Episode 186: rescuing plants with Sarah Gerrard-Jones

Plant rescuer Sarah Gerrard-Jones with one of her Devon Rex cats. Photograph: Stephanie Belton.

Transcript

Episode 186

[music]

Jane: If you want to hone some new skills this Spring, check out Learning With Experts, the global classroom community that brings people together to learn from the best in the business. Their range of courses covers everything from food and drink to photography and gardening, so why not become an accredited garden designer and learn with world-renowned experts, including influential Dutch garden designer, Piet Oudolf and multi-award-winning British designer, Tom Stuart-Smith, or take a course on herb gardening, natural beekeeping or growing veg? You can start whenever it suits and you get to meet other gardening enthusiasts in the sociable online classroom. Visit learningwithexperts.com/ontheledge now for 10% off your first course. That's learningwithexperts.com/ontheledge - Learning With Experts, online learning that's guaranteed to lift the spirits!

[music]

Jane: Open your stomata and ready your roots for another episode of planty podcast extraordinaire, On The Ledge! I'm your filthy-fingernailed host, Jane Perrone, here to guide you through the jungle that is the world of houseplants! In this week's show, I take a trip to the wonderful county of Hertfordshire to meet Sarah Gerrard-Jones, aka ThePlantRescuer, and I answer a question about an avocado that just doesn't want to be bushy.

[music]

Jane: A reminder right at the top of the episode that there will be no episode next week, that's 4th June because I'm taking a break for half-term when my children are on leave from school. I will be back on Friday 11th June. If you are in the Leicestershire area of the UK on 31st May, this coming Monday, then do check out the LEAF Houseplant Festival, where I'll be doing a houseplant clinic at 15:00 on the Monday. The show is also on the 30th May, the Sunday, and I'll put all the details in the show notes, including a discount code for booking tickets.

Thank you to RootAndRose in the US, TBoy63 in the UK and LadyEleanorGlanville - I thought she was a lepidopterist from the last century, but perhaps it's one of her descendants!? Anyway, LadyEleanorGlanville left a review and is from the UK. So thanks to all three of you - all of those lovely words just warm the old cockles, so thank you so much! Also, thanks need to be given to Tony and Mackenzie who became Ledge-ends and Mary who became a Crazy Plant Person, joining the more than 300 people who've become Patreon subscribers with their hard-earned cash. Find out more in the show notes, there you'll also find info for making a one-off donation via PayPal or ko-fi.com

[music]

Jane: This week's guest, Sarah Gerrard-Jones, and I have an awful lot in common. We're both in our 40s, we both own beddy whippets, we both live in houses with north-facing plant rooms and we live less than an hour's drive away from each other, but Sarah is known as The Plant Rescuer because she's got a very strong urge to rescue the plants that other people would put in the bin and breathe new life into them via a bit of good old-fashioned TLC. In my very first opportunity to leave the On The Ledge studio this year - I mean I have been out of here but, you know, for a work trip - I visited Sarah's house in St Albans, in Hertfordshire, and we sat down for a chat and it went the way it usually does when I'm really enthusiastic about a guest and that is that I basically just forgot to start the interview proper, so that's why it starts a bit randomly! I have to point out that, at this point, we'd already spent at least half an hour talking about dogs! So, yes, she's got a lovely beddy whippet and two Devon Rex cats which you can see pictures of on her Instagram, which is quite simply @theplantrescuer, so I hope you enjoy this chat. Imagine you're sitting around the kitchen table with us chatting about plants. What could be better?

Jane: I'm just looking at that... So many things we need to talk about!

Sarah: It's so nice to meet you!

Jane: It's nice to be in your lovely home and I feel like I've been here before.

Sarah: I feel like we're soul sisters.

Jane: I feel like we've been separated at birth because actually I feel like I've been here before! I've seen so many of these plants on Instagram and followed your rescue stories.

Sarah: Oh, thank you!

Jane: It's very, very exciting that we can finally do this.

Sarah: It's so exciting because, of course, we've been kept apart by Covid, haven't we?

Jane: I know, yes. We were planning to do this some time ago and now we're actually getting round to it now that, hopefully, things are on the mend. Have your plants been a nice little distraction?

