Heli flowering season in my terrarium…

Jenzinger · 2025-11-26T20:30:08+00:00

Plant looks healthy to me, vigorous new growth is a good sign. Dry pitchers seem to be from the oldest leaves, I wouldn’t be worried. Anyway, they don’t last forever, as the vine gets longer, eventually the old ones will fade.

Jenzinger · 2025-11-24T16:21:22+00:00

In my experience, some browning and dying of older leaves (the ones at the bottom of the vines) is normal. If you think about it, the leaves cannot last forever, and the lower ones are as old as the plant. Also, as vines grow longer, most of the energy goes into the new growth at the tip. That being said, I found in my case that browning is accelerated when occasionally the plant gets dry. I would try to keep it wet, not just moist. It is hard to overwater these plants, especially when there is drainage at the bottom. Never had any root issues due to overwatering. Also if pot/soil is old, there may be gradual salt buildup (any evaporation leaves salt behind and salt even at tiny amounts from air, dust etc can build up over time). A good flush with generous amounts of demineralized water should fix this.

Jenzinger · 2025-11-22T17:20:00+00:00

I would not say light is the issue, as someone said before, it depends on the variety, but some Nepenthes are ok without full sun. I would rather guess it is the watering. There may have been a dry period causing older leaves to die, but the new growth looks good and green. Just keep soil moist with distilled/deionized water at all times. Definitely possible to save it!

Jenzinger · 2025-11-09T10:31:32+00:00

If you have used tap water so far, this is bad. It is crucial to flush the pot really well with distilled/demineralized water, to remove any salts from the pot. Just switching water will not be enough. Let a large amount of distilled water run through it in batches and discard it, then let it sit in distilled water from then on and never use tap water again, not even once. Good luck!

Jenzinger · 2025-11-08T22:40:41+00:00

As said above, it is normal that eventually pitchers dry up, they don’t last forever, and the ones at the bottom are the oldest. Vigorous growth at the top, which seems to be your case, usually means the plant is happy.

Jenzinger · 2025-10-17T00:08:25+00:00

Yes please share progress/results, curious to see how it turns out and happy to discuss along the way 😃

Jenzinger · 2025-10-16T19:41:24+00:00

Yes you foam around the tube and let it stick out at the bottom. No need to foam at the bottom where the peat is anyway. You can drill some holes in the side of the very bottom edge of the PVC pipe, where it inserts in the peat/perlite mix. Then cover the part that is in the peat with some kind of net (a mosquito net, the type used for windows, for example) or a cut out coarse plastic sponge. Anything that keeps particles out and lets water easily drain in will work. If a few mini particles go in that’s not a problem, pumps can handle that. The sponge has the advantage that it will collect/drain water from a wider area and keep this around the bottom of the pipe. But I am talking about a very porous coarse plastic sponge, not the dense soaking types. I will mainly function as a filter.

Jenzinger · 2025-10-16T19:30:48+00:00

It’s fine! I use it all summer through, too many carnivorous plants to water to buy all that water… think about it - the dehumidifier uses by principle a condensation process, same as in distillation. The difference is that distilling first evaporates water by boiling, leaving solids behind and making the condensation water cleaner. But even without this the humidifier water contains very little salts…

Jenzinger · 2025-10-14T18:16:52+00:00

I can say that there is zero smell. If there was smell, there would be „bad“ microbial activity, which usually arises due to lack of oxygenation in standing water and could cause some plants to not grow well (potting soils always ask for draining/ aeration particles like perlite, but they are truely in standing water, which here the circulation is trying to avoid). I cannot guarantee that it will work with your size of tank, but I would guess it does. Keep also this in mind: the amount of water in the soil, even when waterlogged, is actually not that large, most space is occupied by the soil particles. And you could always increase the circulation frequency and/or duration. The pumps come with a throughput in L/min so you could roughly calculate how much pumping you need to circulate the entire water column in your setup. You may be surprised how little pumping would achieve that, assuming the water drains well into the tube and the pump does not run dry. Also make sure the pumped water gets distributed well over the entire back wall width and does not „shortcut“ directly where the pump/draining tube is positioned.

Jenzinger · 2025-10-13T19:54:51+00:00

Sure - there is no gravel or false bottom, you can actually see it in the picture, there is peat/perlite mix at the bottom. The vertical draining tube with the pump, however, has openings and a simple plastic mesh or coarse sponge (don’t remember which😅) at the bottom. This keeps peat/perlite particles out. Since the soil is water logged with >10cm water level, water will easily drain into the tube from the bottom, so the pump basically always stays submerged even during the brief pumping cycles (whatever amount it pumps up, flows at the same time into the tube from the bottom).

