take forever to get to a decent sized plant - that's why I always try to buy those at least 3 to 5 years old - and even then they're still fairly small!
I'm worried that you used the US spelling for fertilize rather than the UK spelling fertilise. You don't drink beer, you spelled fertilize like we Yanks (except for the pop up at the end), I knew you weren't really British. 😛
Ah now you see, that was deliberate. Honest it was! The biggest market for subscribers is the US and therefore they’ll be using the US spelling in TH-cam search. It’s all part of the master plan! 😄
I bought a container of dried bugs from the pet store for $4. It will last me a lifetime... I dropped one bug in every pitcher about 1 week minimum after it opens. From there, I just keep an eye on things. If it looks like it's getting fuzzy and gross, I dump the pitchers (all of them, fuzzy or not) and rinse them out. I usually give them a day or two of rest before I slowly add distilled water to the pitchers. Just a few drops a day until they have something inside of them. Then, I start the process over. I saw a leaf jump from just under 3" to just over 8.5" from the first feeding. It could have been coincidence, but it makes perfect sense, considering this is how they eat. The rinsing just keeps them from getting moldy. ALTHOUGH, someone recently told me that filling moldy pitchers with distilled water and giving them a stir can actually create even more, better food for the pitcher. I was linked to a scientific article on that one which seemed very legitimate. I'm going to give that a try next cycle on just a few plants.
I have a pitcher plant that I started from a small shoot. It got 5 pitchers on it. I fed them dried blood worms and some flake fish food during last winter. By summer of this year they were pretty dry. I put the plant outside for the summer. It did ok but the pitchers totally dried up and I cut them off. The plant is till growing and I brought it inside now for winter, I live in northern US, but it has no pitchers at this time. It has a couple leaves who's end look like they may form pitchers but so far nothing. I have orchids so will try the orchid fertilizer. This is my first time to have a pitcher plant so would appreciate any advice you can give me to care for it and hopefully get it to grow new pitchers.
Great video! I am not keeping them alive still, not that i tried one lately btw. But i will remember they could do with some (foliar)feed 😁 Have a nice day and happy growing my friend
Could you show how you head back the vines in order to get more pitchers. I did try this a month or so ago after watching your video on how to get more pitchers. Hopefully, I did the head back procedure correctly. Sarracenia Northwest (company) basically says to use an orchid fertilizer in a formula of 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of water. I have used this (as a foliage spray only) on my VFTs and nepenthes and I do know that the VFTs seem to grow better.
On Nepenthes you simply cut back the vines to above a leaf node - I reduce them to about a foot long, but that's just personal preference. They can be shorter than that - just make sure you cut just above a leaf so that there's no die-back in the stem. The idea is that you're encouraging basal shoots which are more vigorous and produce pitchers more readily. If you let them vine, they'll start producing flowers which will obviously take up their energy. Good luck!
I just saw this vid today and just to let you know, I put a small osmocote into each of my two nepenthes pitchers (N. ventricosa "orange" x dubia). This was a new, small plant I recently received (2 weeks now) and the very next day, the pitchers wilted. One is almost all dried up near the top and the other is very soft. :( I'm to doing that again. At least I can see a new pitcher starting to form on one of the new leaves. :)
Yeah I've heard people take both sides of this where they either think it's a great idea or they tell me their pitcher 'fried' the following day. Personally, I've been happy to spray the foliage with orchid feed and it appears to have done well for my plants. Of course, you can never know how well they might have grown if you HADN'T fed them!🤣
Maybe it’s hungry! 😋 I wouldn’t worry about it honestly. Make sure it’s fed, either naturally or with a dilute orchid feed. It sounds like a healthy plant.
Can't get MaxSea over here but no doubt that'll be useful in the US. One word of warning with fish flakes - they can get mould mites! As I know to my cost...
@@Grow_Up_Man55 osmocoat pellets gave my pitchers deadly indigestion. It burnt them. Starting with a little spot right where the pellet was. Best feeding I can give them is a day out back on the fire escape to feed themselves. 💚
I bought a pitcher plant which does not have any pitchers and the tendrils from the leaves are withered / dried up. What should I do ? Any suggestions are most welcome & appreciated.
For more pitchers or for creating the conditions for pitchers in the first place, I've laid out my suggestions in this video here: th-cam.com/video/uWrkCFbcqW4/w-d-xo.html Hope it helps!
Throughout spring/summer/fall, I always caught a spider or an ant every two or three weeks and fed my nepenthes Rebecca Soper with that. But now that winter is here in Lithuania, all the bugs are gone, so I want to try to provide it nitrogen another way. I was thinking of getting liquid orchid feed, diluting it in distilled water *1 part orchid feed 3 parts water*, spraying it on a cloth and rubbing down the leafs with it. Would that work? Or could they only absorb nitrogen through the pitchers/roots? I'd mist the plant with it but I'm worried about the roots getting some of the orchid feed, I heard their roots are sensitive to that stuff lol Thank you!