Sarah: Oh my God, I can't tell you. Absolutely, but I don't know how they're going to cope when life returns to normal and they don't get all this TLC all the time! Actually, it's made me realise how much work they take. When you've got the time to spend with them, I can spend, like, literally all day and I don't want to do anything else!

Jane: I think this is a message we need to get out there - that it's not necessary for everybody to have 200 plants. Sometimes, how much work is involved in rescuing a plant? Let's just talk about that side of things first. How did that all begin? How did you get into rescuing plants? Is it a lifelong thing or is it something that's come up?

Sarah: Do you know what? It sounds so strange to say it, but I feel like it really chose me. Does that sound weird?

Jane: No.

Sarah: I was going out to buy paint about five years ago, a local DIY store, I won't mention any names.

Jane: That's fine, you can mention names, that's fine.

Sarah: Homebase. While I was there looking for paint, I noticed there was somebody binning the orchids that had stopped flowering and it just struck me that that was really sad that they were being binned mid their life-cycle, just because they didn't look perfect anymore and weren't flowering anymore. So, of course, you know that if you keep an orchid it can re-bloom. It's just really sad to see them just being discarded, chucked away. So I went over and I said could I have those? And I actually came home from Homebase with, like, 20 orchids in my boot! No paint, I think! Anyway, I nurtured them, I read up about them, I found out what I could do to make them bloom again and when they did, it was just really rewarding and since that point, this was going back about five years now, I'm obsessed with trying to find plants before they're binned. I find it's shameful. It's like an awful reflection on humans that we discard everything, we can't be bothered to fix anything, we want now, now, now. If something's broken, that's it - done. I think with plants, there's so much to be learnt and so much fun to be had from experimenting and it feels like it's my vocation in life to do this.

Jane: So you've got this huge following on Instagram.

Sarah: Yes! It took me by surprise, that, as well. Yes, that's crazy.

Jane: That's really great in that you're able to spread that message to lots of people who are collecting plants because, as you know, in the past year or so, things have exploded in the houseplant world, which is a great thing, but also I wonder whether it's actually meaning that the problems got worse, in that there are lots of plants that are not being sold and therefore going in the bin.

Sarah: Absolutely, I totally agree, especially with people ordering online. A plant arrives, "Oh, it's got a broken leaf! Oh, it's been knocked about, it's got a bent stem or one brown leaf" and people aren't willing to accept that that's natural. They'll be calling up wherever they got the plant from and complaining about it. Well, that only serves to have more plants chucked away because the sellers they won't risk sending out a plant that's got anything wrong with it because they know there'll be repercussions, so, actually, they just get binned before they even see the light of day, so to speak, which is so wasteful. It's just like the wonky veg in the supermarket. We can agree that that is a really awful practice, that we throw away perfectly good food just because it doesn't look straight, or whatever, what we imagine a perfect piece of fruit to look like. It just gets chucked away. It's the same as plants and why do we allow that? It's nature.

Jane: Do you think it's also that people have got so disconnected from what plants actually look like in the wild?

Sarah: Absolutely.

Jane: Whenever I'm researching a particular plant, I'll go and look, and there's various places you can look for these images of what these plants look like in habitat, and inevitably they're beaten up, they've got bits taken off of them, their leaves aren't perfect and yet we expect our houseplants to be absolutely pristine and not to have any damage to their leaves, I think that's a really important thing for us to try to do, is to educate people, and this is what you're doing, is educating people about what the best ways are to actually get these plants back to good health.

Sarah: And also just to accept that this is what plants look like and it's not necessarily you're doing something wrong, it's just this is a natural life cycle of a plant, it does discard its leaves once it's used them and it's just learning to embrace that and appreciate that that is part of nature and I'm really grateful to have the platform I do, to spread that word.

Jane: Yes, it's a great message and we're here in your open-plan kitchen with skylights, loads of wonderful hanging plants above us, and I don't know where to start because there's so many lovely things here! You've got tough things up here that probably don't need that much water like the Rhipsalis and things. What's your regime for these plants that are hanging below these skylights?

