Expert: Christopher Littrell - 7/12/2008

Question
Our plants are doing great.  My question is how do these plants propagate.  All I could read is you can buy seeds on-line.  Our plants is really big and would like to divide them.  

Can you help?

Answer
Hello John,

There are several ways to propagate Nepenthes. Seeds would be the hardest as you would have to have both male and female plants and cross pollinate them by hand, then wait for seeds to form. It is hard enough to actually find a male and female Nepenthes in the same place.

The second method of propagation is easier in some ways, but limited. You can prune the plant, taking cuttings from the largest vines of about 8-12 inches and trying to root them. Make sure each section of vine has several leaves to photosynthesize with to increase your chances of having surviving plants and use rooting hormone on the cut tips.

Cuttings can be taken several different ways. You can merely notch sections of the uncut vine in places your wanting to prune them in, use rooting hormone on the notch, then wrap a piece of plastic with moist Nepenthes soil or moist perlite around the notch. In a month or two it should be rooting and can be cut off the parent vine and planted. You can also prune sections of vine and just plant them in wet perlite like Sarracenia Northwest does. Use rooting hormone on the cut tips and notch a couple inches of the bottom half of the cut vine to increase rooting points for the new vine. In a month or two the vine should be ready to be planted in Nepenthes mix in a regular pot. Some people just plant the cuttings in Nepenthes mix or in a vase of water like an ivy cutting, but Sarracenia Northwest indicated that wet perlite reduces the chances of bacterial decay in the cut vine before it has a chance of rooting.

Use a plastic bag over the cuttings to hold in humidity if your home is a low humidity place... having no roots, the cuttings will need to retain water until they can actually grow new roots. Once the new roots are established, remove the plastic bag slowly over the course of a couple weeks as you would when adapting a plant to low humidity... by punching several 1/4 inch holes in the bag every 3 days until it no longer holds in humidity, then removing it after 14 days. If you merely notch the parent vine before making cuttings you will not need to use the bag over the cutting.

Remember, Nepenthes do not take to cuttings as readily as ivy does, so you will experience some losses until you get a good technique down pat. Always leave your parent plant with plenty of foliage and vine material to regrow from so you can try again later in case the first attempt fails.

Christopher