Frequently asked questions |
OrderingDo you have a store in Manila or other cities? No, we are a dedicated online nursery, shipping our plants nationwide. This saves us from store rental and sales staff salaries and much travel to keep them up and running. If we had a store, we would have to increase prices of the plants, so it is actually better to pay for shipping instead of having more expensive plants, especially if you get more than one. Remember, shipping is free if you order for P2500+ - how can you beat that? Plus many customers actually enjoy selecting our plants in the evening after work or even during working hours :) and then have them conveniently delivered to their doorstep - which also saves money and more importantly time. How do I pay you? Just visit our website www.pitcher-plants.com and compile a list of plants you are interested in - you can use the shopping cart to help you. Once you have that list, send it to us and we will then check if the plants are available and give you a total, together with our BPI account. We are insisting on that order, to avoid that people pay for plants that are not available, forget shipping charge or calculate too much shipping charge. Why do you only accept BPI payments? BPI has one of the largest bank networks in the Philippines and we can check the money entrance instantly online and conveniently from our farm, which is very important as most people pay last minute. Further BPI is free to anyone, you don't need to have an account with them to pay in cash. If you don't have BPI nearby, you might be able to ask a friend/relative to pay for you when visiting a bigger city. Some of our return customers even enrolled us for their BPI online banking, so they can pay anywhere, as long there is Internet. Please note that we also accept Credit Card payents through Paypal. I can't visit BPI during office hours. Can I pay through BPI ATM deposit? Yes, if your ATM machine accepts deposits, this is possible. HOWEVER, be aware that this form of payment is NOT instant, it takes often up to 24 hours to be credited to our account. So this is NOT an option for payment on the cut-off date. The receipt of the ATM machine is not qualifying as a proof, the money needs to be on our account. Are credit card (Visa/Master) payments through Paypal instant? Yes, if you have a Paypal account already. If you are new to it and still need to create one, you will be asked to verify your credit card, which takes around 3 days. Therefore we recommend to create the account early, even if you intend to pay late. Please note that we will only ship to your Paypal registered address. I am not from the Philippines. Can I also order? Sorry, no. We are purely serving the Philippine market. Legal export is a major headache and illegal export is illegal :) Can I pay the plants upon receiving? Sorry no. In most online transactions products are paid prior to receiving. For plants this is specially sensitive, as when buyer is not ready to receive, or just changes his/her mind the plants might be dead, after they return - if at all. We have every month several people ordering plants, but in the end not sending the payment. Can I order by phone? Yes, you can call us at +63 912 9492800. However often I leave the phone on the charger, while being in the greenhouse, our signal not being perfect etc. Ordering through phone is a bit tough though, spelling the plant names, address, repeating account numbers etc. Texting can be annoying, too as it can take us 30 minutes to sell a single VFT to a customer... And it can take forever to find the customers name, address and order in separate SMS messages, as we can't put names to each number calling/texting us. Often we get a message 'I have paid this afternoon' a few days after initial contact, which is great news, but it takes a bit of detective work to find out who is 'I', what was ordered, what address... :) Therefore it is easier to do all communication, plant species, prices, bank account number via e-mail. We are very online here, you won't wait long for an answer! You are online while reading this, right? I ordered already, but I want to order more or something else. Can I add or change my order? Yes, if the shipping deadline hasn't passed, there is no problem. Please be aware though, that this situation sometimes confuses us on shipping day and we forget to ship the add-on/changes - most of the time this doesn't happen, but in rare cases it does. Please understand that we can only credit the added payment for a future order in that case, but it does not qualify for a free shipment of the missing plants as it is not totally our fault only. The safest orders are those that contain all plants with address and phone number in one e-mail, without a two meter long e-mail discussion, changes etc. I have e-mailed you, but didn't get an answer. What's wrong? Solution 1: I haven't written the answer yet. The whole e-mail thing is a one-man show and sometimes I am out for a day or two. As we are shipping every two weeks only, the order process is not that time-sensitive, even if you are very very excited to receive that VFT... We are not the police, ambulance or a 7-11 store thus we are not 24/7, neither do we have regulated office hours. How can I trust you? I haven't even met you! If you google for Volker Heinrich and pitcher plants you will find me in many corners of the net. selling plants, discovering new species, running one of the biggest CP discussion forums on the planet. Carnivorous plants are my life and joy. You will see that people are happy with the plants and the service. Many sales sites are interactive and allow feedback of all kinds. Some people are even posting pictures and updates of the plants that they have received. Can I visit you at your farm in Bukidnon? Yes, of course. But you will have to let me know ahead of time when you plan to come, as I am the only person authorized to sell plants, so I should be there, too. We will give you info how to find us after that, or even be your taxi from Malaybalay bus terminal. We even have a wooden low energy guest house for overnight visitors, in our and many visitors opinion the coziest place to stay