Well, I couldnÂt let this one go without defending Black Jungle. I considered Black Jungle a respectable seller of carnivorous plants. Although I havenÂt bought any more from them for over a year now, but I plan to do so next year.

The plants that I have purchased from them are vft, N. truncata (which was a victim of vandals), N. ampullaria, N. rafflesiana, N. alata, and several Sarracenia hybrid pitchers.

When I first bought neps from them, usually they have all the pitchers cut already and they sell them with its roots in a ball of soil composed of coconut fibers, bark, and perlite, the reason you thought the soil looked like mulch. There are growers that use coconut fibers to grwo their neps in and Black Jungle is one of them. They use paper easter grass wrapped around the ball to keep it from crumbling and to protect the roots for shipping, to me that seems a pretty good idea. They do recover faster when they have their roots undisturbed and they donÂt use paper easter grass to simulate sphagnum moss. They do wrap the plant with newspaper for protection. I never expect the leaves to be clean due to that soil does get tossed around inside wrapped plant.

About smashed pitchers, well that always happens during shipment and I have bought from CookÂs Flytraps, California Carnivorous, and LeeÂs Botanical Gardens. I always expect to receive a plant with its leaves damaged to some degree. Rarely is it that I get a plant with its leaves intact, then they go into shock and the leaves still die later.

So in my opinion. Black Jungle is a decent seller of carnivorous plants and I do advice people to try them.

Now for Equilibrio Carnivorous Plants, I only purchased from them 3 vft and havenÂt bought anymore form them. But the vft I got came in pretty good shape with all their traps undamaged and open, which is rare like I said. But I have heard some complaints that they are slow to deliver and thatÂs it from them.

Cheers

I think it's just the luck of the draw. That's the bad thing about ordering online, you never see the plant before you buy it. I haven't heard of any specifically BAD sources out there. But there are some sites like Sarracenia NW which are very highly regarded almost always.

I wasn't really saying the Black Jungle was the worst ever. I think its just that Sarracenia NW does such an AMAZING job compared to the other people I've purchased from. My plants from equilibrio were in decent shape, it just took them over a month to ship some VFTs.