Can you post a closeup picture of the soil? Maybe take a small handful out and put it on a lighter background/white paper and get a macro or micro photo?

It's probably a milled sphagnum mix.

definitely. i'll see if i can do that today!

Hey Taz! Thanks for the description of the soil! No need to send the picture to you. I dug some out and upon closer inspection it is kind of a mossy woody soil. I am just used to my venus flytrap which is in pure sphagnum long strand moss. I have never seen the denser stuff like in my new nepenthes.

One additional follow up if you can help. the plant is quite large and may need to be pruned or cut soon. I would like to give my father-in-law a cutting but do not know how. There are alot of sites and forums that describe how but no pictures. It talks about nodes and stems and such but teh way my plant (hirsuta ) is there are no stems. Teh plant just grows from a central location where the leaves come out. On the ends of the leaves is a vine about 12-16 inches long with the pitcher at the end of it. So, do I cut the vine with the pitcher attached and plant the vine or do I cut the leaf and the vine near the base of the plant where it comes out of the soil. If I do that will I just be sticking the leaf in the soil. It seems a little odd to just plant a leaf I cut off. Any help? Matt

Nepenthes pitcher plants don't require a dormancy. They are essentially equatorial, so their daylength is ~11-13 hours. Generally speaking, they need Florida weather all year long!

You have to cut the stem or vine. Be careful and use a saw type of knife like a bread or steak knife as they are quite tough and shears will split the stem. I've found a 45-60 degree cut to work best. The stem is where the leaves are attached. There's a node where each leaf is attached to the stem. You need to cut stem with at least 5 full grown leaves from the growth point down and strip the bottom 2 leaves from the cutting which is where the new roots will strike. Use a rooting hormone around the stem but not on the actual wound where it was cut as it will plug it up and keep it from intaking water. I used 50/50 peat/perlite for rooting nepenthes cuttings. Don't keep them too wet, in fact just give them a few shots from a spray bottle a day to keep the cutting from drying out and the soil just damp. It will take about 3 months for the plant to get established from cutting if everything goes right.
The mother/father plant may die back to the ground before sending up a new growth point or it may grow from a side shoot.