in Bukidnon. We have cool nights here and a mountainous forest setting. Especially city dwellers, that need to relax from the noisy, polluted and hot city, love it here! Of course you can also just visit for plant buying. Or just for a Volker-guided tour. Please note that I will charge P50 per person, unless you buy several plants. Please check www.pitcher-plants.com for our accommodation page. I missed the ordering batch. When will you ship again? We usually aim to ship on the 3rd or 17th, but move these dates to avoid holidays, Sat, Sun and Monday. You will find it always announced at our website, plant section. Is your website up to date? Yes always. We update it sometimes several times a day. Still, it is important that we verify your order PRIOR to you payment. Can I request a picture of the actual plants before shipping? Sorry no, it just creates too much logisitics. Can I ask to send me specially nice plants - "better than the others"? Sure you can ask :) but since every customer gets the nicest plants, better than the others, it's sort of pointless ... :) Can I contact you via instant messenger (YM, ICQ, MSN, Skype)? We really stick to e-mail here, it's most efficient. Chatting can take forever. Since you are already viewing the FAQ, you should get most questions answered already. Way to go! |
ShippingWill the plant die during shipping? No. LBC takes usually only 24 hours (or 48 if you are far away from large cities, or if the cargo section of the plane to Manila is already full), which is not a problem at all for the plants. When we import, we have sometimes 2 cm size in-vitro plants that still survive 6 days of international travel. Can I pay extra to have the plants shipped in soil? No, sorry our plants are shipped bare-root. The soil is quite heavy and creates a strong impact when the box is not handled carefully. It can easily smash the plants. Just imagine the box traveling upside down for several hours in a truck on a bumpy road... Further LBC doesn't like/allow soil either and we definitely need to remain friends with them. Do I have to pick the plants in an LBC office up? No, normally they deliver at no extra charge directly to your home or work place. However, some customers prefer pickup at an LBC office near their working place, as nobody is in their home during the day and it might be hard to deliver at their work place. In that case they provide us with the desired LBC Branch instead of their address. You will need to bring an ID to pick up the plants then. What do I need to prepare for the arrival of the plants? Prepare the media and do it a few days ahead to soak it very well with rain water and exchange it every now and then, as for coco fibers it takes sometime to saturate with water. The plants will have anyway a tendency to have a mild dry stress after arrival until the roots connect properly with the soil. You can help them by drowning the plants after arrival for 30 mins in a bucket with rainwater, prior to planting. For VFT, Pings and Sundews use 90mm pots, for Nepenthes 135mm pots unless they are rated size large or bigger. Are there special measures after arrival of the plants? Yes, keep the plants away from direct sunlight, until you can see happy new leafs and growth. Sometimes Nepenthes enjoy a high humidity environment, like a closed clear plastic bag for 2-3 weeks, which you then can open gradually, every 3 days a little more until removal. If you have lots of rain around and a sturdy plant you might be able to do without. What time of the day will the plants arrive? I don't know! If you live beside the LBC hubs in Pasay it might be early morning, if you live in a remote mountain village it might be even after 48 hours. If the LBC motorcycle driver will have a flat tire it will be in the late afternoon. If a helicopter crashes on him, you won't receive your plants :-/ I could tell you that the packages arrive on average around noon, but then some people panic if they don't have it by noon (and ask ME what's wrong) - so I rather say nothing :) The official LBC answer is: anytime. Our e-mail customers will always receive a tracking number, with which they can track the location of the box on the LBC website. Do the plants arrive on 'shipping day'? No - they arrive the day (or even two days) after, 'shipping day' means we will go at 5:30 am to the greenhouse and start packing and be at 9:00 am in the bus to Cagayan de Oro and at 11:00 in the quarantine office to get permits and at 12:00-13:00 at LBC for shipping. After that they are airlifted and arrive in the LBC Pasay hub in the late afternoon - even if they will be flown back to the province (even for most Mindanao destinations). From Pasay delivery and further transportation continues in the following morning. Can I have the tracking info immediately after shipping? No, sorry, you will receive it around 9pm in the evening. The main reason for this is that the LBC tracking does not work yet on the shipping day, but the following morning. As the shipping day is very stressful for me and I usually have lunch and some other activities (often carrying pots and supplies around) in Cagayan, I do the shipping confirmation in the evening when I am back in the office and can do it comfortably from my computer. For this reason please understand that I am not answering e-mails and "follow-up" SMS during the day. |
Plant matters....We live in a very hot area, will the plants survive? It's a common myth in the Philippines that people believe pitcher plants are mountain plants. But actually pitcher plants were common on Philippine shores just a few hundred years ago. They just dislike the nutrients that come along with human settlements and also suffered from over-collection and thus disappear. While there are pitcher plants that only live in the mountains, many of our plants originate from hot tropical lowland locations. There are actually some (N. ampullaria, N. bicalcarata, N. gracilis, N. rafflesiana, N. mirabilis ...) plants that will grower faster for you than for us. Generally, when we import and propagate plants we are focusing on plants that love warm temperatures, as most of our buyers are in cities like Manila and Cebu.
