Episode 201: Q&A special

Keeping Begonia maculata ‘Wightii’ in tiptop condition can be a challenge. Photograph: Jane Perrone.

transcript

Episode 201

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Jane: Hello and welcome to On The Ledge podcast, the show that treats your plants like family. Uh-oh, grandma's got thrips again! How are you diddling? It's Jane Perrone here, your host, and today I'm going to be answering your, yes your, questions - well, as many of them as I can fit into the show! We'll be looking at conservatories, growlights, the Everfresh Tree and a poorly Goeppertia and more. We'll be hearing from a listener. His name is German.

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Jane: Thank you for all your kind comments in the wake of my 200th episode. What a ride it's been! And let's stay saddled up because there's plenty more where that came from. Oh and I did want to play one thing that was missed out of episode 200 because it came in a little bit too late. Yes, it was the Plant Daddies from Plant Daddy Podcast! Fashionably late, here's what they had to say:

Stephen: Hey, Matthew and Stephen here from Plant Daddy Podcast. What changes have we noticed since 2017? Well, we both felt the distinct need to have our own houseplant conversations off to the side of the social gatherings we were attending and we started a podcast, for godsakes, because we were hoping to connect with like-minded plant fans and we were pretty sure they were out there but people told us it was "too niche"! But now...

Matthew: Yes, but now friends and I regularly exchange photos of new plants after a trip to the plant store. We swap cuttings and newly propagated plants because we're excited to share with someone who will appreciate them and it's even become the small-talk topic that's catching up with weather, TV and sports to get you through social gatherings with strangers without becoming the weird plant person.

Stephen: Yes, it's gone mainstream, Jane, and we're sure you had something to do with that! Thanks and happy 200th episode!

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Jane: I do love the Plant Daddies! Thank you, chaps, and you can hear me in their show on a couple of occasions. If you check out the thematic guide to On The Ledge episodes, you'll find there's a section of all the other podcasts I've appeared in. That's worth looking at when there's a week where there's no On The Ledge episode because you can still hear my dulcet tones! In there, you'll find the listings for the episodes I've done with the Plant Daddies, Stephen and Matthew, which includes a fascinating chat about Thalassa Cruso, one of my major houseplant heroes!

Thank you to those who have joined my Patreon community this week. Sally upgraded from Crazy Plant Person to Ledge-end to unlock all the exclusive content that's there. Hilda, Jason, Catherine, Dixie, Bronwyn and Bronwyn. Yes, there were two Bronwyns - separate people, I did check! - both from the US, but one from Rhode Island and one from North Carolina. Must be something in the air for the Bronwyn' right now! They all became Ledge-ends as well - thank you to all of you! If you're an existing Patreon subscriber, you may find that your feed right now is a bit confusing because of those 50 new episodes that have dropped. In other words, I've archived episodes 1 to 50 and they've ended up in your Patreon feed. I am working on tagging everything, so that if you're looking at the feed from the web version, you should be able to click on the 'An Extra Leaf' tab, or the main podcast tab and that way get to the episodes you need. I'm sorry for the confusion. I will write something explaining all of that, but I'm sorry if your feed's a bit crowded with stuff at the minute, but it is the only way I could find to get everything on there. Unfortunately, Patreon doesn't have the best organisational system for its posts. As ever, though, if you've got any questions, or issues, or problems with Patreon and you're a subscriber, do just drop me a line on there. I try to respond really quickly and solve your problems, so don't hesitate to get in touch.

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Jane: Right, let's crack on with the very first question. It comes from Erica, from Washington State, and Erica's problem has to do with grow lights in the winter. Erica's house doesn't get as much natural light as the plants would like and Erica writes: "I have been putting some plants that require more light under a growlight, once in a while, sometimes for a day, sometimes a few hours. Is this a good idea, or am I shocking them?"