Sarah: I do stand on the chair and the table and get up there! Plants speak to you. They don't speak like we speak, but they speak in what they're trying to convey through their leaf, the way something's changed, so I would just keep a really close eye on what's going on and you just become in tune with your plants, don't you? I have loads but they have their own personalities and I sort of know when they need something, when something needs watering and it's just a closeness with your plants. Engaging all your senses is really important. It's why I don't use things like moisture meters. Use your finger, use your senses, look at it and that's the way you'll learn how to care for your plants properly, intuitively, by looking and just observing any changes. So these ones, I've got a step ladder, and they're all kind of a similar need up here, I think, so at the moment I'll probably water them about once a week. I don't put anything up there that's really thirsty because the likelihood is it's going to wilt.

Jane: Yes and this is north-facing here, so they're getting lots of light but not direct sunlight.

Sarah: Yes, they're really very happy in here, especially the ones that hang underneath the skylight, they're going to explode if we ever get some sun. It's been poor, hasn't it?

Jane: Yes, it has been poor here in the UK and that has definitely had an impact.

Sarah: Definitely.

Jane: The other thing we must talk about are your rescue cacti and you were saying, earlier, before we started recording, that you've got a bit of an obsession with getting these big fellows and rescues.

Sarah: Basically, this type as well. I don't know what it is about them. I just find them extraordinary.

Jane: I guess are they Cleistocactus?

Sarah: Strausii, is it?

Jane: The Old Man cactus, or various other names they've got. You've got ones there that have got multiple stems, several feet tall, they must be a good 10/20 years old?

Sarah: At least. I think this one's probably about 25, I suspect. I just can't help myself, even though I really shouldn't because I don't have the ideal house for cacti and I don't have the room. So I think that's also an important thing to talk about, with people filling their houses with plants. You should look at what you can grow in your house and that will lead to success, whereas if you haven't got the right kind of light and you go and buy yourself a cactus, a big cactus like this, the likelihood is it's not going to do that great if you can't provide it with bright light, so another reason I'm thinking of having a bit of a purge. There's certain plants over here, for example, my Alocasia over here that's really unhappy and that's because I don't have bright light right now and that's the problem with our weather, isn't it?

Jane: Yes, it is very variable and you can have growlights, but the amount of growlights you would need, unless you've got a very small collection.

Sarah: And also the energy that would take as well.

Jane: Yes, you can spotlight a few plants, but it's just trying to balance it out. It's wonderful to be able to rescue these venerable cacti which I think often come from people who've had them for years and they're too elderly to look after them, I think that's oftentimes the case, but that's a wonderful thing to be able to keep them going.

Sarah: Well, I dread to think what would have happened to the one I recently got, that big 6 / 7 foot one there. When I went to pick it up, I could tell that that had come from an elderly person's home and I just dread to think, if that had gone to these house clearance people, what would have become of this beautiful cactus that had been loved and nurtured by somebody all their lives. I dread to think.

Jane: I think you're probably a bit like me in that you rock up to pick up one of these plants and you're on your own. You're like, "I'm just going to figure it out as I go along!"

Sarah: It is exactly that. I got a mild panic on the way, going, "What if I can't lift it up?" I'm like The Hulk! I'm small but when it comes to plants I will lift anything if it means I can take it home!

Jane: I know exactly what you're saying.

Sarah: My husband, normally, I'll kind of dupe him into going somewhere with the idea that I know there's a plant I really want to pick up. I saw this one and we'd just joined the National Trust and we hadn't been to one yet and I was desperately looking for the one. I was, like, "Oh should we go to da da da, today?" and he was, like, "Sure. It's quite far!" I was, like, "Yes, I think we should go" and when I was there, I was, like,"Can we just drive an extra hour and can we pick up a cactus?" We're already in the car, so he couldn't say no!

Jane: Yes, exactly! This is the thing, the lengths that we go to are quite extreme! My husband does get annoyed sometimes, when he's brushing past, or things get knocked down. We're both sharing an office now and it's awful because, literally, I've got some glass shelves with loads of plants on it and then there's an area underneath which is full of propagating crap and he's tripping over things. It's terrible!

Sarah: It's the same in this house. In fact, my poor dad, he came to stay and got attacked in the shower by a cactus and I did feel like maybe this is too much now. I often think, "Do you know what? That plant can have a better life somewhere else."

Jane: I think that's a great thing to cling on to, if you've got a network of people that you know, where you can give plants away and you know they're going to be happy.

Sarah: Well, I've got you now! You're not leaving without a few!

