Random Black Heart Glitter Moments: 2012

Friday, April 27, 2012

Nepenthes tobaica x ampullaria

I love my little Nepenthes tobaica x ampullaria. It's starting to put on more growth now, almost a year after I first got it as a small, straggly plant. Its latest leaf is bigger than any it has previously produced, and the stem is thickening out nicely.

Nepenthes hirsuta x spathulata raceme

My Nepenthes hirsuta x spathulata has grown a flower stalk ^_^ I'm kind of excited about it, but also a little disappointed because none of the other Nepenthes are flowering (and/or are female! I think this Nep is male, based on the type of flowers it has produced). But I'm thinking about collecting some of the pollen, seeing whether it keeps alright and then using it if I have any female Nepenthes at all.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Fading light

Rush

Full moon

Tobaica x Ampullaria

I bought this Nepenthes Tobaica x Ampullaria around the middle of last year as a very small, very weak, very yellow-looking tube stock plant. It had no pitchers, and the leaves were tiny. I think I bought it because I felt sorry for it. When I got it home, I repotted it and put it into one of the greenhouses, which is home to a few of the other pitcher plants. It took a long, long time for it to start growing properly. The first three leaves it produced when it recovered were very small - perhaps about two centimetres long at the most. They did all grow small pitchers on them, though, which were all actually larger than the leaves.

However, since this Summer, the plant's put on a lot of healthy growth and some great pitchers. I'm really glad that I bought it and took the risk without knowing what sort of pitchers it would grow, or whether it would grow at all. It turns out that its pitchers are gorgeous - they're my favourite, other than the pitchers that Morticia produces. I love the shape and the colours.

The other weekend, I purchased another small, sickly, yellow-leafed Nepenthes that's meant to be a Ventricosa (it had been there for the past few times I'd been to that nursery and I think it's another case of feeling really sorry for the plant). I'm hoping that one will have the same success as the Tobaica x Ampullaria. Since repotting that, its leaves have turned a nice healthy green and a second basal shoot has appeared on it. So I have some hope for it :)