236 – Carnivorous Plants
MonsterTalk Podcast
#236 – Carnivorous Plants
Guest: Peter D’Amato
Hosted by Blake Smith and Karen Stollznow
Notable Quotes
“In fact, the United States has more carnivorous plant genuses than anywhere else in the world. And I found out that flytraps grew only on the coast of north and South Carolina. That meant that they got frost and hot summers.”
– Peter D’Amato
“There’s a huge genus of tropical pitcher plants called Nepenthes. They grow in Southeast Asia, places like the Philippines, Borneo, Vietnam, Indonesia…There’s two or three species that are documented being able to catch and digest animals as large as rats. And they digest just them all the way down to the bones.”
– Peter D’Amato
“Chlorine has no harmful effects on the plants, nor does the liquified chloramine have any negative effects, but it’s the minerals. And you don’t ever want to put fertilizer in the soil of carnivorous plants, or at least not that much. But you can spray the foliage with a diluted fertilizer which can often help benefit the growth of the plant if it’s not catching a lot of insects.”
– Peter D’Amato
Episode Summary
Here on MonsterTalk, we stretch the idea of what a monster might be in all sorts of interesting ways. In this episode, Blake and Karen dive into the world of monstrous plants, with Peter D’Amato as their guide. Having grown them for over 40 years, Peter D’Amato is the authority on carnivorous plants. He also authored the book, The Savage Garden: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants, which has been reprinted over 25 times.
Relevant Links
The Savage Garden Revised: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants (Autographed) by Peter D’Amato
In this Episode of MonsterTalk
· Introductions: Peter D’Amato, author of The Savage Garden
· The start of Peter D’Amato’s interest in carnivorous plants
· Carnivorous plants in the United States
· The controversial definition of carnivorous plants
· A new potential species of carnivorous plant
· Charles Darwin cared more about carnivorous plants than he cared about evolution
· Movement in plants
· Peter D’Amato’s lost slime mold
· Carnivorous plant food apart from insects
· How carnivorous plants lure insects and animals
· Carnivorous plants’ evolutionary adaptations
· How to grow a Venus Flytrap
· The best carnivorous plants for insect control
· Carnivorous plants around the world
· Introducing carnivorous plants to the general public
· Carnivorous plants in pop culture
· Peter D’Amato’s favorite monster
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