Expert: Sarracenia Northwest - 2/6/2012

Question
I left my plants in the care of a house sitter during an extended holiday trip.  Despite going over the care in detail with the house sitter before the trip and leaving behind detailed written instructions, when I returned, some of my plants looked a bit worse for wear, including this nepenthes (not sure of species), which was thriving before the trip, having recently put out several new shoots.  Now, the tips of most of the new shoots have turned brown, as have many of the leaves.  Fortunately, the new leaves growing out of the main shoot seem to be green and OK.  I would like to know if there are any particular steps I should take to help the plant recover, and if you have any idea what might have caused this browning to happen.  Thank you.

Answer
Hi Robert,

It looks like the plant may have had inconsistent watering, or too much water.  I noticed the media looks pretty wet, and I couldn't tell if the pot it's in drains or not.  If the plant was allowed to be waterlogged for long periods, what you're seeing could be the result.  Also, if it was allowed to get very dry, then kept very wet to compensate, same issue.  You would see some leaf drying from the drought period, but now you could have some root rot going on.

For now be super consistent with your watering.  Moist, but not super wet, and make sure the media drains freely.  If it doesn't, you may need to transplant, but that will add more stress, so do that only if the soil seems trashed.  You also might move the plant a bit further from it's light until it recovers some.  It seems fairly yellow.  A Superthrive solution would help the roots recover from damage also along with a weak fertilizer.  Use 1/8 of a teaspoon per gallon of water orchid fertilizer once a week.

Let us know how it goes.

Good Growing!

Jeff Dallas
Sarracenia Northwest
http://www.cobraplant.com