I spray mine with dilute orchid feed - directly from the pump-action sprayer onto the foliage and pitchers. I also occasionally direct the spray into the roots. Unlike other carnivorous plants (drosera, pings etc) Nepenthes are actually OK with small amounts of feed through their roots - but if you're worried about that, just spray the foliage.
@@Grow_Up_Man55 got it, thank you! I'll aim for one that has alot of nitrogen and do it that way :) Do you happen to know of any chemicals common in orchid fertilizer that can harm my plant, and that I should avoid?
Hello Geoff just came across this video on feeding Nepenthes and thought mention the food you suggested for Tomatoes, saying it's high in Nitrogen ? In fact Tomato food is actually high in Potash, as Potash stimulates Flowers and Fruits which is why used on Tomatoes etc. Where as High Nitrogen is used mainly for Leaf growth. So yes need high Nitrogen for Carnivorous Plants due to poor soils etc they grow in ( were the insects providing Nitrogen ) eg: Nepenthes and others, so I believe you made reference to wrong type of fertiliser, won't kill it but better with a more Nitrogen type solution. Hope not mind me mentioning it . Best wishes Peter
Yeah I stand corrected on that one - high nitrogen but not tomato food. Pity you can't go back into a video and change a little bit of it!🤷♂️ I'll pin this so people can see.
I feed my nepenthes With diluted orchid plant feed Once every other week. I do a quick spray on the leafs of the plant with good results.
It does seem to help doesn't it Wayne? Difficult to say if the plant would have done any worse without it, but if they look healthy then why stop? And of course, if both these esteemed authors think it's wise, who are we to argue?!
This was so nice to see as it validates my care of nepenthes. My pitcher plant lives in a greenhouse cabinet and only gets gnats every once in a while. However, I water weekly with distilled water infused with superthrive and liquidirt. Both are as directed. Both are known as plant vitamins rather than fertilizers. It’s how I water/feed all my plants weekly. I pitcher plant constantly produces new pitchers. While still juvenile, she produces mature pitchers.
Must be great to have your own little 'forrest' right in the house. Bet it looks fabulous!
Good info! It did inspire me to give my only Nepenthes, a young ventricosa, a sip of orchid fertilizer on the roots. Maybe I can break the new leaf on top-drop one on the bottom cycle.
It was quite a surprise to me. You just tend to think of carnivorous plants as needing insect trapping measures because they don't get nutrients from anywhere else. But both these authors say it's a good idea. I've been spraying mine with 200ppm orchid feed for a while and they certainly don't look any worse for it.
I feed my plant with woodlice from the garden. My plant has grown leaps and bounds. Thanks for your tips about misting and other tips
That'll work! 😀
Hi Geoff. I know I'm a little late, as this video has been up for a while. I'm new to this plant and just started trying to grow them. I use Maxsea fertilizer, one quarter teaspoon per gallon. I drop a few drops in the pitchers with a syringe and needle every two weeks. So far I've had no issues. Thanks for the great vids.
Yeah I’ve heard people using Maxsea with good results. You can’t buy that in the UK. Fish flakes work well too and are my current choice. Although in summer in the greenhouse small flies do the trick!
Nice video Geoff, I must admit since I was advised by a Nepenthes Grower over a year ago, I started to use seaweed extract diluted down on all my nep's during the winter months especially on all my divisions, which hasn't caused any arm but I have never tried a folia feed so might give it ago.
Cheers Mick! It's like all plant feeding I suppose - it's impossible to know whether it's had any effect as you can't try it both with feed and without! I'll take the advice of both Adrian Slack and Peter D'amato though! 😀
Hi I. Glad I've found ur channel as I'm from East Sussex UK and can now learn how to keep my plants alive following u. I'm dying to know of any update on ur Bougainvillea? As I was planning to buy a Bougainvillea this March and that's how I found u as I always like to do my full research before buying a plant so I can give it my best so it can have it's best fighting chance of surviving in UK weather. Cheers. I'm going through all ur vids from start to learn all about all the plants u have as I saw quiet a few on ur Bougainvillea that I was planning to buy. Cheers.
Thanks Reza I'm glad to be of service. Check out the playlist on Bougainvillea - it'll take you through my 'journey' with it so far. You can see it in full bloom in October at this link: th-cam.com/video/BSoW5Dj6O78/w-d-xo.html (the link should take you straight to it). And if you look through the 'What's blooming in...' video (usually out every month give or take) and look in the chapters in the description you should be able to track it through the year. It looked even better in September and through the summer months. A Spanish subscriber has just confirmed for me that their plants do indeed lose leaves through the winter - despite the RHS stating it's a an evergreen plant - so that's a comfort to know!
I have seen a documentary where a mice and a carnivorous plant had a semi symbiosis where the mice was eating the nectar from the pitcher and then pooped into the pitcher. Does that mean that I potentially can use the droppings from my rats as fertiliser and drop it in the pitcher?
Yeah you’re referring to I think lowii which is used by a shrew. That’s a specific relationship so might not work with other species and hybrids. Additionally I’ve no idea what constitutes rat droppings! I suppose you could just try it in one pitcher and see what happens!
@@Grow_Up_Man55 Thanks for coming back I might try it as you say and feed back no pun intended :)
Well they sell osmocote and maxsea on the California carnivores website so it should be good. And they say that they use it and the nepenthes benefit a lot more than no fertilizer.
I’m sure they know better than I do. I’m merely reporting what I’ve seen happen when people drop osmocote pellets into the traps but if it works for you then go for it. Either way, I’m advocating for actively fertilising Nepenthes.
Thank you. Some of those tips I'm already doing but I will give the rest a try.
The biggest thing for me has always been light. The brighter the better - especially if you're bringing them indoors. Good luck!
Hello Geoff. You think this can be done with seedlings as well? It just feels like forever for them to grow!
I see no reason why you can't feed smaller plants. Just keep it fairly weak. And yeah, Nepenthes take forever to get to a decent sized plant - that's why I always try to buy those at least 3 to 5 years old - and even then they're still fairly small!
I'm worried that you used the US spelling for fertilize rather than the UK spelling fertilise. You don't drink beer, you spelled fertilize like we Yanks (except for the pop up at the end), I knew you weren't really British. 😛
Ah now you see, that was deliberate. Honest it was! The biggest market for subscribers is the US and therefore they’ll be using the US spelling in TH-cam search. It’s all part of the master plan! 😄
@@Grow_Up_Man55 it is the same with honeybees. Uk version is one word and the US version is two words. Makes for making double tags every time 🤣
@@aBeekeepersLife I can recommend VidIQ or Tubebuddy if you're not already using them. Extremely helpful with tags and other SEO tasks.
@@Grow_Up_Man55 i do use the latter, but thank you anyways 😊
I bought a container of dried bugs from the pet store for $4. It will last me a lifetime...
I dropped one bug in every pitcher about 1 week minimum after it opens. From there, I just keep an eye on things. If it looks like it's getting fuzzy and gross, I dump the pitchers (all of them, fuzzy or not) and rinse them out. I usually give them a day or two of rest before I slowly add distilled water to the pitchers. Just a few drops a day until they have something inside of them. Then, I start the process over.
I saw a leaf jump from just under 3" to just over 8.5" from the first feeding. It could have been coincidence, but it makes perfect sense, considering this is how they eat. The rinsing just keeps them from getting moldy. ALTHOUGH, someone recently told me that filling moldy pitchers with distilled water and giving them a stir can actually create even more, better food for the pitcher. I was linked to a scientific article on that one which seemed very legitimate. I'm going to give that a try next cycle on just a few plants.
Glad to hear you've found something that appears to work for you. 😀
I have a pitcher plant that I started from a small shoot. It got 5 pitchers on it. I fed them dried blood worms and some flake fish food during last winter. By summer of this year they were pretty dry. I put the plant outside for the summer. It did ok but the pitchers totally dried up and I cut them off. The plant is till growing and I brought it inside now for winter, I live in northern US, but it has no pitchers at this time. It has a couple leaves who's end look like they may form pitchers but so far nothing. I have orchids so will try the orchid fertilizer. This is my first time to have a pitcher plant so would appreciate any advice you can give me to care for it and hopefully get it to grow new pitchers.
Sure - I have a video dedicated to that very thing: th-cam.com/video/uWrkCFbcqW4/w-d-xo.html
Wow great video man! I wish ive seen this before i recently bought the osmocote pellets and drop some of my pitcher and i noticed they started dying 😭
Glad you enjoyed it! I'm sure the Osmocote won't do any damage to the plant - just the pitchers. So now you know what to do in future - as do I! 😀
@@Grow_Up_Man55 Okay so you suggest to use the liquid one and diluted in water ? Right? Also do i spray in on the plant or the leafs or roots ?
@@iBLaCKOuTxZ You can do either. i prefer to spray to foliage, but you can water it on too if you like.
@@Grow_Up_Man55 Okay but not into the pitchers right lol Yeah I’ll probably spray it once or so when i water them?
Sounds good to me.
On California Carnivore Instagram they used a cactus fertilizer in spray form on the foliage..you can find that today I believe
Well that would certainly back this theory up. I think it's working well for me - but of course you never know what they'd have looked like without!
