Growth of my Nepenthes Bicalcarata over 6 months, old pot for comparison

It arrived in the mail around march, and began growing quickly almost immediately. My growtent is catered to replicate its habitat: 92°F / 33°C, and 85%RH during the day, with mid 70s and saturated humidity at night.

Bicalcarata is specialized to peat swamp forests, so it prefers not to dry out much and is very tolerant to soggy soil conditions compared to most Nepenthes. Bical also grows a enormous root system as it grows larger, and hates being potbound or frequent pot changes. For those reasons it’s always good to give it proportionally large pots, even when the plant is small, 1 gallon is a good starting size for a very small plant, my current pot is 5 gallons.

Currently it’s a bit under 2 feet in diameter, but it will likely grow much larger. I feed the pitchers with osmocote plus fertilizer pellets, and also have about 5-6 pellets added into the soil to provide extra nutrients. The soil fertilization isn’t neccesary, but it can boost growth if done cautiously, it hasn’t decreased the pitcher/leaf size ratio either.