It's the dormant time of the year again...

I hate this time of the year. Yes its cold, often damp, probably soon to be snowy and icy and the days are far too short. To top that off though, carnivorous plants go dormant until about March/April time and currently look.........a bit crap really. In Spring, they will once again form new traps and stand colourful and tall and ready to help diminish the insect population.

Until then though, I am continuing to work on the new website. And by "work", I mean of course telling the designer what I am after! All being well, it will be up and running by next spring and I can start selling some plants. Not just via the website though, but also, perhaps even more importantly, through car boot sales. I enjoyed being at the Caythorpe Gala this year (or last year if your reading this in January!). It was a good opportunity to talk to people about these plants and also to put my finger on the pulse of what people were after and interested in. One of the best examples being that although venus flytraps are the most well known plant, it was the Pitcher Plant's that generated probably the most interest for people.

I also found out this year that Venus flytraps, or any plants for that matter, can't be posted internationally to Europe. I put a group of 6 flytraps on ebay, setting the, erm, settings to make sure only people from the UK could buy them. Somehow, the winning bidder was from Latvia. I didn't really bother questioning how it happened in spite of my specific settings, but instead set out to post it to his/her country, curious as to how much it would cost me in postage.

I took the parcel to the post office, and the lady said "do you mind me asking what is in the box?". I told her "oh, nothing too expensive, just a few venus flytraps". "Oh", she said. "You can't post them to Europe". Low and behold, she gave me a leaflet containing the 7000 item categories you're not allowed to post abroad, and the 3 items you are. I apologised to the ebayer and refunded him/her. Was feeling slightly crushed that being an international seller of these plants went out of the window though. Still, this mean's that I will be completely focused on the national sales for these plants and frankly, I can't wait!