Carnivorous Plants: Care and Propagation: Everything You Need to Know About 25 Common Carnivorous Plants: A Guide to Success
About this ebook
As the world went into lockdown and many of us found ourselves working from home, I decided to try my hand once more at houseplants. For years, I had struggled with keeping plants alive, let alone thriving. My previous attempts had always ended in failure, but with more time on my hands and a desire to create a more pleasant home environment, I decided to give it another go.
To my surprise, I found myself drawn not just to ordinary houseplants, but to the fascinating world of carnivorous plants. These unique and intriguing plants, with their unusual mechanisms for trapping and digesting insects, captivated my interest. I was determined to learn how to care for them successfully, and, like many in the digital age, I turned to the internet for guidance.
While books and articles provided valuable information, I must admit that one of the most effective resources I found was YouTube. The platform is teeming with experts and enthusiasts who are more than willing to share their knowledge. I owe much of my success with carnivorous plants to the tutorials and advice I discovered there.
Though there are countless channels that offer fantastic plant care advice, there are a few that stand out to me as particularly helpful and inspirational. I would like to give a special shout-out to five channels that I highly recommend for anyone starting their journey with plants, especially carnivorous ones. These channels, in alphabetical order, are Betsy Begonia, Erika Lodes, Garden Tips, Gardening is my passion, and Gardening Right Now. While they may not be the most popular, I found them incredibly easy to follow, and they were a great place to start. Their practical advice and approachable styles helped me build the confidence and skills I needed to succeed.
After several years of successfully growing, caring for, and even propagating a variety of plants, including some specialist carnivorous species, I felt it was time to share my newfound expertise. As a good researcher, I knew I could augment what the natural plant-growing experts had shared with some additional tips and advice.
Having previously written about the 50 most common houseplants, this book is a natural progression. Here, I will focus specifically on 25 of the most common carnivorous plants kept by households in the US, UK, Europe, and beyond. Whether you are just starting your journey with these fascinating plants or have already begun and are looking for tips on how to care for them, this book is for you.
With this guide, I aim to provide all the information you need to successfully care for and propagate carnivorous plants. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I have. Happy growing!
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About the author
From the moment I first opened a history book as a child, I was captivated by the stories of the past: empires rising and falling, extraordinary personalities confronting impossible circumstances, great battles turning upon unexpected decisions, and ordinary people finding themselves caught within events far larger than themselves. History never seemed to me a dry collection of names and dates. It was the greatest collection of human stories ever assembled.
That fascination remained with me throughout my life and eventually found expression in my own writing. My historical books are written particularly with younger readers and newcomers to a subject in mind. Rather than attempting to reproduce the detail and academic depth of specialist histories, I try to provide an accessible doorway into a period, personality or conflict — enough context to understand what happened, why it mattered and, I hope, enough excitement to encourage the reader to discover more for themselves.
Many of my books explore military history, empires, great commanders and the people whose decisions changed the course of events. They are intended for curious younger readers, including pre-higher-education teenagers, while remaining accessible to adults encountering a subject for the first time. My aim is simple: to tell the story clearly without allowing unnecessary detail to overwhelm the adventure, tragedy and humanity that first made history fascinating to me.
Storytelling, however, extends beyond history. My collections of traditional fairy tales have become another important part of my writing. Drawn from different cultures and storytelling traditions, the tales are adapted for modern young readers while attempting to preserve their wonder, humour, adventure and moral purpose. Where older versions sometimes imposed extraordinarily harsh punishments upon their villains, I have often preferred consequences involving repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation or banishment, while retaining enough danger and mischief to make the stories exciting.
Some of these short tales deliberately leave questions unanswered. A fairy tale does not always need to explain everything. A child asking “Why did she do that?” or “Do you think he deserved to be forgiven?” can be part of the purpose of the story. I hope such questions encourage conversations between children and their parents, because the interpretation a parent brings to a tale — and the discussion that follows — may ultimately be more valuable than my own.
Whether writing about a battlefield, an emperor, a legendary hero or an enchanted kingdom, I return to much the same principle: tell a good story, make it accessible, encourage curiosity, and leave the reader wanting to know more.
