About Carnivorous Kingdom

I created my first Carnivorous Plant Webpage in 1993, durring my freshman year at Texas Tech University.  I was introduced to the internet from a friend, and used my favorite hobby to teach myself the basics of HTML coding and to 'display' what plants I grew.  At that time, I only had a few Venus Fly Traps, one Sarracenia, and a sundew.  It was appropriately called "Joe's Carnivorous Plants".  I lost my presence on the internet early in 1994 when the university deleted my directory due to a four letter password the administrator didn't approve of.  

I gathered what was left on my hard drive and opened it again at Geocities one month later.  It was a nice home for awhile, and it grew with my collection. In 1997, Geocities instituted watermarks and pop-up ads, which upset  me (even though I understood their right to do so) to the point I stopped updating the page. College got busier, and I couldn't expand my collection without any money. The site was neglected, and it collected dust from then on. Believe it or not, it still exist in January 2000! I'm amazed -- not only is it still up and running, it really stinks compared to this site. 

Things took a change for the better in 1998.  I graduated and started working at Mortellaro's Nursery Inc, and made some money.  I grew some plants in the back corner of one of our greenhouses, and they did extremely well despite the fact it was the hottest summer ever.  Inside my office, I grow plants that can't tolerate the hot Texas heat (ie Highland Nepenthes, Heliamphoras, and Cobra Lilies). My collection grew quickly, and I again took interest in the internet website I forgot about. 

I set up a web-page for Mortellaro's Nursery early in 1999, and relearned HTML thanks to Front Page 98. I  re-wrote "Joe's Carnivorous Plants" web-page from scratch, and posted it on a subdirectory at Mortellaro's. I settled on a dark,  gothic theme (the one you're looking at) that I thought fit the cliché for Carnivorous Plants.   In August 1999, I changed the name to "Carnivorous Kingdom", and joined the ICPS web-ring. By this time, I noticed that my hobby was getting more and more expensive, and the wife was really bugging me to stick to my Shotglass collection and forget these plants. 

In the winter of 1999, there were enough spare parts around Mortellaro's Nursery to actually build a small greenhouse for my plants outside.  'Small' turned out to be 30 feet tall and wide by 40 feet high, and I found myself with more greenhouse space than I could imagine.  Since this hobby was turning out to be an expensive one,  I decided to go into business like many hobbyist do. I registered the name Carnivorous Kingdom, obtained a Sales Tax number and Agricultural License, and moved the web-page to it's own domain with www.grow-it.com.

With some time and patience, I increased my stock and hope to start selling to other hobbyist in 2000.  

Even though this is a small operation, I'm not the sole employee. For half a greenhouse, I need a crew to lend a hand. 

My daughter Magdalena keeps the mulch fluffy 
by throwing it around every time she gets in the greenhouse.
She also makes sure I keep it tidy in there, or she gets 
under the tables and scatters around the pots and such.  She also
waters all my houseplants that stay inside until spring. 

Every business has a security system; this is mine. 
Max is 26 pounds of ferocious hair.  He rounds up
all forms of lizards, grasshoppers, and butterflies that 
trespass in the area. However, he is useless against else... 
 

Biscuit is in charge of research & development. 
He was in charge of greenhouse maintenance, 
but Magdalena was much better. 

Last Update 05/01/02

Since 2/22/2000