Cephs: Finally Succeeding!

Cephalotus

Cephalotus has been the bane of my carnivorous plant growing experience. It's a species which isn't too difficult to grow, but which, for some reason, has really hated me until now. A little more than a year ago, I had a small Ceph which was doing wonderfully, until it suddenly died. I had no idea why.

Cephalotus

In May, I was given the opportunity to try this species again. This time, I had to get the plants to grow from leaf-pullings. By and large, I was successful and, so far, they've been doing wonderfully. The gift of leaf-pullings consisted of nine leaves with three coming being "Emu Point", three being "Big Boy", and the last three being "Vigorous".

Cephalotus

As I said, I wasn't entirely sure what I had done on my first go around, so I opted to try out the leaves in different media mixes. One was half-silica sand and half sphagnum peat; one was my (new) standard Nepenthes mix (coco-fiber/chips, long-fiber NZ sphagnum, perlite, orchid bark, orchid charcoal), and one was in a half-perlite and half-long-fiber NZ sphagnum. To date, all three media mixes have successfully had plants sprout and continue to grow. I believe there are six total plants w/two in each pot, but I forgot to count as photos were being taken.

Cephalotus

Some are still tiny plants, while others are quite a bit larger. Regardless of current size, I am very pleased that I seem to be succeeding with Cephs. I guess the third time really is the charm.

Cephalotus

In addition to those leaf pullings, I did acquire a small Ceph from elsewhere as well as one from Jim Toska which he told me seemed to be much more cold-hardy than ordinary Cephs. A photo of that is below. It has handled temperatures as low as 29 degrees Fahrenheit with not issue, however, I did bring it into my highland enclosure, with the rest of my Cephs, for winter.

Jim Toska's Ceph

As many of you know, Jim passed away recently after a tough battle with cancer. So, I am very hopeful that I can keep this plant growing well in honor of him.