The Savage Garden: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Peter D'Amato has been raising carnivorous plants for three decades, and his nursery, California Carnivores, houses the world's largest collection of flesh-eating flora. There's not much D'Amato doesn't know about growing these oddballs of the plant world, and he imparts his expertise gracefully and with humor in The Savage Garden, which is aimed at curious gardeners who want to grow carnivorous plants both indoors and out. From the ever-fascinating Venus flytrap to the aquatic bladderwort and the rather extravagantly sexual-looking pitcher plant, these exotic plants have a reputation for being difficult to grow, but D'Amato proves otherwise. The necessary water and soil chemistry, proper lighting, and propagation tips are discussed thoroughly along with descriptions and growing tips for many species in each of 11 plant families.

If plants can have personalities, these do--or at least appear to in the hundreds of witty photographs and colored illustrations that show them both at their hungriest and at their most innocuous. This is a stunningly comprehensive guide that will inspire and fascinate even the most squeamish gardener. -- Barrie Trinkle

Just about everyone's familiar with the Venus flytrap...but did you know that there are pitcher plants that can-and do!-digest an entire rat? Or that there are several hundred species of carnivorous plants on our planet? Full-color photographs of the plants at work and play, plus everything you need to know to successfully grow your own Little Shop of Horrors.Awards1999 American Horticultural Society Book Award Winner ReviewsHow to get kids interested in gardening? The San Francisco Chronicle recommends The Savage Garden, "because there's nothing children like better than catching insects and feeding them to their houseplants."

There are several hundred species of carnivorous plants on our planet. This text is a guide to these savage beauties that are easy to grow and thrive in gardens, terrariums and windowsill just about anywhere.

Publisher's Weekly Review
Beyond the Venus flytrap stretch the father horizons of "the strange world of carnivorous plants," chronicled in The Savage Garden: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants. Guiding readers, squemish or not, through this unfamiliar terrain is Peter D'Amato, owner of a carnivorous plant nursery in California. Covering cultivation and offering a directory of popular species, sundews and American pitcher plants among them, D'Amato capitalizes on the shivery associations commonly inspired by his subjects, as in the title of his final chapter, "Other Savage Plants from the Demented Mind of Mother Nature." (Ten Speed, $19.95 320p ISBN 0-89815-915-6; June)

Peter D'Amato has been growing flesh-eating plants for over thirty years. His nursery, California Carnivores, houses the world's largest collection of carnivorous plants. THE SAVAGE GARDEN is the 1999 winner of the American Horticultural Society Book Award and 1999 Quill & Trowel Award from the Garden Writers Association of America.