Some of the "highland" and temperate plants are recommended only for experienced growers, but you will find indications on the website. It's written from a lowland perspective. How often do I need to water the plants? Can not be answered, as it depends where your plants are placed and even their pot size has a huge impact on their watering frequency. In full sun and small pots it might be needed every two hours and indoors maybe once a week. You will have to learn to see when the soil needs water. Most of our plants are water loving, while most of them enjoy drying out for a few hours (definitely not days) rather than staying permanently wet. As you can sense you can lessen the watering frequency by choosing a bigger pot or a more dense soil, but some plants don't like that (lazier approach), too. My Nepenthes is loosing one or more pitchers. Is it dying? After transplanting, sometimes even if you just move the pot within your patio, Nepenthes can get a dry stress and loose pitchers. Latest by then you might want to consider the closed plastic bags technique. Don't worry though it is pretty normal and the first or 2nd new grown leaf at your place should have a healthy nice pitcher. I am a beginner. Which of your Venus Flytraps is the easiest? Venus Flytrap is only one species: Dionaea muscipula - therefore they are all the same despite some optical differences and don't require different cultivation measures. Having said that we and some of our customers believe that the red flytraps grow slower and thus are harder to keep happy. Please also consider starting with Nepenthes pitcher plants first, they are way easier to grow. Will Venus Flytrap bite my fingers off? Are they posionous? Will the pitcher plant digest my finger if I put it in the pitcher? People, you have been watching too many cartoons! These are plants! Humans harm and eat plants, but not the other way around! While thes plants might strike back at some insects, they won't harm you or your pets (unless you are collecting insects :-) ). Or maybe if you keep your finger for 3 weeks in a pitcher plant, maybe you finger gets also a little softer :) I am actually amazed, how often this topic is raised... My Venus Flytrap has black traps. Is it dying? No, it is pretty normal for Dionaea to have black leaves. You can cut them off if you want. A leaf lives only about 2 months for this plant, but in the same time new ones are emerging. If you got the hang of it they should emerge at least at the same rate as the old leaves are dying (recommended) :) My Venus Flytrap arrived and all traps are closed. Why is that? The traps have been triggered during transportation and might react to water stress. They will open again after a week or so. Latest the newly grown leaves will perform as expected. How many leaves (traps) does a VFT have? This is a somewhat strange but common question. Strange, because how would I know how many leaves the individual VFT taken out of hundreds, that I will send to a specific customer in two weeks will have? Even if I would check it, would it still have the same amount of leaves next week?? Anyway, a flytrap should have at least 5 leaves to be allowed for dispatch. What and how often do I have to feed my plant? No, you don't need to feed your plant. The plant is fine without feeding and smart enough to capture its own prey. Food for a carnivorous plant is like vitamins for a human. It's not definitely needed, but makes it stronger and healthier. If you still want to feed, don't use very large insects as they can make the trap mold. Insects should be alive though. Also ants are not recommended as they defend themselves with an acid that can be damaging to the leaf tissue. Don't feed meat, cheese, eggs or other things that don't belong into plants :) I want the easiest carnivorous plant. What do you recommend? Nepenthes are the easiest plants, as they are native to the tropics. Within this group you can start with the cheap hybrids. N. Miranda being for us the fastest and thus easiest. N. Dyeriana might be even faster for you (heat loving) and has very spectacular pitchers. If you want the fastest plant then you might want to look into N. Ventrata. Do I need to do dormancy? This applies mostly for Sarracenia and Dionaea, while most others are tropicals. We are still experimenting ourselves with this topic. For Sarracenia it seems to depend on the origin. If your plant is from the northern USA like S. purpurea it might be very important, whereas we are suspecting that S. leucophylla is negotiable without. Anyway we have super-mild winter here in the Philippines, plus the following dry season can also keep plants dormant. Just Google around and build your own opinion. For VFT we have 4 year old plants that are happy and big without dormancy, they just don't flower. But you don't want VFT flowers either, they are boring and drain the energy of the plant. So, if a plant needs a dormancy, I can not grow it? Sure, you can! Just put it in the refrigerator for 3 months. Procedure is, get it out from the soil, wash it, cut at least for Sarracenia all pitchers off (they die anyway when cold), clean the roots, drown the whole Rhizome in a fungicide solution (we are using Dimethane, which