Care

Local Growing

Plant collector hobby is still fairly new in Europe so many collectors are still in process of growing their collections and sourcing rare and unusual plants from tropical countries in South East Asia and South America. Good news - the number of locally propagated plants has been increasing dramatically! For example, when we started in 2020, only around 20% of my sold plants were propagated locally vs. 80% imported and only one year later this ratio is closer to 40% local vs. 60% imported. Still a long way ahead, but our long term goal is to propagate most plants locally and to only import cultivars that are new to the market and we, collectors, want them very badly.

Plant Import

Plant Collector Ltd is a registered plant importer and passport issuer. All plants that we buy from outside of UK are imported with phytosanitary documents that certify the plants were quarantined, disinfected and inspected for pests & diseases. When the plants arrive at the UK customs, they are physically checked by the UK inspectors again before being released to UK. Once the plants reach our home, each plant gets a unique label ('passport') that can be traced to the original grower. Our Plant Passport Registration Number is GB-130140.

After import, plants stay with me as long as necessary to acclimate, drop old leaves and start growing new ones. Depending on shipping stress, it can last anything from 2 weeks (bare minimum) to many months.

Pest Control

As everyone else, we once in a while encounter and deal with plant pests, mostly spider mites. As a prevention and control measures we use predatory mites in our propagation boxes and anti-mites systemic sprays in dry environments. For other pests (thrips, aphids, mealybugs, etc.). we use moderate amount of systemic pesticides that makes plant poisonous to pests and has proven to be the most effective measure against any pests that eat plants. 

There are a few beneficial bugs that you might find in sphagnum received from us, e.g. white or silver springtails or soil mites. Those are benign part of natural soil ecosystem. They feed on dead roots and dead pieces of plants and help prevent fungus development in soil.  

Prior to shipping we carefully inspect all plants and we encourage doing the same after receiving the plant from any seller as part of standard new plant hygiene. Please let us know if you have any questions regarding bugs as they are unavoidable part of nature.