At a very young age, Kevin Zhang learned that gardening was not for the faint of heart. Some of his earliest memories are of his grandmother plucking fat green caterpillars from the tomato plants in her garden with a pair of chopsticks and dropping them into soapy water. Subscribe for unlimited access to The Post You can cancel anytime. Subscribe

So perhaps it’s no surprise that — after stumbling upon a Venus flytrap at a nursery near his childhood home in Chicago — Zhang became fascinated with carnivorous plants, those that snare and snack on insects for extra nutrients. “I remember being instantly captivated by the unusual appearance and the way they were able to move,” he says. “I was hooked.”

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