FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I barely found any actual reviews of this shop anywhere even though it's been around forever so I'll throw out a quick review for anyone who's in my proverbial shoes in the future. The prices are hard to beat of course and he unexpectedly threw in a few spares for some cheaper ones I ordered just 1 of, but the tracyi I ordered was apparently overlooked and missing, the binatas were in exceptionally bad shape (no roots and extremely leggy so I'll be very surprised if any survive), and the pings seem to be having an unexpectedly hard time acclimating to outdoors (or even the couple I put on my indoor rack for insurance for that matter) even in almost full shade and with a very high water level. Additionally, the capillaris were all entirely green as opposed to the one I got from Meadowview which arrived mostly red (as well as the planifolia which I expected to have at least some red), so unless I got some surprise Emerald's Envy then I suspect some or most of these plants may be grown indoors under insufficient lighting. Also interestingly enough, the rosea had 2 older colorful pitchers but the newer ones were pure green. In spite of the hiccups though, Bruce was a pleasure to deal with and is obviously a stand up guy: quick to reply, tossing in the few extras, and offering to throw a few tracyi in my next order to make up for the missing one. In any event though, I expect I'll have a few likely unavoidable losses from this batch, but at least the sarrs seem to be in solid condition and I wouldn't be concerned about ordering them at least if I was an brand new grower.

My Lee's story: I bought 3 Sarracenia rosea plants (that Bruce labeled "purpurea venosa var rosea Chipola") in mid-spring of this year. A pleasant surprise: they were a lot bigger than I was expecting for just $7.95 apiece. The plants looked a bit shabby, but I chalked that up to them just coming out of dormancy. The typical summer weather here in eastern North Carolina (very warm and ridiculously humid) makes them feel right at home, and they're growing well.

Yeah now that you mention it I'd have to agree it's probably a pretty safe bet to order closer to dormacy. I'll probably pick up some more sarrs and maybe a couple more dews around late winter or early spring, but I think the summer heat could have definitely contributed to some of the minor issues I've had this go around.

Can anyone post a pic of their plants? Lee's prices seem a bit too cheap...

CPhunter101 wrote:Can anyone post a pic of their plants? Lee's prices seem a bit too cheap...

Yeah, sure thing. I didn't really take much worth posting so I'll have to take some better ones tomorrow, but I'll throw up what I've got for now.

This is at a bad angle for the sarrs but at least it should give you an idea. Didn't have labels yesterday but they've since been labeled. Counterclockwise from right: Scattered D. binata, P. caerula (2), P. planifolia, P. primuliflora (2), S. rubra gulfensis, S. rosea 'Chipola', with 3 capillaris plugs scattered around. Unpacked these one by one since it was hot and I didn't want them to dry out while I was working through them, but should be enough to get a sense of scale for the sarrs.

how to contact this gentleman?
a few years ago I ordered him some subtropical US ping and I would like to do it again
thank you in advance

I have only heard good things about Lee's. I have a few friends who regularly buy from him and have always received excellent plants.

Pings looked a little better today so maybe I spoke too soon, though it is early morning, overcast, and around 10 degrees cooler than it has been lately. Strangely the couple indoor ones look worse than this now, go figure. Also noticed the light red streaking/highlights on the green rosea pitchers so "pure green" isn't entirely accurate, more like 2 colored, 1 intermediate-green, and 2 mostly green (including the cut off one in front). Was going off memory when I wrote the op so it got dramatized a bit, my bad.

how to contact this gentleman?

He has a facebook page (Lee's Botanical Gardens Carnivorous Plants) with a list of inventory and and ordering instructions.

Anyway, as promised, though the binatas weren't really worth taking a pic of:

jeff wrote:how to contact this gentleman?
a few years ago I ordered him some subtropical US ping and I would like to do it again
thank you in advance

His email is buellmyster@embarqmail.com and his list of current plants available is on FB.

Nepenthes0260 wrote:I have only heard good things about Lee's. I have a few friends who regularly buy from him and have always received excellent plants.

Yeah I definitely don't want anyone to get me wrong here because I'm absolutely happy with what I got especially for the price. I just wanted to be clear that some plants may need a little more care to get them acclimated than ones you might be able to get and just toss in a pot and mostly forget about for probably 3-8x the price at a major nursery. So if I was ordering my very first plants from here I might would stick more to the sarrs, but for anyone with really any experience at all it definitely seems to be an incredible resource for affordable stuff.

Panman wrote: ↑Sat Jul 17, 2021 5:22 pm Here is my roseae today. It is growing outdoors in full sun from 9am through 2pm.

Wow! Is that the Chipola rosea he was selling?

Nepenthes0260 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 17, 2021 5:43 pm Wow! Is that the Chipola rosea he was selling?

I think that's the only kind of S. rosea that Lee's has.

Here are mine: They weren't as nice looking as Panman's plant when I got them. The big ones are in 5.5-inch / 14-cm pots, and the little division is in a 4-inch / 10-cm pot. They get sun from dawn until 4 PM.