FAQ

There are a many available sources where you can find basic information about growing. You can start on the internet: http://www.sarracenia.com/faq.html. This website contains lots of useful information, including instructions on how to grow these plants. Our websites also provides numerous links to carnivorous plant sites as well as contacts to other growers.

We also recommend four excellent books (in English), which are available in most bookstores. You can also order them on the internet on-line (e.g. www.amazon.com). In these books you’ll find lots of important facts about carnivorous plants and about their growing.

Barry Rice: Growing Carnivorous Plants (Timber Press 2006, 224 pages, ISBN 0881928070)
Peter D'Amato: The Savage Garden: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants (Ten Speed Press 1998, 314 pages, ISBN 0898159156)
Adrian Slack: Carnivorous Plants (The MIT Press 2000, 240 pages, ISBN 0262690896)
James Pietropaolo and Patricia Pietropaolo: Carnivorous Plants of the World (Timber Press 2005), 206 pages, ISBN 0881923567)

Unfortunately, we usually do not answer basic questions. Please try to understand that this is not due to unwillingness, we just don’t have the time and capacity to answer the same questions every day. All you need to know, you can easily find on the internet or in specialised literature.

If you are our customer and you have a specific problem with growing a plant that you have bought from us, we of course try to help you as much as we can. So please don’t be shy and ask us anything you want.

Price of shipping and handling charges will be automatically calculated and displayed on your order form once you have completed your order. Price depends on weight and the method of shipment chosen. This is why we can’t answer this question in advance.

We require payment prior to shipping, no exceptions. We will ship your order after your payment arrives.

You have many options how to pay for your order. The method of payment can be chosen automatically after completing your order in our e-shop. At that time, you will also be given information on additional fees connected with using some forms of payment (e.g. PayPal).

You can order through the e-shop. Another option is to order from the list of species: link price list, situated on the upper bar. You can also send us your order by e-mail or fax it, if you prefer.

We are located in the European Union, so we can deliver our plants to all European countries without any permits required. We are able to send plants anywhere in the world though. It is up to the grower to determine what are the rules for importing of the plants into his/her country and inform us of these requirements. If required, we are able to issue Phytosanitary certificates and/or CITES documents. Seeds may be imported without restrictions (there are a few exceptions). We always try to help our customers, so they can receive their plants without complications.

Unfortunately these costs are connected with the processing of your order. Different companies charge us for receipt of these payments, or for their obligatory conversions and withdrawal fees. The fee depends on the method of payment. While other sellers add these costs into the price of the plants or into the shipping and handling fee, we think it’s more transparent to charge it separately. So our customer can choose the method of payment with the fee he likes the best.

We do offer our customers extra plants (or seeds) for free, as a compensation for this payment. They can choose them and add them to their order as a bonus. So our customer is never on the losing side of things.

Best Carnivorous Plants has been on the market for many years. We have processed thousands of orders during that time. We have participated in many international meetings and have conducted many expeditions to research new species or to meet the colleagues in the same field. We have personal contacts with world known specialists in this field. If you doubt about our credibility, feel free to ask for references on any internet forum (which is devoted to carnivorous plants).

All personal details and payment details of our customers are strictly protected and they can not be misused.

It is our policy to add to every order extra plants (or seeds) for free. This is our way of thanking our customers for their order and compensating them for additional fees connected with certain methods of payment. The general rule is the bigger your order is, the more bonus items of bigger value you can choose.

After you finish your order, go to the box marked „Bonus items“, which is on your order form and add the plants (or seeds) you want to receive. We will try to send you these special items with your order as a gift. If the ordered bonus item is not available, or its amount is limited, we will choose a substitution.

If you order in the e-shop, it will take just few days to process it. During this time we confirm your order, check availability of the items and ask you to pay (by the method of payment you’ve chosen). After we receive the payment we will process your order as soon as possible – within one week. In exceptional cases we reserve the right to process the order in 2-4 weeks. This may be due to absence or other more important (seasonal) work. If this is going to occur, we will inform you in the confirmation letter.

The process will be sped up if you correctly fill out the internet ordering form, choose a method of payment and do not ask any unimportant questions (which slows down the process while we answer your questions). Orders which fulfil these terms are processed as a priority.

If you send your order by e-mail, mail or if you fax it and the order is not completed correctly (missing details in the address, or missing method of payment) the process would be slowed down. In such a case we would need time for extra communication with you to find out missing details, which are necessary for us to accept the order.

Larger orders are a priority to us. We process these orders first. If you do not receive confirmation of your order within than two weeks, please, send it again and let us know about this problem. It is possible, that your order has been lost or identified as spam. You can also try to send it from another e-mail address or fax it.

We regularly participate in European carnivorous plant meetings (EEE) and occasionally we visit some local events, where we are invited. We usually take part in the international conference (ICPS). You can meet us personally there. Sorry, but it is not possible to visit our greenhouse.

Unfortunately, we do not send any printed offers. Our whole list (including sale conditions) is placed on our website. If you want to be informed about changes, discounts, etc. you are welcomed to register yourself for our update e-mails.

We work hard to avoid this mistake and such a thing hardly happens. We have been in this field for 20 years and have used our experience to minimize mistakes. Incorrect names are less and less common in these times. There are also new species, which haven’t been grown before. Sometimes we are not fully able to verify the identification of a plant, because we are dependent on our provider (this is primarily an issue with seeds and small plants). Sometimes a misidentified plant is only visible after a few years of growing when physical appearances become more obvious. When this happens, we inform our customers that the item from our list was misidentified and they can correct this mistake in their collections. If you have doubts about a plants identity, please let us know.

We are sorry, but even under these circumstances, we are not able to give you any discount. We don’t believe in discounts in general. We have limited amounts of species and sell them without discounts. We do reward our customers with high quality plants and by including extra bonus items for free, which they can choose and add to their order.

