Expert: Christopher Littrell - 5/17/2007

Question
hi i need help i have a nepenthes carnivorous pitcher plant well at the ends of the plant its drying up and turning brown is there anyway to regrow them? i've had it for about 4-5 months now and they are near the window and get quite a while of light and i water once every 2-4 days.  

Answer
Hello Zhi Hui,

Drying and browning at the tips of Nepenthes leaves can occur for a number of reasons.

1.  If you moved the plant from one place to another, it might be in shock from a change in environment. When you move a Nepenthes into lower humidity or it gets too little light, it will stop making pitchers, it's mature pitchers might die off, and the new tendrils might dry up.

2.  Fertilizers can cause leaf burn and might damage the tendrils and leaf ends of your plant if you overfertilize Nepenthes. They really do not need much, if any, fertilizer. If you are fertilizing the plant, only do so with 1/4 or less strength orchid fertilizer every 2 weeks at the most and only by wiping the fertilizer on the leaves with a damp cloth or cotton swab. You do not need to fertilize the plant if it is making pitchers as it will obtain fertilizer from insects it catches.

3.  Chemicals in the environment can be toxic to Nepenthes and other carnivorous plants. If you use fungicides with copper (or hard water that contains lime, calcium, magnesium, and/or salts) they can damage or kill your plant. Only use sulfur based or neem oil based fungicides and only water based insecticides, like pyrethrines, on your carnivorous plants. Use only mineral free distilled, reverse osmosis, or fresh rain water for your plant if your tap does not provide very soft water under 50-100 hardness.

4.  If you mean that the top of the plant is dying off, like from the top down, you might be overwatering the plant. Make sure that the pot is well drained, in an acid mix of Nepenthes soil that is open, and composed of either two parts perlite to one part sphagnum peat moss or one part each of coconut husk, orchid bark, and sphagnum peat moss. There are other mixes out there, so long as they maintain acid levels, drain well, and provide air to the roots of the plant, they should be good. Never leave a tray of water under the Nepenthes. If their roots sit in water, they will rot. Similarly, make sure the plant is receiving enough water as underwatering will cause the plant to die from the top down as well. Watering every 2-4 days sounds good so long as the soil is just damp all the time and is never dry or waterlogged.

5.  When you say that the plant receives a while of light, I am unsure how long that is. Nepenthes will need a minimum of 4-6 hours or more of good, strong, yet indirect, light like what it would get under a tree or in a sunny window that receives light most of the day. If the plant only gets a couple of hours of strong light in a window, you might try moving it to a window that gets longer photoperiods of stronger light. Low light will cause a Nepenthes to stop pitchering.

6.  If you mean that the bottom half of the plant is drying up and turning brown, that is natural as the plant grows into a vine with a woody bottom half on many species of Nepenthes. As long as the leaves at the top of the vine are green and producing tendrils and pitchers, it is healthy. The bottom leaves will die back and never come back, but new vines might sprout from the roots and bush out in many Nepenthes species.

If any of the previous things has affected your plant, just make the appropriate changes to the environment to give the plant what it needs. If the plant is growing normally from the information I gave you, then no change is needed. If the humidity dropped recently, then just wait and keep giving the plant everything it needs, maybe give it a very dilute bit of fertilizer as indicated earlier, and stop fertilizing when it starts growing pitchers again. Never fertilize the plant's soil. Often, Nepenthes just need time and proper light and water and they eventually start growing properly in a couple of months.

If you can think of anything in the environment that changed recently, or if you can add to what information you gave me about the conditions your plant is growing in, that would be helpful.

Keep up the good care and your plant will thrive.

Christopher