Jane: Oh God, okay! I won't say no! I will not say no to a cutting or two!

Sarah: I know you're quite partial to a Rhipsalis, so we'll have a look at that.

Jane: Yes, Rhipsalis, I think, are my new obsession.

Sarah: I will give you one of these. I think these are Dragon Fruit cactus?

Jane: Hylocereus.

Sarah: But they've got thrips.

Jane: No, don't give me any thrips please!

Sarah: Do you have a Rabbit's Foot Fern?

Jane: Well, you know what? I was looking at that! I don't. I purged my ferns a couple of years ago because I had terrible scale but I've never had a Rabbit's Foot Fern and I just purged ferns because I thought, "I know how to grow ferns but I just don't have enough interest in them to give them that level of care." Actually, since then, I think if I was going to have another fern, or more high-maintenance fern, I think I would do it slightly differently in terms of I'd have it on a self-watering system.

Sarah: That's the key.

Jane: And make it easier for myself but, on the other hand, I think I'm maturing as a plant parent, finally.

Sarah: I think I am as well.

Jane: In that I'm saying, "I focus on particular genera but I don't have to have every plant" but I do love those Rabbit's Foot Ferns.

Sarah: Well, you'll get on really well with the Rabbit's Foot because it's up there and I was saying, the plants up there, they literally look after themselves and that's up there, so that tells you how easy it is to care for. It's not like your Maidenhair, or whatever. Going back to ferns and the self-watering pots, that is the key to keeping them; bright light, self-watering pot, Bob's your uncle. You can have ferns!

Jane: The other things I've got in self-watering pots are the Fishbone Cactus, Epiphyllum anguliger, and that is growing like a weed in a self-watering pot.

Sarah: Funnily enough I've got one outside. You know, it's been so wet, it's doing really well!

Jane: Yes, they do like quite a lot of moisture and also my Easter Cactus, I've just switched it over, actually, but it is in a china pot filled with Leca in the bottom, wet and then a nylon wick going up into the bottom of a plastic pot and that's really happy.

Sarah: A bit like this?

Jane: Yes, it's similar to that set-up there. I've just described this. This is a lovely Bird's Nest Fern. These, I'm so nostalgic about these because I remember growing them as a child, but I love this method, so simple: plastic bottle cut in half, turned upside-down, the plant in the top half, the mouth end with the entry pointing down and then you've got the water being sucked up through a wick, which is perfect.

Sarah: Don't throw your plastic bottles in landfill, recycle them, repurpose them into some watering planters.

Jane: I think it's The Plant Daddy Podcast that does the same, but with glass bottles.

[music]

Jane: Now, let's crack on with Question of the Week which comes from Kara and concerns an avocado and Kara's email carried the subject line: "Avocado plant refuses to branch!" Yes, it's one of those avocado plants that probably millions of people sprouted in the last year, but this one is reaching for the sky with no intention of pushing out at all. Kara has done a big chop and the plant produced a side shoot and then just went on growing up and up and up. So Kara wants to know whether to chop it again? The plan is to make it shorter and bushier. What can she do?

Well, I think every plant responds differently to pruning. Sometimes you'll find that one chop is enough to make an avocado really put out loads of side shoots and become much more bushy, but some just seem to want to go skywards. There's no harm in making another chop, Kara. I reckon that you could chop the new growth back to the lowest node, that's the point where the leaf meets the stem, and not do any harm, certainly. The only thing is you might end up with a plant that looks rather strange if it's just going to keep on going up but it will branch eventually. Looking at the plant, it really only has one leaf on it so far and the danger is that you're going to chop it and take off that only source of photosynthetic power.

So what I would do, Kara, is leave it for the moment, let those leaves develop. I think I can see on the stem that there are some leaf buds developing. I would let those leaves develop. For a start, that will make the plant look more bushy just by adding to the foliage. It will also give the chance to just build up its reserves and also put some roots down in what looks to be quite a large pot for it. So, yes, I would just leave it for the moment, if you can bear it. Maybe put it outside for the summer if you have the opportunity to do so and have another look at it in a couple of months' time. You don't want to leave it too long to prune it because you don't want to be pruning it just as the plant will be possibly going into a rest period in the autumn and winter.

