First (serious) attempt to grow Nepenthes

Today I'm gonna show you some pics of my first properly-built terrarium for all my Neps & other tropical plants. After years of growing them on a windowsill or in plastic "faunarium' boxes, under no extra light, finally, I designed my own terrarium. I built it using plexiglas - because it's lighter, easier to cut and more durable (or maybe...more idiot-proof) than normal glass. I used silicone to glue it (it was definitely not a good idea, but I didn't know that...it wasn't so terrible after all and lasted for about 2 years; then started to leak) and some aluminium shapes to make the edges look better. The cover was made of plywood with 3 holes in it - one for ventilation, 2 others for compact fluorescent bulbs (2x23W, 6500 & 4000K). I also added an ultrasonic humidifier, one 8x8 PC fan, plugged everything into time controllers and...the terrarium was finally ready! Although it wasn't a perfect highland terrarium, for a 14-year old guy it was a masterpiece. I even managed to successfully grow N. lowii in it. When it started to leak, I just bought a new terrarium, but I still keep this one in my basement. Soon it's going to get a new life after making some improvements ;)

In full bloom ;)

After about 2 months I built another terrarium using an old, metal rack. I just needed some silicone, some plexiglas, a fan and a lamp - and it was ready. It doesn't look really impressive, but I still use it. Within the 2 next months, it should get a totally new design.

Terrarium #2 - or how to turn an old bookshelf into something useful 

Next time I'm gonna show you my current set-ups, which I arranged about 3 years ago.

Regards
Mateusz

Something to start with

Well...that's my first blog, so I think I should start with a bit of introduction. I've started it to write about one of my biggest passions - carnivorous plants. I'm Mateusz, I live in the southern part of Poland (Silesia) and I've been growing CPs for 10 years now. It all started in 2003 during a school lesson about Polish national parks, when the teacher showed me a photo of Drosera rotundifolia and said: "this plant catches insects to nourish itself, have you heard about that?". Well, that was just one picture. But for it was a spark that ignited it all. I started to look for more and more information about those strange plants, and after some time got totally absorbed by all this stuff. I surfed the internet, read some books and finally decided to buy a plant and try to grow it. That's how I got my first plant - Nepenthes maxima x fusca. I was dissapointed, 'cause I wanted a Venus flytrap ("it moves like jaws, I want it, yay!"), but happy that I have something that strange on my windowsill. After some time I had my whole windowsill crammed with various sundews, pitcher plants, Venus flytraps etc. I had nearly no idea how to grow them properly, so I just kept everything on the windowsill and watered like any other common plants. Some of them died, some survived; my friends and relatives were laughing about my new "passion", being sure that I would get bored after some time. But it lasted and lasted...and still lasts. That's how it all started. As years went by, I managed to build my own experience of how to grow CPs properly. I had nobody and nothing to help me with it, so I had to loose many plants, to finally get the best results possible. After some time I decided to focus on my favourite plants - Nepenthes and Heliamphoras and now, after 10 years, I've decided to share my own experience and show you the progress of my new project, which I hope will let me push my passion to a totally new level.
But, as we know, every single thing has a beginning...

My first H. minor...grown on a windowsill (ca. 2005-2006)

D. capensis - a "must" for every CP beginner...

Hope you're gonna like my blog ;) 

Mateusz