Finally, a descently cared vft at walmart

[peter]

I was just at a local Walmart a few days ago, and I was suprised that they were not near the cash register... so I was shopping for some perlite, sand, ... in their greenhouse when I saw the usuall box full of VFT's, and to my suprise they were looking pretty nice!
Finally a place were they give the plants alot of light and from the looks of it and looking very nice!
They were all Dente's having 1" traps but I couldn't rescue them since I already have like six Dente's at home...

 

[HellzDungeon]

the more the marrier

also, they prob just arrived from the tc labs, so they would be looking good, but give them some time, and theyll prob be goners for sure...
sadly, not to many ppl know about the requirments of CPs, and VFTs being the most popular, its a shame to see them wither away...
but then again, they are mass produced, thousands are pumped out a month, its crazy.
Hellz

 

[naja02]

Hi peter,

I'd say Hellz comments are probably pretty much on target. Give the Walmart employees some time and the VFTs will reflect the value of their efforts. I've seen Walmart VFTs and cacti follow the same path to doom.

But here's some thoughts for ya:

You may have +/- 6 dentate now, but a few more would make good experimenters. I don't know what You've done/tried/accomplished in the cutting/propagation arena--but they could start out as cutting experiments.

and/or

they could be the test plants for this winter's dormancy experiment(s).

If you want to test the value of rainwater vs. distilled vs. your local tap vs. whatever--you have some VFTs to play with.

Next spring I may take some of my older typical cuttings and do group experiments with very diluted liquid fertilizer. I like my VFTs, but I have enough typicals to experiment around with and check somethings out. I will probably plant some in that Growcoir I bought, just to see what I think about it.

A few extra/expendable VFTs might come in handy for you to have around.

Hate to hear about you losing those larger older VFTs with the big rhizomes and traps. I have some that I picked up at Lowes--and they are sweet! I would hate to lose them. If You remember where You got them--it might be worth trying to get more from the same source. I have typicals coming out the gazoo, but have been tempted to "Buy a few more"---because I know the rhizomes are BIG....and so are the TRAPS! If You have a Lowe's in your area--check out their large VFTs. You've been around this long enough that you should be able to pick out some nice plants! They are the $8-10 larger version.

Anyway, too many Dentate---NEVER!

 

[peter]

Trust me, I have WAY too many plants at home already!  Anyways, the big VFT's that I buy the from are because of a few good connections that I have and can get them for extremly low prices (To be exact about a little less then 2.00 each including shipping).  9.00 on a plant I feel is a little over priced, where you can get a good cultivar these days for less.  The most I would pay for a Dente, Typical, Green/Red dragon is 2.00.
Now, regarding about the plants at Walmart- I just went back there today,and to my suprise alot of them were gone, but the ones left were still in pretty good shape.  I know the whole story about Stores taking horrible care of their Cps, but it looks like this Walmart finally had the brains to do research and actually do the first step which was to put them in a area that get lots of light, unlike the few shoplights from like 50 feet away like other stores.

Naja02, As of right now my growing space is very limited that is why I gave away alot of my seedlings and all my Utics so that I can make more room for them.  Just to count right now, I probably have around 150+ plants including seedlings in my pocession right now!  I will try to get some pictures of my plants, I can't wait to get pics of my D. "Giant" which is sporting traps at around 1.5 inches!

 

[Tamlin Dawnstar]

If you want to experiment, you can't beat the .79 cent plants offered by PFT. They are really plants, not bulbs, at least most of them are! I couldn't believe it when I saw them. They aren't dinky little things either.
Valerie ordered 50 of them, so I will be trying alll sorts of experiments I think. I am going to grow some as strict aquatics.

 

[naja02]

Hi Tamlin,

I ordered some when they were .99 cents, and those are at least some of the ones that I will use for experiments next year.

Strictly aquatic? Does that mean completely underwater--leaves, traps and all, or are you talking hydroponics (sp?)?

Hi peter,

$2.00 including shipping for 10+ yr old bulbs? That's a good price and even though I don't know all the details of where your source gets their supply--it sounds like a field collected supply, ie. illiegal. Maybe not though.

There's one vendor online I'm aware of that sells them for just above $3.00 for 10+ yr olds and that person has been accussed many times of trying to aquire illegally collected VFTs through others. I half suspect the ones I bought at lowes were originally illegally collected, but I didn't know much of anything about any of this cp stuff at the time, and have no evidence either way.

I'd like to know where to get good cultivars with 10+yr old rhizomes in the $9 range.

lol

Hopefully, for the plants sake, your observations are accurate. I've seen places that have progressed far enough to provide water trays, but the end result is usually the same. But to show the hardiness of these plants---they are STILL alive (many of them anyway) at the end of the season. Worn and battered, but often times still surviving.

Either way, walmart as a whole will kill at least a few thousand again this yr. At least the plants are out there to stir up interest and some of the folks will find places like this for good starter info. And we may have a few more members by the end of the season!

CYa!

 

[Grim]

Hey peter, Where is the walmart? I'm close to your location so I should be able to find it and get some new VFTs

, You still live in MI right?