She sent me a picture of some of her succulents under a growlight and this is, I think, a really interesting question. If you can't have a permanent set-up where your plants are under a light and - as I've got in my office here, I've got shelving with lights on a timer that go on and off, so they're just under those lights continuously - what about giving your plants a bit of a holiday under a growlight for a few hours, or a day here and there? Is that benefiting them, or is it causing them problems? I'd love to know your insights into this one, but here's my take on it. I think if you've got a plant that has very specific needs in order to do something, I'm thinking here specifically of, say, a Christmas Cactus, something where a particular programming of day and night length triggers blooming, then putting it under a grow light for a few hours every now and again might be problematic because you'd be sending that cycle completely out of whack. But, I think with a lot of plants like the succulents in your picture, they probably will benefit from a few hours under a growlight, even if it's erratic.

If you can imagine in nature, there might be brighter days and cloudier days, so plants aren't unused to the idea of light fluctuating and I think any amount of extra light that you can give for a lot of plants will probably be of benefit. Personally, what I would do, is try to pick the plants that are most prone to suffering from problems as a result of lack of light. Succulents that like to stretch out like a firework, like an Echeveria, maybe put those under the growlights on a regular basis and maybe sacrifice a few that are easier to fix if they do get etiolated? So I'm thinking of things like maybe a Jade Plant, with that Crassula ovata you could just chop it back if it becomes etiolated. I think it's a matter of personal choice and I don't think you're going to do any harm by adding some growlights in, for a few hours here and there.

One caveat to that, though: what I would say, is if you stick a plant really close to a growlight - and I can see from Erica's picture that this isn't the case with her plants - but if you take a succulent, say, that's been stuck in a really dark corner and then stick it a couple of centimetres below a growlight, you're probably going to burn the plant. So, yes, avoid poking it right under the growlight if it's not used to high levels of light. You can gradually move it closer to the growlight and it will adapt. In fact, I would say from your picture, Erica, I recommend moving your plants a little bit closer to that light but just be aware that if they are extremely close, they may fall prey to sunburn. I've had this happen with Aroids, where a leaf has accidentally been touching a growlight and indeed, they do get burned. So just be aware of the distance between the plant and the light. This will vary according to the power of your growlight and the sensitivities of the plant. As always with succulents, I would say it's vital that they are experiencing cool, dry conditions.

So if you've got a cactus or a succulent that is going under a growlight every few hours, every few days, then if it's cool and dry, a dry substrate, and the fact that it's also cool, will help to mitigate any problems caused by erratic light because the plant just will sense that it's not time to grow and won't be growing so much anyway. If your succulent is sitting in 21C warm room temperature and is being watered regularly, the effect of that light may be more dramatic in terms of causing your succulent to stretch. If you've got some tropical houseplants on the other hand, which will still be growing at this time of year, again, I think putting some light on them will be absolutely fine. If they're in active growth, then they'll be used to fluctuating light levels and I can't see it causing any problem.

As ever, observe your plants. If you start to see something happening that looks like it's going wrong, then change your practice, try something else. Observing your plants is the best way of seeing what they need and even just moving them a metre closer to the window, even in a dark room, can massively increase the amount of light they're getting. Opening the curtains, making sure that the windows are clean, all of these things can make a real difference to your plants in the winter. So if you've got any thoughts about Erica's question, do drop me a line: ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com

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Jane: Question two comes from Graham, who is in the UK, and it concerns a plant I've never heard of. Now this does happen occasionally! Interestingly enough, the array of houseplants that we grow today, as you'll discover if you read my forthcoming book, Legends of the Leaf, lots of the plants that we think are new and exciting have been around for a long time in cultivation, but this is one I've never heard of before. Graham tells me that it's called the Everfresh Tree, Latin name, Pithecellobium confertum, and Graham has discovered this via the medium of the interwebs! It says that it looks like a large version of the sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica, but grows into a pretty substantial, tree-sized plant and I think Graham has spotted this on Japanese sites and found that it may even be available in IKEA in Japan. Now, of course, Graham's thinking, "Oh I love the look of this! I'd like to get one myself here in the UK but can't find one online". Graham writes: "I really don't get why it's not available here, as it doesn't appear too difficult to grow and is stunning. It would make a much more attractive alternative to a Fiddle Leaf Fig." Well, Graham, if you're a regular listener to the show you may have heard me say that I'm not a great fan of the Fiddle Leaf Fig but I'm sure lots of FLF owners will be springing to its defence.

Nonetheless, let's consider the question: can we get hold of an Everfresh Tree for Graham in the UK at a reasonable price? Graham, I'm afraid the bad news is that I think the answer is no. This particular tree, the Everfresh Tree, I discovered that although it's often given the Latin name, Pithecellobium confertum, the accepted Latin name, the one the taxonomists prefer, is actually Albizia splendenes and it's a native of places like Borneo, Sumatra and Thailand. In the wild it grows quite enormous, it gets up to about 30 to 50 metres tall and the wood is used for furniture. It's a member of the Fabaceae family, so if you look at the seed pods and the seeds inside, they're basically bean-like, but if you have it as a small baby specimen, yes, it apparently grows well as a houseplant. But in the searches I've done, and I've asked around, and nobody seems to think that this plant is currently available as seed, or as a plant, in the UK. I have seen various people asking on different forums if it's possible to get hold of it and noone seems to be answering in the affirmative, either in the UK or the US, so I'm afraid, Graham, the answer, as far as I know, at the moment, is no, but of course, that's where listeners come in because somebody listening might be starting their own Everfresh Tree nursery for all I know, so do get in touch if you can offer some help to Graham on this plant! It is one of those curious things where it's popular in Japan and Singapore and Malaysia as a houseplant, it seems reasonably commonly grown indoors, but just isn't something that's featured over here. There may be reasons for that that I'm not aware of but, for now, it remains a bit of a mystery. I do love a mystery. I'm sure we'll get some further updates as information trickles in about this plant, so do get in touch if you have any intel.

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Jane: So many of the questions that have come in are to do with winter here in the northern hemisphere and this is another common theme. Camilla got in touch to ask about her conservatory. This is a new house for Camilla and the conservatory is where the majority of Camilla's plants are hanging out right now. Camilla writes: "The only downside is that we're quickly descending into winter. Overnight, it seems to get really cold in there" and Camilla is concerned about harming the plants. Camilla writes: "I've looked into a freestanding radiator but it could possibly cost upwards of £40 to £50 to run per month, so I wondered if you may have any ideas to help save my gang?"

Now, I have a sort of conservatory on the back of my house - it is a glass-roofed room, two walls are brick and then the other wall is not actually a wall, it's an archway into my dining room and it also connects my kitchen and then, at the end, there's patio doors, so I kind of have this problem. The difference is that because it's an integral part of the house, that area of the house, the kitchen and the glass-roofed room, both have underfloor heating. The major problem I have at the moment is that those patio doors are extremely draughty, so I'm trying to get those replaced. At the moment, my husband's just put some insulation tape around the door because it was just so draughty, so we're trying to keep that room from costing us too much money, but the underfloor heating is great in terms of just keeping it ticking over. The thermostat is set to about 17C / 63F, so it could go down as low as 15C in there without causing most of the plants in there any problems. If you've got a conservatory that's got a glass roof, glass walls, you can be losing a lot of heat that way. It's really dependent on what you are growing in there. If you've got cacti and succulents, the vast majority of those will be absolutely fine in that conservatory provided that you keep them cool and dry. As I said earlier, with the growlights question, cacti and succulents, they like a cool, dry rest, so anything down to nearly freezing will be fine for a lot of cacti and succulents provided that they are dry around the roots because the thing that will kill them is not the cold but the wet.

Now I'm going to assume that you've got some other plants in there that are not cacti and succulents, so the question is, how low can you go? Well, it really depends. In general, broad, sweeping terms, anything that comes from a sub-tropical or tropical climate is going to struggle if the temperature gets below about 15C, so we're talking about things like Begonias, ferns, some of the Aroids. There are plenty of things that will do well in there. I'm thinking of my old favourite, Saxifraga stolonifera, the Strawberry Saxifrage, which is from Japan and can cope with living outside in sheltered spots, so will be absolutely fine in your conservatory. I'm also thinking of things like Hedera helix, which usually does terribly indoors when there's central heating, but in a cool conservatory could do very nicely. If you want an architectural plant, you could grow things like Fatsia japónica, or False Castor Oil Plant with those incredible, glossy, palmate leaves. Again, they often do badly in central heating but love a cold conservatory.

So, assuming you don't want to shell out on extra heating costs - and anyone who's in the UK, or follows the news about this country, may be aware that we're in a bit of a gas crisis, an energy crisis, and energy bills are going up a lot at the moment so we're all concerned to try to keep those down - if you don't want to go for heating and you feel like some of those plants just have to stay in there, what I would try to do is create a microclimate where they are sheltered and insulated against the worst of the cold. So that might take the form of setting up a little plastic greenhouse, you can buy those little zip-up plastic greenhouses, they're oftentimes a bit too flimsy to use outside but, as an extra layer inside your conservatory, that could work quite well at just keeping the temperature inside that second chamber that little bit warmer. Just make sure there is some ventilation, open up the greenhouse when it's warm in there during the day so you get some airflow, otherwise you may foster some fungal diseases and the like.

I would also make sure that you move plants away from the windows, don't let the leaves touch freezing cold glass and just assess any particularly cold spots. I really advise you to get hold of a maximum/minimum temperature gauge. There are loads of options on this. The one I have is called Thermopro, I've got it here on the desk, I'm going to reach over for it, but this is quite useful because it shows you a history of the max and minimum temperature. So I can see that in here, in the office, it's been down to as low as 10C and as high as 39.6C. Obviously this has been running for quite a while. It also shows you the humidity, which is handy. So if you run one of these and maybe you could have a couple in different parts of the conservatory, you can see just how cold it gets overnight and that will help you to assess whether you need to move some plants away or take any other action. You could also use something like horticultural fleece to drape over sensitive plants at night, again it's not ideal, but if you've got things that really can't move, this may be the way forward.

The other thing you can do to help you keep your conservatory warm, is look at installing blinds or curtains. That will help to cut down on draughts and is a relatively low-cost way of doing it, and just also checking around for any gaps in doors and things like that. As I said, with our doors, we found that there was just a big gap at the bottom that was letting in lots of cold air, so a little bit of work that way might help you too. Ultimately, it's just plant choice, really, and I would just have a really careful review of all your plants and figure out which ones just won't like those lower temperatures and just focus on the ones that can and find a new home for the ones that are going to suffer. If you do decide to use a heater in there, there's a few options. You can use a radiator, an oil-filled radiator, a fan heater, just make sure that it's on a really accurate thermostat, so the room is only being heated to the temperature that you need it to be at. Maybe that's not very many degrees above what it is naturally, so it may not cost you as much as you think, but the thermostat will allow you to really programme it accordingly. I hope that helps, Camilla, and do let me know how your plants get on.

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Jane: More questions to come but now it's time for Meet the Listener and our guest this week is listener, German.

German: My name is German. I'm an art director living in Long Beach, California. I live in a small, one-bedroom house with over 100 plants, some of them indoors and some of them outdoors, but I'm lucky to live in a city where we have warm and sunny weather most of the year, so my plants tend to be growing year 'round.

Jane: When did you get into houseplants and why?

German: I've always had a couple of succulent plants in my patio, but it wasn't until two years ago, when my girlfriend, Beth, gifted me a Ming Aralia and a Dracaena Janet Craig. In an effort to keep them alive and to learn as much as I could about them, I read books, I read articles and this led me down a rabbit hole where I became completely obsessed with all types of plants.

Jane: What's the latest addition to your houseplant collection?

German: My newest plant is a Philodendron Jungle Boogie, which is a hybrid of Philodendron tortum and Philodendron**wendlandii.

Jane: Complete the sentence: "I love my houseplants because..."

German: I love my houseplants because they have taught me so much about nature. I feel that I wasted a huge part of my life being blind to all the natural beauty just outside my door and now I'm able to recognise trees and all the different plants just growing down my street.

Jane: Who is your houseplant hero?

German: My houseplant hero is Roberto Burle Marx. He was a Brazilian landscape architect and designer who is known for having collected many Aroid species and saving them from extinction. He would ask bulldozer operators to hold back while they were building roads through the Amazon jungle and he was able to grab as many plants as he could while they were stopped.

Jane: Name your plantagonist; the plant you simply cannot get along with?

German: This has to beGoeppertia orbifolia,or Calathea orbifolia, which I have given so many chances but it just doesn't like my house. It's a shame because I really love its big round foliage and just the way it looks.

Jane: If you would like to feature on Meet the Listener get in touch, don't be shy! I particularly want to hear from people who perhaps haven't been represented in the show before, so if you are in South America, or Africa, or South East Asia, I'm particularly keen to hear from you! Get in touch: ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com and my wonderful assistant, Kelly, will drop you the very simple instructions for taking part.

Now, on with the questions and this one comes from Adam, who is the host of Tales from the Potting Bench, which is a podcast that I've appeared on recently, talking about houseplants. Who knew that I could nabber on about that subject!? Adam has got a question about a Begonia maculata. I think this was quite a recent purchase, but the leaf tips are browning and Adam had it in quite a shaded space but has moved it nearer to the light but it's not in direct sunlight. Adam says: "I don't know what I'm doing!" Well, whenever anyone says to me that a plant has been in a shaded space indoors, that gets me really alarmed because even what someone thinks is quite a bright light spot in their home is often actually quite dark. So if you think it's shaded it probably is super-shaded and that certainly won't have helped your new Begonia, Adam. It's great you've moved it into more light. Any move like that I would recommend doing gradually because the plant will get shocked, as I said earlier with growlights. It's the same with light coming through the window. You want the transition to be gradual, so the plant can get used to the new conditions. I think, with this Begonia, it's probably not the whole story as to what's causing those browning tips.

The trick that I found with Begonias is to get them repotted quick smart after you buy them, into a free-draining mixture and it was listener to the show Tom Cranham who really led the way with me on this. It doesn't really matter what that drainage material is. Some people like to use akadama, which is the baked clay substrate that's commonly used in bonsai and this is one of the ingredients in Tom's special Begonia mix. You can also use pumice, perlite etc. I'll link in the show notes to a rather good Q&A that Tom did for greenroomsmarket.com which goes into some of his Begonia care tips. That's a useful thing to look at. Generally speaking, you need to make sure that substrate is really quite free-draining and then, what I do, is I group my Begonias together in a big deep salad bowl type dish and at the bottom of that there's a load of expanded clay pebbles, Leca, which means that when I water, I water from the top generously the water runs through that free-draining substrate and into the expanded clay pebbles and then just sits there, that increases local humidity, the plants never sit in water but they are surrounded by moisture and that for me is the key to growing Begonias. I'll post a picture of that in the show notes, so you can see, but that's what works for me. I think if you have a more claggy mix, with a higher quantity of organic matter, I think it's harder to regulate moisture levels and therefore you tend to end up with an unhappy plant with brown tips to the leaves. It does also depend on the individual Begonia and some of the lovely Begonias that you're probably seeing on your social media feeds are just better off in a terrarium. Maculata, though that's not one of them, it should be okay in a regular room, but it really does so much better if you pot it in the right mix. That would be my top tip for Begonias and do go back and listen to the two Begonia episodes that I did with Steve's Leaves - loads more Begonia stuff in there.

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Jane: Delving back into the virtual postbag, I have a message here from West Devon in the UK, lovely part of the world, and the message comes from Duan and concerns a tricky issue for UK houseplant growers which is plant passports. You may remember a while back, I did an episode where I interviewed the UK's plant health chief Nicola Spence about this issue of plant passports, who needed to be registered to issue them and what was involved. Since then things have changed a little bit but before we get into that let's look at Duan's question. Duan writes: "I bought a big Aeonium a few years ago, from my local nursery, and ever since, I've been producing some 50-ish healthy cuttings". Good work! "Now, as I am running out of friends to share my Aeonium, I'm planning to sell them online. Do you think I need plant passports to start this backyard nursery?" Great question. Well, there's a few issues to unpick here. So, first of all, what is a plant passport? Well, it's simply a document that tells you the origins of the plant, makes it traceable, so that if there is a pest or a disease outbreak, the government can work out where it has come from. It can be stuck on the individual plant pot or it might be attached to a dispatch through the mail in the form of a piece of paper, but, basically, if there's suddenly an outbreak of an unexpected pest that hasn't been seen in the UK before, it allows the government to figure out where that pest has come from and trace it back so they can stop it spreading.

