D. indica is a fast grower. Mine flowered in about 4 months from
germination. I prefer to propagate this species by seed. The plant
grows long and leggy in no time. This species may be an annual in
nature. I remember I tried once to repot them when the stems got too
long. I just buried their stems so that just a little stuck out. This
quickly killed them. I noticed that if the stem gets damaged, they will
quickly generate a new crown from the stem just below the damaged part,
so I guess you can try cutting them back this way. I got a ton of seed
from those plants I grew this year, so the easiest way to deal with the
old plants is to just toss them and sow seed. The Nepenthes (ventricosa
x sp. (Talang)), my oldest plant is just finishing up its third true
leaf after nearly 3 months. I think these will take at least three
years before they produce mature pitchers. I have four seedlings of
this hybrid now. Nep seedlings produce leaves with very short
internodes for a long time, giving them a rosette appearance and making
it hard to take cuttings.
>
>
> I've been considering pruning my N. X. boissiense for a while,
> to gain space and encourage bushiness. My only doc on how to do
> this is a late '70's CPN which says to take the first cutting
> 3-4 leaf-nodes down from the meristem, to get a mature,
> non-"soft" part of the stem to root. Is this correct? Do you
> still cut half the leaf off when doing this initial cutting?
>
>
That is correct. If you want to make a terminal cutting, take off as
much as you want, 3-4 leaves at a minimum. Don't cut the stem where
it's woody and don't cut near the terminal end where the stem is too
flimsy. An old CPN article gives a neat method that seems to work,
where after you take the terminal cutting, you then wait for a new crown
to break on the stem just below where you took the cutting. You can
then take a one-node cutting, place it horizontally in the rooting
medium with the new crown sticking up, and these root very quickly.
> BTW, how long does a cutting take to root? My khasiana #3 is still
> not showing any signs of growth, though it is still alive. I've
> not pulled the cutting out to look for roots since I don't want
> to disturb it.
>
I remember reading CPN articles that state something like Nepenthes take
4 weeks before they begin to root. This info is probably from the same
people who think Nepenthes seeds germinate is 6-8 weeks. I would
suggest keeping them in their baggies for a good 5 months. Don't
disturb them except for watering. After that, if they seem to be
growing, you can take the baggies off and try adapting them to the same
conditions as your mature plants.
>
>
> I don't know. The lower pitcher you sent me looked more like a
> khasiana type pitcher than an ampullaria. I thought hookeriana
> was supposed to have a symmetric pitcher, similar to ampullaria,
> with the spotted coloration and fringes of rafflesiana.
>
>
In the Sept-Dec CPN of last year, there was mention of a magazine you
can buy for $3.50 that has 80 color pictures of different Nepenthes
species and hybrids. This may be useful in identifying our plants.