Great video! I am not keeping them alive still, not that i tried one lately btw. But i will remember they could do with some (foliar)feed 😁
Have a nice day and happy growing my friend
I think you need to sneak one amongst all your orchids - just for pest control purposes!🤣
🤣
Could you show how you head back the vines in order to get more pitchers. I did try this a month or so ago after watching your video on how to get more pitchers. Hopefully, I did the head back procedure correctly. Sarracenia Northwest (company) basically says to use an orchid fertilizer in a formula of 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of water. I have used this (as a foliage spray only) on my VFTs and nepenthes and I do know that the VFTs seem to grow better.
On Nepenthes you simply cut back the vines to above a leaf node - I reduce them to about a foot long, but that's just personal preference. They can be shorter than that - just make sure you cut just above a leaf so that there's no die-back in the stem. The idea is that you're encouraging basal shoots which are more vigorous and produce pitchers more readily. If you let them vine, they'll start producing flowers which will obviously take up their energy. Good luck!
@@Grow_Up_Man55 Thanks for you answer. Much appreciated.
I have a lot of insects around my house. Is it good to feed my nepenthes a couple of insects every month?
Yes definitely - real food will always be better than fertiliser.
@@Grow_Up_Man55 alright thanks
I just saw this vid today and just to let you know, I put a small osmocote into each of my two nepenthes pitchers (N. ventricosa "orange" x dubia). This was a new, small plant I recently received (2 weeks now) and the very next day, the pitchers wilted. One is almost all dried up near the top and the other is very soft. :( I'm to doing that again. At least I can see a new pitcher starting to form on one of the new leaves. :)
Yeah I've heard people take both sides of this where they either think it's a great idea or they tell me their pitcher 'fried' the following day. Personally, I've been happy to spray the foliage with orchid feed and it appears to have done well for my plants. Of course, you can never know how well they might have grown if you HADN'T fed them!🤣
Do you know why my nepenthes has so much water inside of it? Its nearly full of the gastric enzymes thst it uses for digestion and its confusing me
Maybe it’s hungry! 😋 I wouldn’t worry about it honestly. Make sure it’s fed, either naturally or with a dilute orchid feed. It sounds like a healthy plant.
I think the understanding as of 2024 is 1/4 teaspoon MaxSea to a gallon distilled. I’ve started 😮 fertilizing my carnivores.
Can't get MaxSea over here but no doubt that'll be useful in the US. One word of warning with fish flakes - they can get mould mites! As I know to my cost...
@@Grow_Up_Man55 osmocoat pellets gave my pitchers deadly indigestion. It burnt them. Starting with a little spot right where the pellet was. Best feeding I can give them is a day out back on the fire escape to feed themselves. 💚
@@Petra-ms3ku Yeah I heard that could happen - never used them myself.
I bought a pitcher plant which does not have any pitchers and the tendrils from the leaves are withered / dried up. What should I do ? Any suggestions are most welcome & appreciated.
For more pitchers or for creating the conditions for pitchers in the first place, I've laid out my suggestions in this video here: th-cam.com/video/uWrkCFbcqW4/w-d-xo.html Hope it helps!
Also, osmocote is now made of microplastics.
Shame that. A step backwards.
Brad from Brad’s Greenhouse on TH-cam found a mouse or rat in one of his big nepenthes pitchers! 🐀 🐁 😖
Yeah I remember that video! I've always wondered if he placed it in there for a joke.🤣
Throughout spring/summer/fall, I always caught a spider or an ant every two or three weeks and fed my nepenthes Rebecca Soper with that. But now that winter is here in Lithuania, all the bugs are gone, so I want to try to provide it nitrogen another way.
I was thinking of getting liquid orchid feed, diluting it in distilled water *1 part orchid feed 3 parts water*, spraying it on a cloth and rubbing down the leafs with it. Would that work? Or could they only absorb nitrogen through the pitchers/roots?
I'd mist the plant with it but I'm worried about the roots getting some of the orchid feed, I heard their roots are sensitive to that stuff lol
Thank you!
I spray mine with dilute orchid feed - directly from the pump-action sprayer onto the foliage and pitchers. I also occasionally direct the spray into the roots. Unlike other carnivorous plants (drosera, pings etc) Nepenthes are actually OK with small amounts of feed through their roots - but if you're worried about that, just spray the foliage.
@@Grow_Up_Man55 got it, thank you!
I'll aim for one that has alot of nitrogen and do it that way :)
Do you happen to know of any chemicals common in orchid fertilizer that can harm my plant, and that I should avoid?
@@HelgrafFireHammer Avoid anything with urea.
@@Grow_Up_Man55 got it, thanks a bunch!