nepenthes burbidgeae x edwardsiana

I was so surprised a couple of days ago when I saw this pitcher because
for two years it didn't pitcher ,I then watered it every day.
I treat this nepenthes  x and my nep burbidgeae differently now to the lows and intermediates.
I don't water them every day like the others , I let them get quite dry.
before I water. I moved the burbidgeae to an eastern position (morning sun) as it was getting dark patches (looked like fungus) and wasn't growing
and when I bought  this cross , I noticed it liked the same conditions.
They get  good light every day and intense sun for about two hours a day

Its Spring in the southern hemisphere

I saw this pitcher nepenthes truncata x ovata when I was watering.
Looks like on many of them I will get upper pitchers this year.
Its an intermediate nepenthes , I have the most success with intermediates.

Almost end of winter .This post re: about my low land nepenthes

Its almost the end of winter and for the first time I've been able to leave the nep bicalarata in the polyhouse outside. What a relief . Those leaves get bigger and bigger every year.

 One day at work, I suddenly thought (at the beginning of autumn), .Here you have

outside electricity points, why not get an electrician to put some outside power switches on the outside wall of your house? The other thing is I double checked the safety switch in the power box to make sure it worked because well, power running outside the house can be dangerous.
I thought well I  could move the polyhouse up next to the house and have horticulture heaters working inside through winter. Now the poly house isn't gap free and I did wonder how much warmer it would be.So it was all done, a nice russian electrician came and installed the power points for me.
I left it late in autumn to move the poly house and had to do it by myself as I only had one day to do it in.I  moved all the plants out in the middle of the day and shifted it eight metres.
Moving it had fixed the gaps. I placed thin blankets on the top and sealed around the base gluing stips of heavy plastic and bubble wrap to insulate from the cold air from coming under.
Doing this, and with the heaters I've kept them eight degrees above the outside temperature.
I kept the bical on a thermostatically controlled heat pad ( one with a dial), I tried a simpler heat pad but it couldn't keep the temperature high enough and the other nepenthes I kept warm  with a tube heater .Most have done well though I lost a couple. I decided to repot when I shifted them for the move. bad decision.
Here are two pictures of my nepenthes bicalarata and one of my  nepenthes ampullaria.

Thoughts on growing ultra highland and highland nepenthes

When late last year I saw a new website selling nepenthes I had a real flutter in my stomach, because most of them were highland species. I had tried three times previously to grow  highland nepenthes with no success. The plants just got smaller and smaller and then died.
So when I saw this website newneps selling in australia I thought well I have failed,  I need to revisit what do I need to do to grow the alpine species.
I found  Robert Sacilotto's piece on his experiment with highland nepenthes seedlings and I thought
whatever the conditions the seedlings will grow in will be what the adults require.
So we had a small weather station showing humidity and temperature with a remote gauge in the area the plants will live and I used it for my ultra lowlanders so I bought a couple more and a hygrometer.
I bought a water distiller because sensitive alpine nepenthes must have a very low conductivity in their water supply. It must have a ph around 4.5 so I need a ph indicator. 
The hardest thing I thought was the temperature as I'm living in the subtropics. 
 The breakthrough  was to buy a wine fridge , I don't drink wine very much and I didn't know they existed.
 These alpine plants need a large drop in the temperature at night. below 14 degrees and the wine fridge fitted the purpose. So I bought one a week after I put my order in for my new plants .
Its now eight months later and I haven't killed one. I bought them in the middle of summer.
It was the worst time in the year with temperatures outside from 25 degree to 32 degrees celsius , so with the air conditioner on every day they sat on a wire planter in the lounge room.
under one at first now two aquarium led lights ( they are called aquaone 21 w)  from the pet shop. They are 
about 8 inches from the lights. Maybe a little too close as I noticed the rajah got quite bronze.
I planted them in spaghum moss and just kept them moist with the lights on for 16 hours a day.watered once a day , they are all seedlings,so for now there is enough light
I first bought a n. singalana , n.vogelli then later from elsewhere n rajah, n jacquelineae  
The jacquelineae I found needed at least 12 degress celsius for 3 hours daily through the summer just to survive. Throughout this winter with temperatures ranging from 25 degrees celsius to 9 degrees celsius  it has thrived outside in the garden under my grevilleas , in dappled light with a n rajah , n mira ,n aristocholides and a n chaniana at humidity levels mostly 65 percent humidity to 85 humidity and with occasional storms about once a fortnight .They sit outside on a piece of stryofoam with holes in it, and through it I stuffed sphagmum moss and underneath the stryofoam,  is a very shallow drip tray  with a small amount of water in it .
Its spring now so when these cold early mornings finish it'll be time to come inside on the wire planter again.
They will slow their growth inside so the longer I can keep them out there the better.

 This is the robert cantley when I bought it in Dec 2014

 Here is the vogelli in Dec and on the bottom nep jacquelineae in dec

 Above nep rajah in the same pot now 130915

nepenthes jacquelineae today I'm so happy it has a pitcher almost ready to open. This is one of the species
that I had tried to grow before with no success.

The vogellii has grown much more vigorously than the others

and Nepenthes Robert Cantley looking good.

