Nepenthes edwardsiana: One of the most desired of all Nepenthes!

Endemic to the island of Borneo, Nepenthes edwardsiana is only found on Mount Kinabalu and Mount Tambuyukon. These plants can be found growing as epiphytes and prefer it on the dryer side in cultivation. We recently took a trip to Exotica Plants in Australia and had a chance to spend a lot of time with their eddy :). We also made a video you can check out here! Sorry for the quality, we didn’t have our camera man handy ;P.

Be sure to subscribe at the bottom of our home page for more articles like this, and to be notified when we add new plants to our online shop!

Thanks Nepenthes Lovers!

Exotica’s edwardsiana collection is a sight to behold! Approximately 9 years old from seed, their specimens are from the Marai Parai location on the slopes of Mount Kinabalu. They have over 15 plants ranging in color from gold to deep red! Geoff had visited the location and told us it was actually quite warm during the day. He considers them more of an intermediate grower. Most of his plants were near the evaporative pads and we could feel a cool breeze blowing over them throughout the day. There were a couple very happy specimens growing in the lowland greenhouse too!

A few cultivation notes.

What Nepenthes grower doesn’t want an edwardsiana?! The price and rarity doesn’t make it an easily obtainable plant, but if you can get passed that, these plants aren’t difficult to grow. Many growers do well in greenhouses and indoor grow chambers. By day, the plants do well between 78-85 Fahrenheit. As long as the nights are hovering around 60 Fahrenheit, they will be more than happy. They love highland temperatures, but their growth will be slower. Our plants grow right through the summer and we don’t even reach 67F most nights.

Damp, not wet!

Edwardsiana mainly grow epiphytically on trees, so they prefer dryer conditions compared to most other species. Don’t let them go bone dry, but allow them to stay more on the “damp sponge” side of moist. Some days, the moss turns completely white in Exotica’s greenhouses and the plants seemed to love it! Just look at the images!

We recommend keeping your water at a very low TDS and the ppm should stay between 0-15 for casual watering. That’s just our preference, but all our Neps do best with a very low ppm.

They prefer bright, indirect light most of the day. You can see the bright, diffused light in the images below. We have had great results using LED lights. We supplement ours in the winter months to meet the 12-14 hours of daylight that they prefer. They perk up very quickly and get vibrant color in the pitchers. High humidity is beneficial for healthy growth as well. Relative humidity should be 75-80% during the day and up to 100% during the night.

Feed them!

Many growers use Maxsea as a foliar spray with great results. Others saturate the soil, but this can cause more harm than good if you use too much. We find that they don’t like as much fertilizer as other neps, so we keep our TDS under 60ppm and only gently splash the leaves. In the past, we used 80ppm in the soil and our plants completely skipped the next pitcher. We don’t fertilize through the soil anymore, instead give it a quick splash of Maxsea every couple weeks and sometimes skip all together.

On the other hand, Exotica uses ESF fertilizer on their plants with great results. They put a teaspoon per 6-8 inch pot and keep it on the surface of the soil, off to the side. The images speak for themselves and clearly shows how well it’s working for them. ESF is a slow releasing fertilizer like Osmocote, but has a different N-P-K value. We do know some growers that use Osmocote with great results. Just be cautious and take it slow. We would recommend foliate spray if you’re only growing one and it needs a lil boost.

The future of edwardsiana hybrids!

Over the past year, edwardsiana hybrids have been popping up all around the world. We call it the ‘Era of Eddy!’ Exotica Plants has successfully flowered a few of their plants and the hybrids they have created are going to be jaw-dropping! Eddy is going to bring a whole new line of hybrids to the market and we’re excited to see how they mature. Maybe it’s going to be a new lean on x Trusmadiensis hybrids? Exotica’s primary x TM crosses are great at first, but it’s not until they cross them back with other plants that the the toothy features really start to shine! We’re hoping for similar results with edwardsiana hybrids.

We hope you enjoyed this article! Check back often for more like this!