FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi, I found a website which sells live Sphagnum. 16 different varieties to be exact!
The prices are per head.
Does anybody know, what exactly is a head?

I wouldn't but live spaghnum per growing head unless they were very very cheap, each strand of moss with a live growing tip would be considered one head

most folks buy by the bag full stuffed you could start a small colony off just a head or small handful but it would be a slow game.

check out meadowview research, get a membership with them and you can buy their gallon bags of moss for like $15-20 worth the price of donating to them as almost all their stuff is 50% off for members

I bought a gallon bag on ebay from a different person of red moss and love it -- the gallon bag I bought easily filled up a full 1020 tray if I had spread it out more could have filled two.

It's pretty cheap, depending on variety it's 1 to 3 Euro.
I'm finding it difficult to buy sphagnum moss dead or alive in Poland. In Ireland I remember you could buy bags of live stuff in any pet shop!

ah yes! for your location I am unsure the best place to buy unfortunately! but think of a live head as one live growing strand starting small cultures of a few heads you could eventually have a decent amount of moss to grow

to put price in perspective at least for here we paid around 17 Euros for:
(pictured spread out in a 1020 tray this was one stuffed gallon ziplock bags worth, each red or green tip you see is a growing head

Yea that's a lot of moss haha.
I have a few small live bits that came with a sarracenia I got recently, I think I'll see if I can grow that into anything substantial before buying more "bits".

I know what site you are talking about and it is definitely not worth it if you are trying to get a good amount of sphag. It takes a good while for the sphag to grow and just a few heads will take forever to get any real usable amount. Like years.

I assume the site is Cox Nature (link). I disagree with every reply in this thread. Cox Nature is selling exactly the right way for a one-man shop.

Firstly, he is not poaching endangered species from the wild (most sphagnum species are endangered). Instead, he grows sustainably in a small shop grow setup. He sells the heads because he saves the bodies to grow new heads, and he ships internationally. The heads have the highest growth rate per gram, which saves on shipping costs.

He has actually identified the species he is selling. There are hundreds of sphagnum species, each with different properties. Many species are not good for growing carnivorous plants in, especially the fast growing species because they grow over the carnivorous plant and are the least rot resistant species. Cox sells many different species.

Most live sphagnum on the net is poached from nature. A horrible thing to participate in, considering these are endangered species. A few other shops sustainably grow their own, but do not identify the species they sell, and only sell “red” or “green” sphagnum. There are hundreds of red species and hundreds of green species.

Surprisingly, quality comes with a price. I bought 16 distinct species from Cox a year ago. Here are the before and after:
I can recommend Cox Nature.
Quality over quantity.
Sustainability over poaching.