That said, I wouldn't do it now. Let those leaves mature, let the plant develop a bit more, if you chop it too soon then you're just stalling the plant's engine before it's had a proper chance to get going. I always recommend, with avocado plants, that you start a few off. That allows you to have a number of different plants and see which ones look best because, as I say, every avocado plant looks different, responds differently to pruning and I think sometimes it's down to the kind of avocado that you are planting because, obviously, there's different cultivars that are used for avocado farming. So I would probably start off a couple more avocados and, of course, you can listen back to my avocado episode, where I describe the plastic bag technique for shooting. If you didn't use that before, do give it a go. I'll stick a link to that in the show notes. So, I'd get a few more going and then a) you'll have a forest of avocados, and b) you'll then be able to select the very finest specimen to keep and maybe give away the others.

I do love growing things from kitchen scraps and it's so much fun, but the best thing about it is you can just try lots of different stuff and see what works. So, with the new avocados, you might end up chopping some, leaving others and seeing what looks best. The world is your oyster, or possibly your papaya!? I don't know! I hope that helps, Kara, and if anyone else has a question for On The Ledge, I would be delighted to help. Drop a line to ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com - include a picture. Lots of people end up contacting me via my Contact page on my website, which is fine, but it just does mean that you can't put a picture in there, so just memorise or write down that email address - ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com - and then you can put a load of pictures in there so I can really see what's going on.

Now let's head back to Hertfordshire for more of my chat with Sarah Gerrard-Jones.

Jane: I move my plants around constantly. Do you find this as well?

Sarah: Constantly. I can spend an entire day moving them around. I love it! It's therapeutic. That's my hobby. I don't tend to do very much out in the garden - as you can see, it's just lawn, but I indoor garden and that's my thing.

Jane: It is so fun and you've got so many lovely specimens here. I'm loving your Rhipsalis of various kinds, giant cacti. I can never remember what the name of that Aroid is there? Is that Philodendron Florida Ghost or Florida something? Just Florida?

Sarah: Just Florida.

Jane: Ghost is the variegated one.

Sarah: That was - 80% of these plants are rescues - that was rescued from a wholesaler. I found it literally behind the shelves and it had completely flopped down. It's a large plant. It was probably six foot tall and it had grown too big for its supporting hole. It'd all flopped over. It looked so sad, so I brought that home. I actually gave it quite a chop back because that's one of the things I tend to do with a plant that's not looking great. I tend to just go for the chop quite quickly because I think it reinvigorates it. So that's busy recovering over there. This here, the Bird of Paradise...

Jane: You have chopped that.

Sarah: That was brought to me... Instagram is brilliant for so many things and there's a lot of plant companies that contact me now. If they've got plants that are so beautiful they don't want to throw them away they'll contact me and say, "Hey, do you want this?" So this arrived one day, with a seven foot Opuntia. So my husband was like, "What are you doing?" Anyway, this arrived and it was really severely... I think it had gotten really cold and it's also quite wet, so I've just chopped it, thinking we were going to have Summer or Spring.

Jane: You thought it was going to shoot.

Sarah: We've had, literally, the worst weather, so it's just sat there, but it's still green so I have hope!

Jane: Yes, you've got a two foot, three foot stump there. I think it probably will...

Sarah: It needs to be outside, in some warm sun.

Jane: Yes, exactly.

Sarah: My Bird of Paradise is not thanking me right now.

Jane: Well, I think there's good potential.

Sarah: I think there's hope, right?

Jane: It's got a huge root system there which, hopefully, has got enough energy to poke out some new growth.

Sarah: I hope so. Come on, sun!

Jane: Rain last night was not fun. The other thing we should say, we haven't mentioned your dog yet who is now doing what my dog does, which is lying on the sofa, but you do have a baby whippet, another Wolfie.

Sarah: I have a Wolfie, yes!

Jane: That's the only reason why I came, really! I'm just kidding, but it is lovely.

Sarah: Parallel lives! I mean, seriously!

Jane: I know, it's a bit spooky. Minus the cats, it is a bit spooky.

Sarah: Obviously both books as well.

Jane: Yes, tell me about your book.

Sarah: Well, it's not going to be out until next year.

Jane: Is it an actual title, or a working title?

Sarah: Well, I think it's an actual title, yes. It's 'The Book Your Houseplants Want You To Buy.'

Jane: That's a very good title.

Sarah: Thank you.

Jane: Did you come up with that?

Sarah: I did come up with that but, basically, it's kind of speaking to you from the plant's point of view and what they want from this arrangement. It's kind of like plant activism and it's also about just being a bit more mindful about being a plant grower. We tend to think, "Oh, our plants are green" or, "We're so eco-friendly because we've got all these plants," but, actually, the industry itself is not completely without its faults, particularly waste. Throwing things away, throwing plants away, throwing pots away, those plastic pots, when plants get thrown away, they don't save those pots, so it's just adding to this plastic disaster that we're facing. So the book is about don't give up on your plants, don't turn a blind eye to the plants that are suffering on the shelves, instead of going for the perfect one, maybe go for the one that's a bit thirsty because that's easy to rectify, isn't it? You just give it a drink!

Jane: Again, I'm totally with you and that's the first place I go in the garden centre - it's the bargain bin.

Sarah: Absolutely. We love a bargain!

Jane: Looking at all the bedraggled plants and knowing that, outside or inside, well actually, that will grow back from a rhizome, or whatever. That's a very satisfying thing to think that you can revive something. I don't buy that many perfect plants. I can't think of the last time I bought a perfect plant from a garden centre.

Sarah: Good for you.

Jane: It's almost more of a challenge, actually, because what then happens is you've got this perfect plant and it comes home to you and then it has to have this rather gnarly process of adaptation to your conditions and it's not because I'm not giving it the right care, it's just because it's been in a humid greenhouse with perfect light. I find that less satisfying, as a process, than getting a cutting, or reviving a plant to make it better.

Sarah: I've never thought about it before but that's completely right. So maybe part of the reason I'm doing this is because when I bring a sad plant home, nine times out of ten it's going to look better but, actually, when you bring a perfect one home nine times out of ten it gets worse.

Jane: The only way is up! If it's looking terrible then, yes, you can improve it.

Sarah: I also talk about what a great teacher a plant can be if it's unhealthy. You wouldn't necessarily chop down a perfect plant to see if it regrows but I don't have that fear - literally it's life or death here. Well, I may as well try! Then you learn something new and you think, "Oh well, I can use that in something else!" So it's a great teacher, basically. I've learned everything from rescuing plants, just by experimenting.

Jane: You've got nothing to lose really, have you, because if it's going to die anyway, you may as well try this technique that you never tried before because it could be successful and if it is then you've learned something new!?

Sarah: It's so rewarding. It's an addictive feeling and why I have so many plants is because I can't stop myself. It's like going to the gym or something - it's the endorphins that you get!

Jane: Yes, totally, but do you find now that you're happy to hand plants on to somebody else, to sort of streamline your collection and also pass on the joy to somebody else?

Sarah: Absolutely. That's where I'm at right now. I just want to pass all the ones on that have made it and I don't want to fill my house with too many, any more. I feel like the stars in here get lost and I want to see the stars in here, like the beautiful old cactuses, they should be centre stage but they're just lost amongst... I don't want to stop rescuing though, but I will be more targeted, I think, in what I rescue.

Jane: What's the process? Where are you getting these plants from? You're going into the garden centre and looking at the bargain rack but also, people say, "Oh, I found this on the side of the road" and I'm thinking, "Why didn't I ever find plants on the side of the road?"

Sarah: That's only happened once in five years.

Jane: Where are you looking? Where do you get these rescue plants from? Do they come to you now?

Sarah: Well, actually, can you see this olive tree, this came yesterday from a follower. I don't tend to do outside plants. I'm just really interested in the houseplants, but I have an olive tree that I literally stuck in the ground that I rescued from an office, I don't know how many years ago. I just stuck it in the ground and it's taller than the extension now. So I said to her: "Sure, drop your stick of an olive tree and I'll see what I can do" but a lot of the rescues I look for on, we've talked about this before, Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree and eBay are great places to look for the weird and wonderful and the abused. Mainly, I will go to DIY shops, supermarkets, garden centres, all those kinds of places.

Jane: What about when things go wrong? You, like all of us, have problems with pests. What's your approach to dealing with when things go horribly wrong?

Sarah: Pests used to really stress me out and I used to get so annoyed. I'd think, "Oh, I've done so well rescuing this plant and now it's got, whatever, mealybugs, what a pain!" but I've learned that it's nature. You have plants in your garden, you're going to get slugs. You have houseplants, you're going to get these pests and I don't hit them with chemicals. I don't think that's the right approach for me, personally, and I've been loving the beneficial insects. I've been loving that journey.

Jane: I think it's brilliant.

Sarah: Let's be honest, it's not 100% successful all of the time, but it's fascinating and it's like having an ecosystem inside and I have no problem with releasing mites all over my house because if you think about it, your house is not this sterile environment. It's full of spiders, or whatever else.

Jane: There's probably, like, 50 species of mites in your house already, some of them on your face!

Sarah: Exactly. I really don't understand people saying, "Oh, I don't like the idea of mites." So I no longer stress myself out about bugs because it's part of growing plants indoors. You're going to get them, so why bother stressing? I go for the option of keeping them under control rather than eradication.

Jane: So what's your process? You get a plant that you've rescued, you bring it home. What's your step-by-step way to assess a new plant?

Sarah: I like to think it's like Plant Cluedo. This is the game I play and if you go to the garden centre, normally it's very obvious what the problem is. You can see that it's not had any light or the soil is like sawdust, it's just disintegrating, so it's very dry, but it's just narrowing down what you think has caused the problem. It's more difficult when there's a lot of yellow leaves because then you have to disturb the roots and find out if they're rotting but most of the time it's superficial what's gone wrong. Like I say, it just needs watering, or there's some damaged leaves. So, yes, it's usually quite a simple thing to rectify. I realised that early on, that actually just giving a plant light can solve so many of its problems and this is why I think so many people struggle and have ailing plants because they fail to give it the light it needs and if it doesn't have the light it needs it's going to start getting these ailments. I don't call it over-watering, it's more like an under-lit plant: you're not giving it the appropriate amount of light to use the water that you're giving it, so therefore it's going to start suffering. So, yes, I found that it was really simple adjustments that would help it recover. I used to feel a little bit like a fraud because I'd show this plant on Instagram that looked awful and all I would do would be give it a drink, put it on my windowsill and, within a month or so, it looked amazing. So it's not rocket science and why, I think, everybody should give it a go because a lot of these problems are so easy to rectify and it saves that plant from being chucked away.

Jane: And if you can find that light space for the plant then, hopefully, all will be good. We also should mention though, I think a lot of people fall into the trap, and I've certainly fallen to this trap, of thinking that a cactus that's been in a very dark place can be suddenly put in bright sunlight and that, obviously...

Sarah: That goes wrong as well. We've both learned the hard way.

Jane: Yes, I've learned the hard way with that, very much, very much, and, yes, that is devastating. So the challenges are numerous, but it's wonderful that you've got this brilliant collection and that it's given you this whole new life and a book! How awesome is that?

Sarah: That is incredible and who would have thought that Instagram could lead to somewhere like that - becoming an author? I mean, it's fabulous! We go on about how much we dislike social media but actually, for me, it's been just the most positive thing. I generally think people on there are pretty nice. I've never had haters. I don't know about you?

Jane: No, no.

Sarah: I genuinely think it's quite a nice place to be and I'm very grateful for my platform.

Jane: Well, I'm really glad to have had the chance to come and see your collection. What I love and what people have often said to me, "Oh, aren't you annoyed that there's all these young people growing plants?" What are you talking about? Of course not!

Sarah: It's great, isn't it?

Jane: The more people that are growing plants, the better, because that means they have cuttings that I can take!

Sarah: You must take some cuttings!

Jane: That wasn't a cue and that's a wonderful community and support network!

Sarah: Even really young kids, my friends have got really young kids who are into plants which I just think is so lovely. I'm going to be doing a mini-terrarium workshop for my friends' kids soon and I just think that's so lovely.

Jane: Yes, it's a fantastic thing! We knew this already, we still know it, but it's a good thing to emphasise that plant people are lovely and it's a wonderful thing that's brought so much joy to all our lives, so I'm very glad to have finally met you, Sarah!

Sarah: Likewise.

