Nepenthes: They Live!

Nepenthes. Yes, they live!

A few months ago, we had a relatively nasty cold snap (hey, cold for us at least) that the Nepenthes didn’t appreciate very much. I think it got down to the mid 30’s or something. I had the Nepenthes growing out in the unheated greenhouse with no protection like this.

With lack of a better plan, I moved them to the corner of the greenhouse and just threw overwintering film on them. For the past few months, there they stayed. I didn’t pay much attention to them as they were kind of depressing to look at. Crispy brown all over the place. Not good. Dahlia or I would water them every now and then by lifting up the overwintering film and just aimlessly hosing everything down. I had my fingers crossed hoping I would get something that would survive. And survive they did!

I wanted to do a better job this year. If I left that monster dome up, the plants would of had better protection. But nooooo, I was ambitious and brought that house down in December (DECEMBER!) of all months. Geez. Hey, that dome took up 3 tables worth of space! I didn’t need anything that big. So my plan for this year was to provide them better shelter that didn’t take up a footprint of 20′ x 15′. That’s too much and I need that space for Sarracenia.

So, I picked up a sweet 6 x 8 greenhouse find on Craigslist and that would be the new Nepenthes house. (Thanks Steve!) This is a great size. It doesn’t take up a lot of room, and come winter I can insulate the small greenhouse with greenhouse bubble wrap, or something of that nature. This should keep it a little warmer and offer a little more protection from the cold. I had my eldest son Josiah help me put the greenhouse together. It reminded me of when I put my first greenhouse together with my grandfather when I was about Josiah’s age.

This last week I spent some time cleaning the Nepenthes up and moving them into their new home. The photo below is very depressing. I had thought this plant was a goner for sure! If you look closely, a few months under the overwinter film proved helpful. There’s a couple basal shoots in there!! Yeah!!

Nepenthes reloaded The Nepenthes took a beating from the cold a few months back…

I know, that’s just nasty up there. Fortunately after trimming all the dead crap off, I found signs of life! YEAH!

Nepenthes reloaded The Nepenthes lives! Yes. Yesss… YEAASS!!

I did have a lot of losses though and I’m still mourning those plants. As my friend Kinjie told me regarding these plants, “Hey, you gotta learn somehow!” Yes, true, but losing plants is a sucky way to learn! To the left is a Nepenthes densiflora x truncata. You can see some of the cold damage that this baby took. The center of the plant is still alive and there are new growpoints forming where the cold turned the main growpoint into mush. In any event, I’m so very glad that many of the plants survived. Some of the surprises that I found under that overwinter film provided some great comfort, hope, and solace.