December 2004 Nursery Photo Gallery
Welcome to the December 2004 gallery of Nursery Photos. We'll be adding occasional new galleries of photos that we hope you may find interesting. Feedback is welcome as are suggestions for the sort of photographs you might like to see in the future. Please send any comments to nepenthes@borneoexotics.com
This month we are featuring photos taken in and around our highland nursery No. 5.
 "Some time back we planted some excess plants outside the nursery rather than throw them away. We felt that although they were common species and inferior colorations, we would use them as guinea pigs. The soil is heavy clay but always damp even in the dry season because of run off from the nursery. To our surprise they all thrived and here you can see some of them in flower. They receive no special care or attention at all and the pitchers are full of natural prey")
 "Here are some more in another location")
 "'Diana?s Folly'. This is a little outdoors enclosure that Diana made for Heliamphora. The plants are mostly immature, so we?ll show close-up shots some other time. The seed beds in the background contain mostly N. rajah.")
 "Here is the view from just inside the door of No. 5. This is a production area and the plants hanging on the left are mostly N. burbidgeae, the ones on the right are mostly N. copelandii ? Mt Pasian form, which has yet to be released commercially.")
 "This is an aerial shot of sorts, made by standing on a chair with the cameral held as high as possible! The light area at the far end of the nursery is not actually the end of the nursery building but where it takes a dog-leg bend to the left.")
 "A view of what lies beyond the dog?s leg! The glass tank in the foreground is one of Diana?s projects, containing some Heliamphora, Utricularia and some other items that Diana felt looked right as companion plants.")
 "This is Heliamphora minor in the tank.")
 "Here are some Nepenthes in flower. This is the protected ?harem?. When identified as such, boys are banned from this nursery and kept in another nursery building to prevent accidental cross-pollination.")
 "These highland N. veitchii are being trained for exhibition (some of them can jump through hoops LOL!). The lucky ones will be used at our exhibit at the Chelsea Flower show in May 2005.")
 "N. stenophylla upper pitcher, self supported. Lovely graceful creature isn?t it?")
 "Here is a hybrid that has been mass-produced out of Holland in the past, N. inerms x ventricosa but this is a different and much more colourful clone. When young, the pitchers are like this, yellow-green of N. inermis with a red peristome...")
 "?but after a while they colour up more and become suffused with red. I think they are very striking!")
 "N. inermis x bongso in the background with a small N. inermis in the foreground. Some clones have more colouful pitchers than this but all we have seen have the dark red peristome of N. bongso.")
 "Lower pitcher of N. eymae.")
 "This is the first photo of the natural hybrid N. truncata (highland) x copelandii from Mt. Pasian on Mindoro Island, Philippines?")
 "?and this is the same pitcher with a hand for scale. The pitcher is quite tall, being 30 cm, or 12? from base to lid.")
 "A new pitcher of N. mira just opening.")
 "This is a highland N. truncta grown from seed that is colouring up very nicely and threatening to be come black some day ? we hope!")
 "A cluster of lower pitchers of one of our favourite man-made hybrids, N. talangensis x maxima?")
 "and here is a close-up of an unusually large pitcher of N. talangensis x maxima.")
 "A shot of the center of the stock area. Working from front to back you can see N. boschiana, N. lowii ? upper, N. lowii ? lower and N. x trusmadiensis (N. lowii x N. macrophylla). In between are all sorts of other things such as N. ephippiata, N. macrophylla, N. villosa N. truncata, N. burbidgeae and a host of other intermediate, highland and ultra-highlanders. So you can see, it really is possible to grow these plants alongside each other in the same conditions. Typical temperatures in this nursery are 25 deg C day and 12 deg C night.")
 "This is the same view as above but from the other direction with N. x trusmadiensis in the foreground. The big climbing plant in the background is a seed grown N. tentaculata x lowii ? another new natural hybrid.")
 "Here is the N. x trusmadiensis again?")
 "? and I like N. x trusmadiensis so much, here it is again! I like this fabulous natural hybrid for many reasons I think it?s quite stunning. This pitcher is 25cm or 10? from base to lid but this is still very immature. I have never been fortunate enough to see this hybrid in the wild, despite toiling up M.t Trus Madi several times but photos of wild specimens show immense pitchers.")
 "Our first upper pitcher of N. lowii. This is a very compact plant being only 12cm or 4? from the surface of the compost to the petiole of the leaf with the upper pitcher on it?")
 "?and here is a close-up of the pitcher. It?s so hard to the touch that some guests we had today thought it was made of plastic.")
 "Lower pitcher of a rather nice form of N. boschiana. This pitcher is 30cm or 12? tall?")
 "?and another slightly smaller pitcher of N. boschiana in hand.")
 "Poor gecko! R.I.P.!")