Nepenthes vieillardii: 5 years of cultivation.

Nepenthes vieillardii is a species I'm particularly fond of. It belongs to the informal group of the 'outlying species' composed of beautiful tropical pitcher plants (but plain to some people) I'm hoping to grow successfully one day. Although, I have never tried N. masoalensis, I had so far mixed results with species like N. pervillei (my favourite of the group), N. madagascariensis, N. distillatoria and N. khasiana. N. vieillardii is the only one in that group that has granted me with some success and even a bit of pride in a certain way.

After a few failures with this intriguing species from New Caledonia, I received another excellent starter plant in September 2009, a  very nice 20/25 cm large specimen (in vitro material originally from Cedevit)  from my friend Pierre-Emmanuel Durand, a skilled French grower. I had decided then to give some extra care to this plant. Pierre-Emmanuel handed me the plant with a particular soil recipe mainly made of Akadama, Japanese dried clay used for bonsai cultivation, with the addition of other mineral elements like aqualite. In short, I put the plant in a sunny spot, watered sparingly and let it dry fairly between two waterings.

For 5 years,  I didn't repot the plant. I didn't dare to reproduce Pierre-Emmanuel special recipe and, knowing this species was notoriously tricky, I prefered to let it adjust to my conditions. I was arguably afraid. I think I was expecting that my new plant would die in my hand shortly as several N. vieillardii plants already did when I tried to keep them in my humid lowland tank. But surprisingly, the plant survived, produced new leaves and even pitchered!

March 2010 

(The square pot below is 13 cm large. The plant would stay there until 2014).

Six months after it entered my collection, the plant slowly increased in size and started to produce pitchers. It was grown in room temperatures (lower lowland temps to intermediate) on a windowsill.

March 2011. One year later, the plant kept on produced slightly bigger leaves with pitchers and I could witness the appearance of basals. It was promising. I kept the plant in its 13 cm large square pot. Like I said, I didn't dare to repot it. 18 month already in my care. That was already a record of longevity for that species in my collection :-)

On July 2013, the plant was looking really good. It was growing now in my conservatory for about one year and a half in an East exposed spot, receiving a good deal of sun everyday. The temperatures are highland in winter and intermediate in summer with extremes of 6°C and 39 °C. The watering regime was the same: on the dry side. The basals were growing fine and overall the plant had bout ten pitchers at the same time. The production stopped each winter but resumed each spring. Until last year, the plant was roughly 30/35 cm and I was a bit disappointed for I was hoping it would get larger, especially after 4 years of cultivation. I knew somehow that I should have repotted it a while back. This was becoming a problem because when the weather was hot, the pot completely dried and leaves started then to whither, sometimes only after 3 days. I was afraid that I would forget to keep an eye on the plant one summer and that I would find it completely fried. I guess that repotting would be a necessity very soon. And that's what I eventually did in spring 2014.

    

And look how the plant is now in August 2014. 

It is nearly 60 cm large now in a 30 cm diametre pot!

Ok, my daughter's got small hands but this pitcher is about 13 cm large.

The same pitcher, backlit.

And this seems to be an intermediate pitcher, don't you think? The tendril is starting to coil.

The latest leaf that should be even bigger than the previous ones. I love the coloration of the leaves that is very different from the majority of Nepenthes species.

A close up of my home recipe (different from Pierre-Emmanuel's. Here it is Akadama, volcanic rock (pouzzolane), gravel, sand and some peat).

This is how Akadama looks like. I used almost 50 % of this for my plant. 

Akadama allows the pot to dry rapidly and seems to be a good replacement for the red soil the species often grows in in New Caledonia. Below is a photograph of the plant in situ.

If my memory serves me right that red soil contains a lot of iron (to be seriously verified though) so adding some laterite could be also a good idea. Some growers do so with ultramafic species (burbidgeae, attenboroughii, palawanensis...) with success it seems.

Akadama as I bought it in a garden center (17 euros for 10 kilos, not the cheapest element around).

In short, here are my cultivation tips for growing this elegant species: very open mix (try Akadama!), a lot of sun, a large pot (there are a lot of roots!) and moderate waterings. Air movement seems to be helpful also. So far, my conditions, my soil mixture work well for me but I am not sure how it would work in your own growing space but there is arguably some tips you could use yourself. Maybe. I do hope my plant will continue to grow like this and maybe it will even climb and flower. I don't think I have heard yet of a hybrid including Nepenthes vieillardii. Do you?

Last shot of my plant, in the middle of the conservatory: