Birthday CP purchase

[sykosarah]

Today is my birthday (turning 19, making my mom feel old), and I got some nice birthday cash. Now what to do with it...

oh yes, buy more CPs! My budget is $100 and I want to see what the greatest variety of those glorious carnivores I can get as grown plants. I live in Michigan, so if you have plant sources, please keep them within the United States.

what I don't have: red cultivars of Venus flytraps, Cephalotus, cobra lily, nepenthes (hesitant to buy since I go to college and cannot control my conditions as well. Only species that are particularly hardy and small), and rainbow plant.

What I don't have but also don't want: dewy pine, any water bound carnivorous plants (don't have the space), butterworts (I know lots of people like them, but I have never been a fan), temperate and tuberous sundews (no more long dormancy, it is hard enough finding the space in my refrigerator for my Venus flytrap and trumpet pitchers).

what I do have: typical Venus flytrap, a few tropical drosera that have sprouted, sarracenia purpurea var purpurea, and another sarracenia that is either alata or flava (still not sure, crossing my fingers for alata).

i don't want to grow from seed for my birthday, I am too busy with the new sprouts as it is to have extra seeds in the mix and plus, I want a plant big enough to feed. I am fine with waiting until April to prevent plants from dying off from the cold, so that isn't going to be a problem. I am just wondering how many of the plants on my wish list I can get shipped potted for the amount of money I have.

i don't know which suppliers are good for that or not, which is why I am looking for advice on the best prices and reliable shipping. I don't want to wait 2 weeks like I did with bug biting plants (poor plant barely had any moisture left, and caught a nasty fungal infection that eventually killed it).

[tanukimo]

First of all, happy birthday! I think Lee's Botanical Gardens has the best overall prices, especially since the shipping is very reasonable. Wellspring Gardens has good prices as well. The more famous sites are more expensive in general, I think. Both of these sites have Nepenthes, and Lee's also has Darlingtonia for a pretty good price. I can vouch for Lee's Botanical Gardens since I have purchased plants from them before and they arrived in great condition.
Are you interested in Utricularia (non-aquatic) or Heliamphora?

[sykosarah]

Heliamphora yes, utricularia no.

[tanukimo]

Droseragemmae has Heliamphora minor for a pretty good price.

[sykosarah]

Noted, but is it shipped potted? I don't trust bare-root.

[tanukimo]

Yes, it is shipped potted. I think most of their plants are.

[sykosarah]

I never understood shipping bare root. I mean, it significantly decreases the chances of the plant arriving alive, and then you have to immediately have a pot and soil ready for it. I really can't imagine doing that for plants with thin, sensitive roots such as drosera, or nepenthes, which hate being moved around enough as it is and have very specific soil requirements even by CP standards.

[tanukimo]

Yes, I brought my Drosera tokaiensis with me on a plane ride and put it in a plastic bag and when I got to my destination it was dying and it never recovered. It's much easier to ship that way, though, and probably cheaper too. Have you gotten any new plants yet?

[sykosarah]

Not any that weren't in seed form, and I won't buy my plants now, the weather has been consistently below zero for more than 2 weeks. I am either going to reserve plants or just wait until the weather is better. A heat pack just isn't going to cut it during this time of year.

[lochness]

In my experience bare-rooted have much higher chances of survival. Some reasons for this:

• They're usually shipped dormant (or are plants that come back from roots easily), so there's not much damage to the root system (not any different than repotting or dividing).
• They re-establish a root system once in your environment instead of trying to make do with a damaged system of small roots that could be prone to infection.
• You can more closely inspect them for disease and pests on arrival (extremely important if you have a collection, one diseased plant wiped out my entire collection this year).
• It reduces shipping weight so you are paying for plants instead of media. You can save money or spend the money on more plants.
  
• For better or worse it reduces the amount of hitchhikers. Fewer free plants from seeds or cuttings that fell into the pots, but it also means fewer weeds such as certain mosses.

The nursery standard is bare-root for these reasons, and probably a few I've forgotten. The survival rate of bare-root vs. potted is largely favorable to bare-root; especially in rhizome plants. Only in plants with weak or delicate root systems (Magnolias, Utricularia) would potted be preferred. Nearly all nursery stock is bought bare-root (except plug plants, but that's another story). There's usually a good reason for the options that are available.

[sykosarah]

The problem I have is that I don't live close by to any nurseries, so it can take more than 5 days for me to get plants sometimes. And they can dry out far faster bare root than in a pot. Plus, not all CPs have a dormancy period to take advantage of.

[paulbarden]

Feb 6, 2014 15:14:13 GMT sykosarah said:

I never understood shipping bare root. I mean, it significantly decreases the chances of the plant arriving alive, and then you have to immediately have a pot and soil ready for it. I really can't imagine doing that for plants with thin, sensitive roots such as drosera, or nepenthes, which hate being moved around enough as it is and have very specific soil requirements even by CP standards.

Decreases the chances of the plant arriving alive??! Tell that to the 150+ Nepenthes in my greenhouse that have been shipped to me bare root, even in the dead of winter, coming from as far away as NY state.

Getting plants like Sarracenia and Nepenthes shipped bare root ultimately has far more advantages than disadvantages. In fact, the ONLY disadvantage I can think of is that you have to pot it up when it arrives. That isn't really a disadvantage (an inconvenience, perhaps) since it allows you control over the potting materials used.

[sykosarah]

Ok, I guess I just have bad experiences with it then, don't need to snap at me

[hcarlton]

I have to agree with Paul and lochness. I once used to ship plants potted, but had so many issues I reverted to bare-root. For plants who must have root systems fully intact, like Drosophyllum and certain Byblis species (even that is on the fence), yes, shipping potted is the only way. Otherwise, bare-root is fine as long as the person packing them for shipping knows what they are doing, i.e. well wrapped root ball, moist container, care for proper temperatures during shipping, etc. And as Paul stated, you get to choose your own potting mix, as often plants are sent (if from nurseries not specializing in CP's) in inappropriate mixes, and you'd have to repot immediately anyways.
Also, if you are buying from nurseries and it's taking 5+ days to get to you, either you're/they're not choosing the right shipping service, or the mail service is really slacking off in your area. The longest it's ever taken for me, via USPS Priority, was a maximum 5 days, because I was stupid and bought/shipped a couple things during the holiday rush period in December. Otherwise, 2-3 days max.

[jdallas]

Whether to ship bare root or potting is not a "one size fits all" proposition. It really varies from plant to plant on what ships well bare root, and what doesn't. Like Paul was mentioning, Nepenthes ship well bare root even though they do tend to temporarily drop pitchers after a transplant until they re-establish. Sarracenia almost don't care what you do to them. Larger sundews such as capensis and binata types ship well bare root, but some of the smaller types have a bit more problems when shipped bare root. It depends on various factors such as how they were packed, weather, and shipping time. Venus flytraps do ok shipped bare root, but I would say they are more successful shipped potting during active growth. Mexican butterworts ship fairly well bare root, although they are a bit delicate. Temperate butterworts don't ship well bare root unless they are just hibernacula. Cephalotus has a very high death rate when shipped bare root. Some plants such as Drosophyllum just can't be bare-rooted very successfully, so are always shipped as a potting seedling.

In our nursery we ship mostly all potted even though in our early days we did ship largely bare root. The biggest reason for this is that unlike most people on a forum like this, many people ordering are new to carnivorous plants, and don't always have a good idea on how to handle their plants at first. Often folks don't understand what cp soil is like, or where to get and how to mix the ingredients. Receiving a potted plant give people a little time to research and figure those things out. We also pot our plants with the intention of them being shipped, so it's actually more hassle on our end to bare root then to just leave them potted. Also, the above list of plants the ship well bare root and those that don't are based on the plants customers have told us have not arrived in good shape, and my own personal experience in ordering larger numbers of some species and what our casualty rate has been.

Jeff