[music]

Jane: Do go and check out the show notes and also Sarah's Instagram @theplantrescuer for some images of the plants we talked about and of Sarah's beautiful home. That is all for this week's show. I do hope you have a week that surpasses your expectations and if you're going to be at the houseplant festival on Monday, do come and say hi! I will have some On The Ledge stickers with me. Bye!

[music]

Jane: The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll by The Joy Drops, The Road We Used To Travel When We Were Kids by Komiku and I Snost, I Lost, by Doctor Turtle. The ad music was Dill Pickles by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra. All tracks are licenced under Creative Commons, visit the show notes for details.

Subscribe to On The Ledge via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Player FM, Stitcher, Overcast, RadioPublic and YouTube.

Become a Patron!

Support Me on Ko-fi

Like so many household objects, plants are often discarded for the “crime” of being slightly imperfect - but Sarah Gerrard-Jones is out to change that. I meet Sarah, aka The Plant Rescuer, to discuss her obsession with saving every houseplant she can. And I answer a question about a lanky avocado.

View fullsize

Photograph: Sarah Gerrard-Jones.

This week’s guest

Sarah Gerrard-Jones aka The Plant Rescuer has a huge following on Instagram, where she documents her large collection of houseplants rescued from DIY stores, supermarkets and Facebook Marketplace.

You can watch some footage of Sarah at work in this ITV report. Scroll down for more pictures of her plants.

• Patreon subscribers at the Ledge End and Superfan level - you can listen to An Extra Leaf 70, where I talk about a couple of plants I have rescued recently.

---

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Kara wants to know how to make her newly sprouted avocado plant more bushy - it’s decidedly lanky even through she has already chopped it once. I recommend leaving it to allow more foliage to develop before chopping again, and also giving the plant time to develop a good root system. When you do snip, make the cut just above a node - the point where the stem meets the leaf.

I also suggest sprouting some more avocado pits (my preferred method is explained in this episode), because every avocado grows slightly differently, and some may be more naturally bushy than others.

Want to ask me a question? Email ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. The more information you can include, the better - pictures of your plant, details of your location and how long you have had the plant are always useful to help solve your issue!

---

---

THIS WEEK’S SPONSOR

LEARNING WITH EXPERTS

If you want to hone some new skills this spring check out  Learning With Experts - the global classroom community that brings people together to learn from the best in the business. 

Their range of courses covers everything from food and drink to photography and gardening. Why not Become an accredited garden designer and learn with world-renowned experts including influential Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf and multi-award winning British designer Tom Stuart-Smith? Or take a course on herb gardening, natural beekeeping or growing veg. You can start whenever it suits and , you get to meet other gardening enthusiasts in the sociable online classroom.
Visit www.learningwithexperts.com/ontheledge and use promo code ONTHELEDGE to get 10% off your first course.

---

HOW TO SUPPORT ON THE LEDGE

Contributions from On The Ledge listeners help to pay for all the things that have made the show possible over the last few years: equipment, travel expenses, editing, admin support and transcription.

Want to make a one-off donation? You can do that through my ko-fi.com page, or via Paypal.

Want to make a regular donation? Join the On The Ledge community on Patreon! Whether you can only spare a dollar or a pound, or want to make a bigger commitment, there’s something for you: see all the tiers and sign up for Patreon here.

• The Crazy Plant Person tier just gives you a warm fuzzy feeling of supporting the show you love.

• The Ledge End tier gives you access to two extra episodes a month, known as An Extra Leaf, as well as ad-free versions of the main podcast on weeks where there’s a paid advertising spot, and access to occasional patron-only Zoom sessions.

• My Superfan tier earns you a personal greeting from me in the mail including a limited edition postcard, as well as ad-free episodes.

If you like the idea of supporting On The Ledge on a regular basis but don't know what Patreon's all about, check out the FAQ here: if you still have questions, leave a comment or email me - ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. If you're already supporting others via Patreon, just click here to set up your rewards!

If you prefer to support the show in other ways, please do go and rate and review On The Ledge on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen. It's lovely to read your kind comments, and it really helps new listeners to find the show. You can also tweet or post about the show on social media - use #OnTheLedgePodcast so I’ll pick up on it!

CREDITS

This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops,  The Road We Use To Travel When We Were Kids by Komiku and I Snost, I Lost by Doctor Turtle. The ad music was Dill Pickles by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra. All tracks licensed under Creative Commons.