Nepenthes alata grown outdoors?

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and do not have a green house. Any thoughts of how to grow this one outside?

 

Are you able to share whether you have the highland or lowland form of Nepenthes? Would you be in a position to post a photo of one of your pitchers? Overall, the alata is quite adaptable.

 

Don't know if it's highland or lowland. Photo attached...
Many Thanks.

 

Little bit of information for you on the alata that I found on line.
http://www.nepenthesforeveryone.com/alata.htm

Here’s one variant of a highland-
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ms.vaughan/cp/nephi.htm

Here’s the highland form I have which is a clone of this actual plant I believe-
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dpevans/N_alata.htm

Here’s another highland form grown by Jeff and Jacob-
http://www.cobraplant.com/carnivorous-plants-for-sale3/nepenthes-alata.html

Here’s a photo of an all green or rather anthocyanin free that I’ve had my eyes of for a while-
http://cp.4mmproject.com/grow_nalata.php

Here’s a lowland form-
http://www.hortusb.com/neal.html

Here’s another lowland variant-
http://www.scarnivores.com/product.asp?pid=10&page=1&plnm=Nepenthes+alata++dark+red

And one more lowland-
http://coloradocarnivorousplantsociety.com/N_alata_Lowland_MT.htm

I’m not good enough to tell you whether you have a highland or a lowland from the leaves. I might be able to take a shot at it if it was pitchering but even then you could have a hybrid. Tough call. Increase the lighting and try to get it to pitcher. If you really want to know, I could give you a few e-mail addresses and you could contact a few experts to see if they know but the plant should be pitchering. There are quite a few people out your way who have forgotten more than I have ever known about Nepenthes. Other than that, your plant looks happy and healthy. I know you’d probably like it to pitcher but that can probably be addressed easily enough. What kind of a medium do you have your plant in and what kind of humidity do you have where the plant is growing? That plant likes very bright indirect light based on my personal experiences.

One thing I am spotting is that you have the plant in a bowl. You would probably want a fast draining medium for your alata and you wouldn’t want it to have wet feet. Another thing that I do is remove some of the upper portions of Neps to stimulate basal growth but then that’s just me and I like to tinker with plants because I like pitchers. I guess what I am saying is that I’d whack that plant back, change the medium which may be spent, increase the humidity, and get it into more light. I just whacked quite a few plants back here and gave all the cuttings to my girlfriend to experiment with.

 

Definitely, I'd like it to pitcher and I'd like to follow your advice to change the medium to something fast draining, increase the light/humidity and cut it back.

What would you suggest for medium? (I've got green moss and an african violet mix that was suggested to me by a gardener here.).

How much should I cut it back? And can I do anything with those cuttings to start new plants?

 

seeing that you live in California, check out this colleague's site: http://www.nepenthesaroundthehouse.com/

He grows all his neps outside his home... with real amazing results. Check out his photos, it's a true testiment of how easy it is to grow these plants.

I grow a number of my highland (cooler climate) nepenthes outdoors during our westcoast Canadian summers. I also grow a number of them in my office, without the high humidities. Just remember to follow the golden rule of gradually acclimatizing your plant to any new condition.