 

[peter]

I am close to 100% sure that my vendor doesn't collect wild plants.  If he does, then I don't think that he would be able to sell 10,000 plants at a time to wholesale dealers (He made a deal with me, 2,000 6 year old sized plants for .40! each)...  This guy mainly sells whole sale in the thousands, but since I know him pretty well he gives me some discounts when sales are a little low.  They are propogated through tissue culture, and before that leaf cuttings according to him.  I wouldn't buy a wild collected plant for a penny no matter how big it is.  
Oh, I didn't mean a good 10 year old bulb for a rarer cultivar... boy a plant like that would cost over $20!

 

[naja02]

Hi peter,

I don't know your vendor, so these comments are not aimed entirely at him.

Nobody can make any money raising and then selling plants (VFTs) that are 15+yrs old (per another post of yours) for +/-$2.00.

Maybe since you know this guy fairly well and are young, he cut you a deal that can't be beat just to help keep you interested in CPs/VFTs, or because he likes you.

If he's making any money at all--they were wild collected. You can't raise plants for 15 yrs and turn a profit @ $2.00. I can't think of any profitable reason to keep VFTs around that long, and then sell them that cheaply---doesn't mean there isn't one--just means that I can't THINK of one. But you CAN cut someone a deal, take a "loss" and feel very good about it.

The vendor I was refferring to earlier offers 30 cents each from what I understand. If he sold them for $1.50 each--That's a 500% mark-up. Multiply that by a few thousand........::

I doubt your vendor sells 10,000 10+yr old bulbs/yr. Most of them no doubt are the TC that you mentioned.

The point is Economics dictates that you cannot raise plants like VFTs for 10-15 yrs, sell them for $2.00 and stay in business. Even land taxes would probably make it a lousy idea if you sowed a couple acres and came back in 10 yrs.

But, again, sometimes people do nice things for their own reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that!

Yes, I was just pulling your chain on the 10yr old cultivar(s).

CYa!

 

[peter]

For wholesale, I ment the 6 year old plants
He mainly sold them that cheap to make space for other plants.  If you think about it, if you raise hondred thousand plants outside in a greenhouse or bog, they take care of themselves baisically... he lives in the surrounding area where Dionaea's can live outside year round, so their isn't too much expense, then say if you live in Michigan.
Again, remember that he does tissue culture too, where do you think your big Venus Flytraps came from then Naja02?  I don't think that Red Dragons live in the wild...LOL

Also, you have to remember that he is a WHOLESALE dealer , so he sells to many websites or distributors who then mark the plant prices up to nine or ten dollars.  I don't think all Cp websites have been around here for 15 years... they probably buy the bigger bulbs from people like my vendor in big packs like a 100 and mark them up to like $15.00 bareroot because of the costs of electric bills, potting soil, ect. which my vendor doesn't have to pay since he lives in a region where Cps grow naturally.
Guess how much the plants at Lowes cost w/o the markup?
I bet you it is much less then what I bought them for!  And accroding to you the plants are Big and are probably around 6-10 years old....Hmmm, that sounds pretty fimiliar to what I just said.
In tissue culture you can probably get a 5 year old plant in a half a year, so maybe he only had the plants for five years but looks like a 15 year...  How else does petflytrap sell nice sized plants for .80?   Same with Dean Cook who I think sold 5 year old seed raised for $1.00  during the winter.  It is a matter of producing so many plants that their plants can be sold cheap to others.  And also those prices from Dean and PFT was not wholesale, now imagine wholesale prices... see what I mean now?
So it is possible to sell those sized plants for 2.00 each and still make a profit.  It is not a matter of giving me a break or something out of sorrow, heck I'm seventeen this year.  

Peter

 

[naja02]

Hi peter,

My comments had nothing to do with sorrow--for you or anybody or anything else.

I fully understand the chain that You are describing, but I also understand costs of doing business, ie. labor, Uncle Sam, permits, licenses, property taxes etc, etc, etc--a whole host of expenses that seem to crop up. (Pun intended)

Often times a business will sell a product at cost or at original cost plus estimated overhead just to unload the current stock, because the season, trend, whatever is over or coming to a close. Sometimes they will even sell at a loss in order to reduce their overall loss (dimes on a dollar), or because the trend is over and they made sufficient profit DURING the trend to easily justify unloading the remaining stock quickly. Sometimes, because of Bankruptcy or product discontinuation--Hence, Big Lots, many types of "Dollar" stores, etc.

That is My guess on why PFT is selling VFTs for 79cents: because the peak of the bulk buying season is pretty much over or coming to a close for this year, and they need to unload some overstock. Maybe I'm wrong.


I guess that what I admittedly don't know enough about is TC. I was under the impression that the benefits of TC were much more short-term- I guess not. I wasn't under the impression that plants were raised for yrs in TC. I thought it was simply a matter of months.

If your vendor, or anybody else, can legally raise VFTs with rhizomes that big and sell them for $2.00---I'm behind them completely. Some of my favorites are the "older" plants that I have.

Additional notes on the costs of doing business:The more hands a product travels through--the more markups there are, The markups on living things varies considerably and is higher than non-living things, because living things die, Sometimes the packaging that a product comes in---costs more than the product itself!

As a side note: Some small business owners will work their butt off, take their net 15k profit and a glass of wine and think they have done well for the yr. If they are happy---then I'm happy for them.

Just because someone "owns" a business--doesn't mean they are raking it in hand over fist, or that they are doing well. 9 out 10 business startups fail. #1 reason? Inadequate management. #2 reason? Growing too fast. Get past the first two for 5 yrs---and you MIGHT survive.

But, heck, you're seventeen!