We apologize, but we are not equipped for mass production of cheap plants. There are other companies specialized for this. As you can see, we produce a smaller amounts of specialized plants and usually don’t have more than a few dozen plants from each species. We are focused mainly on final customers (growers). However, at the moment we do have a large supply of some items (mainly the genus: Dionaea, Drosera, Pinguicula and Sarracenia). If you are interested in these items and you would like to order a larger quantity, you will receive a discount (by agreement). Please don’t hesitate to contact us if interested. Unfortunately we can not send any samples or any smaller amounts for discounted prices in advance. For this, you can order as a regular customer.

Thank you for your honesty! Previously, large commercial firms have bought our plants which we bred and invested a lot of time and money into making them available to the public. In many cases, these companies propagated this material and now offer it now in huge quantities as their own. So they use our material for their own profit. If you would like to use our material commercially (this refers mainly to clones of Dionaea and Mexican Pinguicula selected by us), please, contact us and we will help you out or offer you something more interesting. Together we will find an amicable method for use without having to resort to stealing our plants for another companies profit!

We have been interested in carnivorous plants for more than 20 years and during that time we have tried various methods of growing and propagating these plants. We have solved numerous issues while growing them. We know their exact requirements and possible risks of growing. We know the demands of our customers and we know which species are desirable by the public. We have sufficient amount of own stock propagation material which can be used commercially. We are ready to provide you with consultation for growing and commercial use. We are also ready to partly participate in your activities if you are interested.

This may happen and we apologize for this. We wish we had more time for internet communication, but we need to dedicate our time towards growing the plants. We appreciate every e-mail you write. We always try to answer it personally and with a professional attitude. But you have to count on a delay, especially when your question is more complicated. We receive dozens of emails daily (and they are answered by one person in the evenings!). Delays can happen for several reasons.

We have a new system of priority for answering emails. Orders and questions from our regular customers and friends have higher priority and we try to answer these immediately. This is sometimes affected by more urgent work in the greenhouse or in the laboratory or if we are away (2-4 weeks) for business or field trips. If you don’t receive your answer in more than two weeks, please send us your question or order again.

Please, don‘t feel offended, but the e-mails with following content have lower priority and may be delayed for several weeks or months due to limited time availability. You may not have received your answer yet because:

- Your question is vague or doesn’t make any sense.
- You ask about things already included in our website (e.g. what is species do you offer? what are the shipping methods and payments? do we send the plants to your country? how do we send the plants? how you can pay? etc.)
- You ask about basic facts you can easily find elsewhere (on the internet or in the literature). Or you ask how to grow the plants and you are not our customer.

If you still consider your question as an important one, and you still haven’t received an answer, please send it once more. We will try to answer it, if we find the time.

Would you like to help us with internet communication with people who are interested in growing carnivorous plants around the world and you have some experience with growing carnivorous plants? If so, please contact us. We would definitely like the help!

Unfortunately, it is impossible for us to monitor everything that is written about us (mainly in internet forums and websites). We don’t react because we don’t feel the need to. We apologize if you saw incorrect information about BCP somewhere on the web, but we can’t do anything about this. These discussions are anonymous, so you can judge how relevant they are. Also, we feel it is necessary to maintain a distance from these discussions. Some negative contributions are motivated by spite and the internet provides these people with the opportunity to attempt to discredit somebody without real evidence.

Whatever you read, please be assured that we will do our best to make you satisfied. We are helpful, we sell high-quality plants and seeds and we promptly react to any claim. If you have any doubts, please contact us. It is in our own interest to make our customers satisfied. We have a great reputation extending over many years, and we don’t want to lose this. Our target is to make all customers have a good experience with us so that they will keep ordering from us. So far, we have achieved this and hope to continue with you.

Yes, we are very interested in obtaining any new and precious material from all species of carnivorous plants for our collection or for future propagation. In this case we would be glad to exchange it or buy it from you. We are especially interested especially in rare or localized species of carnivorous plants and their seeds. We are specialists in propagation and cultivation of rare species, so when you provide us with this material, there is a good chance that we will be able to grow and successfully propagate it. This automatically protects the natural sites from poaching. We also can provide you back with a large amount of these plants or seeds. If the seeds were collected from their natural environment, they must be done so in a way that does not endanger the population and meets all local laws. We grow and propagate plants from these seeds and only this material and its offspring are used for sale. We always sell the plants or seeds from cultivation with location information, but we don’t trade plants from the wild.

Don’t be afraid to offer us anything special as long as it is not common plants.

You help us the most by buying our plants and sharing your positive experiences with other growers (e.g. in web-discussions or personally). You can help by telling us what we can improve, or if you let us know about technical or grammatical mistakes on our websites. If you are satisfied, you can also advertise us on internet forums or support us by placing our e-shop contact on your websites. We are grateful for any help you can provide, even if it is small.

We also look for partners who can provide quality photos of carnivorous plants in cultivation or in nature. If you travel and visit places with carnivorous plants, we would gladly provide you information about specific location if possible. We are also searching for people with technical background, somebody who can host our other websites, or who can assist with web development and graphic design.

We are also looking for help in editing and correcting specialized text and plant descriptions on our websites (everything in English language). Also we are looking for somebody who can translate our websites into French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese or other languages. We are looking for experienced growers who can help us answer the basic questions for e-mail communication with our clients and partners.

We are looking for capable growers of carnivorous plants (fully non-professional), who would like to cooperate and keep the reserve deposits of rare plants in their homes (to help with their growth and propagation).

What you can expect in exchange. For your help we can offer you new plants from our wide array of plants and access to new material for free. If you have a different idea on how we can reward your work, please, let us know.