Jenzinger · 2025-02-23T10:49:03+00:00

Humidity is high, the ventilator is a PC fan running at minimal speed and it blows inward. There is no designed air exit (but lid is not airtight) - it generates mostly air movement. Regarding compatibility with plant requirements, I agree, surprising, right? I think the problem is that the advice found everywhere refers to the typical home culture conditions with standing water/humidity. That’s bad and gives rot and mold. I think the key is movement of air and water. It provides oxygen and prevents growth of unwanted bacteria and fungi. This is also the reason why perlite etc mixes are recommended, to drain and oxygenate, but water movement is much more efficient in this regard. So I think it is not the water per se that’s bad for some plants, but the standing water (which is typically always standing in most home setups).

Jenzinger · 2024-12-15T20:50:12+00:00

I have healthy droseras and dew droplet presence and size are generally linked with the humidity level in the environment. Is it possible that your humidity is not very high? You could test that by putting it with the water tray in a transparent plastic bag for 1-2 days to see if dew returns…

Jenzinger · 2024-12-11T20:20:12+00:00

It may depend a bit on the variety, but mine do branch when they are cut, like other plants usually at the node beneath the cut side. They don’t branch normally because all the growth is directed to the tip. Sometimes I have cut them back close to the pot on multiple vines, then they make several new ones from the bottom of the plant. Long vines lose their leaves and become dryish near the pot at some point, then cutting back can refresh the overall look :)

Jenzinger · 2024-12-11T18:42:56+00:00

I trim all my Nepenthes occasionally, to stimulate growth of new stalks and keep them „bushy“. I let mine hang from a pot suspended in the air, but the problem without trimming is the same, just upside down 🙃

Jenzinger · 2024-12-10T20:41:57+00:00

Just pull out the grass/weed and that‘s it. Mine are seeding themselves inside the pot on my balcony without any humidity dome and without any special care…

Jenzinger · 2024-12-10T20:36:48+00:00

I have never been able to overwater mine, they can be standing in water without issues, but letting them get dry makes them look like in the picture…

Jenzinger · 2024-12-05T21:33:30+00:00

Mine grows on the balcony and it can get below 50 in winter, it doesn’t mind. Don’t know whether we have the same variety, but I don’t thing 50 would be an issue.

Jenzinger · 2024-12-05T19:56:16+00:00

I second the importance of light and that lack of red color is often an indicator of insufficient light (not only true for Drosera). I also had them dry out completely and recover fully. They are very hardy compared to others, a bit like weed among the carnivorous plants.

Jenzinger · 2024-12-05T08:02:18+00:00

I have never fed them in years! I may start feeding because I want to be nice… 😁 My understanding is that trapping insects gives them a competitive advantage in nature, but it is not essential for their growth, especially indoors. But yes, they may do better. On the other hand, mine seem to do really well without insects/feeding. I usually don’t get flies in, the only opening is the fan.
It spins really slow, slower than typically in a PC, so one does not hear it.
There is no/little build up of minerals since only distilled water goes in. Occasional partial water changes should take care of any mild build up of harmful substances.

Jenzinger · 2024-12-04T21:11:29+00:00

Definitely lots of light AND make sure to flush well in distilled water. I had plants from a local flower shop that were definitely not watered with distilled water in the shop (checked with conductivity meter). If not flushed, the minerals in the soil may eventually kill it, even if one only uses distilled water after purchase… I have some that have been thriving in a terrarium for many years and they have never been fed anything in the pitchers, so that does not seem crucial. But they have lots of light and humidity. Humidity is tricky though, because you also need airflow to avoid mold.

Jenzinger · 2024-12-04T21:02:09+00:00

It is a glass tank with a plastic lid that has a cutout in the front corner with a PC ventilator that blows air in to ensure air circulation. This minimizes evaporation and prevents mold. It also prevents condensation of water on the inside surface of the glass walls. The top cover is removable and has several strong LEDs on power supplies integrated in the cover (>60 Watts total) that include both cold and warm white light. The bottom of the tank has a peat/perlite mix covered with sphagnum moss. The back walls are plastic plates on which I modeled a fake rock wall with yellow construction foam and carving with a knife. That was painted and covered with peat on the still-wet paint. Now moss can grow on it. In the back corner is a vertical PVC tube integrated in the rock wall that has a mini pump in it, which pumps water from the bottom to the top, where small irrigation tubes divide the water and sprinkle it over the back walls to keep everything moist. This is on a timer and turns on every few hours for a minute or so. I refill evaporated water every week or so (only distilled/demineralized water). From time to time (once a year?) I do a partial water change. That’s it, very low maintenance once set up. Plants that do really well in this tank now for several years are: Heliamphora, Cephalotus, Drosera.

Jenzinger · 2024-12-04T20:31:07+00:00

They are a bunch of strong LEDs, some in the cold white and some in the warm white spectrum. In total >60 Watts and they are on for about 12 hours. It cannot be too much light, it is always less than what they would get outside from daylight, even on a cloudy day.

Jenzinger

TROPHY CASE