Update on keeping my lowland nepenthes in the poly house

It's almost the end of my holiday time, I been able to spend more time looking at my plants.
I have a remote temperature gauge in the polyhouse . Its has registered very high temperatures at  times in our summer ,
Top temperatures twice of 42 degrees celsius at midday  but with 89 percent and above  humidity .
They are irrigated once in the morning and then in the evening but being home and with the high temperatures I given them extra water at midday .  I'll often hand water , I hand water because experience tells me to check on them contantly. I have most of them in self watering pots , I think the safest way to go .
The gauge tells me at night that the humidity levels are in the ninetys. I thought the humidity should be lower at night but the gauge tells me this constantly..The gauge tells me in the afternoon the humidity drops right down to 54 percent for a short while.
The reason I bought the poly was to get the humidity and temperatures much higher. Many years ago I killed some plants trying to get the temperatures higher and I used a solar weave product but  it gets way too hot here I found out (as I suddenly realised what I was subjecting the plants to)  when the water from the irrigation hitting the metal frame hit me and it stung it was so hot . I badly burnt them and I lost a couple of favourites before realising , and looking back, I didn't have the humidity levels high enough, it wasn't in shade  and now I wont let the irrigation hit the frame just the plants . I should have experimented first so I was cautious  getting this poly house in the right situation.
The poly house is under the shade of a tree and I didn't take all the  plastic sheets off the polycarbonate , and it gives them bright but diffused light .
The good news is its working.The ampullarias are beginning to pitcher ,In the past I only had very tiny little pitchers off one. This time a couple are goig to give me full size pitchers.
Another exciting thing I bought some n northiana seed from ebay and looks like one has germinated.
All the other lowland nepenthes are doing very well including the seedlings.

Some growing carnivorous plants failures and successes this year

I think I understand how to grow intermediate and lowland and ultra lowland  nepenthes
a little better  this year.
All the  lowland nepenthes that I have  I've kept them above 20 degress celsius all year. It's now summer and I have a poly house for them now. I hesitated  getting it . it does climb to 30 degrees celsius here , maybe it would be too hot but the house is shaded.  So long as I keep the water and humidity up they should be very happy.If I stand in it for five minutes I can feel the sweat running down my back .
The lounge room this year was full of lowland plants when in winter the outside temperature went down regularly to 5 and once to 2 degrees. They'll put up with the lower humidity for a short time and I covered them in plastic, kept the most sensitive on heat pads.
My intermediates were outside and i covered them in winter with towels and blankets every night and (would you believe) hot water bottles and they are all fine.I didn't care what the neighbours thought.
I thought I would try to grow some lowlanders from seed this year. I have now about twenty seedlings.This is all seed from ebay , so I don't know how old some of it was.Only one or two at a time have sprouted .
They are  still coming up six months later. Another two today .
I read on line about how low electrical conductivity in the soil being essential for some plants , the way it read I thought the nepenthes seeds  probably require this. It said sugar would bring the conductivity down. So I started dissolving  1 teaspoon of sugar into a cup of water and then applying it to the seeds. Everytime after 5 days approxa few more seeds would sprout.. These are all lowlanders.I've been doing it very sporadically when no more seedlings would come.I've also given the seeds a weak tea solution of seasol sporadically.
Some of the seed I bought never sprouted at all.
Of the seeds that have sprouted  I managed to only lose one so far, but they are so fragile. I stopped watering overhead as it disturbed the ones trying to send their root into the peat and sand mix. I've gently moved them into a pot with a mature nepenthes as I see the cotyledons spread themselves out.
I've placed them all in one pot under a nepenthes albomarginata ventricosa , and they're doing well.
They don't seem to mind each other at all.
My female nepenthes ventricosa was in a  shallow pot in the garden and has somehow established itself in the ground and happily running across the stump of a tree I have.
Its a great place here for the intermediates (red sandy acidic loam) and the temperatures are perfect for them.I'm considering putting some in the ground as quite a few of them grow out of  the greenhouse and scramble across the ground.
My cephalotus all died and I think its the heat. I started regularly looking at Albany's  temperature
range . It's a lot lower than here. I've bought some seed I'll try to sprout it.
 I have one venus fly trap left , I made a bog for them for winter and even though the temperatures were low only one survived .. I thought they would thrive outside but still too warm. Yet one has thrived and now
I've kept it inside near the air conditioner in a plastic seal top bag under an aquarium light and its doing very well.
I did finally lose my N..bicalcarata x merrilliana., this year and  its was one of my favorite plants . I think I was just too rough repotting   I should have kept it inside, the stress was too much.It seemed to come back but never fully recovered and then slowly died. Maybe their feeder roots are very slow to regrow if too many are broken starving the plant.
When I repotted my N bicalcarata  this year I was extra careful and when placing it in the new pot I sat the old post in the new one and cut  round the old one gently
I took no chances and its fine though .I made a big mistake with it this year , I lowered its humidity and when the edges of its leaves went black I quickly rectified the problem and its put out a huge new green leaf but it  isn't pitchering.because of that error.and when I saw its leaves go black I thought it was a fungus or  insect attack so I applied fungicide/insecticide mix in a panic killing the ant colony thats been living with it a long time. I seen more very tiny brown ants around it so a new colony hopefully will start. I should put it  in the poly house .I 've given it more light and now much higher humidity and  its very healthy.
It seems to attract the ants and they lived in its petioles rarely coming out and never being a trouble anywhere.
I feed it with a weak tea of seasol when I think it needs it (maybe two monthly)
and I do give occasionally give it a weak tea of  trace elements.
It so loves the heat and the wet , I have to lift the plastic to see it in its warm swamp.

Let's get treadling

I made my sister , who is wheelchair bound, two dresses from instructions from Rhonda's Creative Life blog
its called the rectangle dress.
It's hard for kamblings  to get access to dress shops and she urgently needed some new dresses.
I searched looking for a pattern that was quick and easy as I'm a slow sewer and I don't have much time
to give to drafting a pattern and sewing it quickly.So I thought lets try it with only two pieces of fabric to sew and just a large rectangle to draft.
 I bought a couple of easy cotton knits for her comfort and  there would  also there would be little need for overlocking or turning of hems.She likes them and I'll keep making them .
Thanks Rhonda.