you find in any Agrisupply) and then transfer it in a tupperware. As a luxury you can make a bedding in the tupperware from Long Fibred Sphagnum (LFS), available at Garden 2000 in Manila Seedling, Quezon City. Put a date on the tupperware and place it in the warmest area of your refrigerator, which is usually the upper door. Be nice to your family members, that they tolerate that weird container and advise them not to throw it away (been there done that...) :) How do I grow plant XY? What soil do I use? Just visit our website and look for the plant. On top of that page you will find genus specific care instructions. If there is anything special about the species, it will be mentioned in its description. Don't forget that the Internet is full of information. If you google 'VFT cultivation' you will get 27900 hits... If you want to read more than you can find at our site, then head to our forum, which is filled with ten thousands of posts. It even has a Philippine section for local growers. Try also www.flytrapcare.com or www.nepenthesaroundthehouse.com or visit the www.carnivorousplants.org - those should keep you busy for a while. If you are tired from reading try Youtube, lots on there, too! Why are some of your plants so small? First of all the size is usually indicated in the website, as in S=5-8cm, M=8-15cm, L=15-25cm or XL. When we import plants they are usually at S or even smaller and are not cheap either. Carnivorous plants are generally relatively slow growing, sometimes it takes us a year to grow them from S to M. Often they sell out prior to reaching large size and we have to re-import or reproduce. For shipping it is of course also convenient (which means cheaper for you) to have smaller plants. On the other hand we just started our large scale operations in spring 2009, thus most of our plants can't be giants. This should get naturally better over the coming years. Actually it is happening every month... Often our sizes are outdated and the plant you are receiving is already larger, but we have to play safe with our size indications. My house is insect infested. Are your plants my solution? Frankly spoken, I prefer people who grow these plants being fascinated by their beauty and sophisticated ways how to prey, capture and digest insects. If your main purpose is to get an insect free house, you might want to stick to Baygon or move to Alaska or such :). Insect eating plants do catch a bit of insects, but they don't eradicate them (only humans are smart enough to eradicate their food sources (think dynamite/cyanide fishing)). Further on you won't make these plants happy by growing them indoors - they might even die when attempting. Having said that, there are people who bring their sundews or butterworths inside at night and even assist them with a desk light and can watch them catching huge amounts of flying insects including mosquitoes. We have some poultry owners, who are very satisfied with Sarracenia taking care of their fly populations in their homes - although they would need huge amounts of plants to make an impact on their whole farm. Nepenthes are always filling up with dead ants and even roaches if the pitcher size allows. And Venus Flytraps sometimes seem to have their traps permanently closed, as the open traps will be closed quickly by the next victim. |
Money related mattersWhen I buy a more expensive plant, is it bigger? Our prices are reflecting how fast the plant is growing, how many pieces we have imported and how demanded it is. Size is secondary here. N. rajah for example takes 10 years until it has a 30 cm diameter, while N. mirabilis can do the same in a year. If you have very spectacular plants like N. veitchii, N. northiana or N. glabrata they will also come at a higher price, even when N. northiana is still tiny as of the moment. Do plants also become cheaper? Yes, we are working to propagate more ourselves, so at least we can offer SOME species at even lower prices. But before we can release plants for very low prices, we really need to produce lots to keep up with demand sustainably. However sometimes the plants sell out, and get more expensive after a new import. Do plants also become more expensive? Yes, when they get bigger, especially from Size M to L. But usually I will keep smaller or repropagated plants at the same base price. Do you have wholesale sales? Yes, for many of the P250 plants. If you order for example 10 Venus Flytrap you get 1 plant and shipping for free. If you order 20 you get 6 and shipping for free and possibly even better conditions if you get more. Depends here on the species. For the more expensive plants I can not give any discounts. And yes, the 20 plants need to be the same species and clone - otherwise it is not whole sale :) Can I resell your plants? Of course. For online sales it might however happen, that I will sell at the same place, as my customers are usually quickly pointing out if someone else sells somewhere for more money. If you have a store, cafe or sell at a market, there won't be any competition and you will be surprised, how much attention you will get with those plants. What if my question is not here? Ask us! And it will appear here afterwards including answer! |