The main thing to consider, as far as the APHA, Animal and Plant Health Agency, that deals with these plant passports is concerned, is that if you're selling stuff online, then you do need to register and you will need to be inspected for plant passports. So if you're selling them online, as in you're not just selling them for the cost of postage but you're making some kind of profit from them, whether that's 1p, £5, £25, you're selling them online. So you might be advertising them on your own website, or in a Facebook group, or on Etsy, or on eBay. You need to register for plant passports. If, however, you were going to be selling them just from your front garden, so you'd be advertising them online, but only getting people to pick them up via your house, then in that case you would not need to be registered for plant passports. That, as I understand it, is the state of play. Now, caveat: there does seem to be differing views on this and if you speak to individual plant health inspectors for your area, they may have a different view. I've heard of sellers being told, "Oh well, you only sell a few a year, therefore even though you're making a profit it's a small one, so you don't have to be registered." Other people will say, "You're making any kind of profit, therefore, you need to be registered and you need to be registered to give plant passports." So there's two stages: one is you need to be registered to say that you're selling this stuff and then the second stage is that you are authorised to give out plant passports and that's the bit that costs you the money because you would then have to be inspected by a plant health inspector.

So I think from your scenario, Duan, given that you're thinking of selling them online and then I presume posting them to people, you would have to be authorised to do plant passports, which would therefore require you to be visited by the plant health inspector just so they can check that you are up to speed in terms of dealing with pests and diseases. Whether you think that's worth the hassle is another question. I should also say that I think there are a lot of different interpretations of the rules. Lots of people, certainly, selling online are not registered and I suspect that lots of people are trying to find their way around being registered because they see it as a bit of a hassle and "Why would the APHA bother with me? I'm just a small operation". I think, personally, that I would not want to take that risk but there are lots of resources online. I will put in the show notes some links to some resources for finding out more and you can just phone the APHA up and ask them for their advice and they will tell you what they think. I'm assuming that what I've said still remains to be true, but it's always worth double-checking for your specific scenario. There's also an excellent Facebook group called Plant Sellers Discussion Group UK, which is a place for UK plant sellers to discuss selling plants and stuff like plant passports and imports and exports. I recommend you join that if you are somebody who is in this business, or thinking about getting into it. I'll put the link to that in the show notes.

This is something I've been thinking about because, up to now, I've been giving away plants and selling them just locally to raise money for my local hedgehog rescue without making a profit, but I am thinking about venturing into the world of my own micro-nursery next year. I just want to spend more time with plants and less time at my computer, so I'm thinking that might be something I get into in 2022, doing plant sales the way I think they should be done, so as sustainably and ethically as I can. So stay tuned if you're interested in that, but that will mean that I will need to register with the APHA for plant passports. There is an online course you can do which will allow you to prove that you know your stuff as well. I'll link to all of this in the show notes, if you're interested in more. As I say, this is a UK thing, so if you are listening outside the UK, forget what I've just said and check with your local government plant agency to find out what the rules are where you are.

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Jane: This next question intrigued me because it showed a plant that I hadn't actually come across before. Well, I'd come across the genus but I just couldn't figure out what the species was. Susie got in touch about a plant. She wasn't sure if it was a Prayer Plant or a Calathea and when I looked at the pictures I was a bit intrigued because I could see that it was some kind of Goeppertia, as they've renamed the Calathea genus but it wasn't a leaf pattern I recognised. So, a bit of a treasure hunt across the internet followed, trying to figure out exactly which plant this was. I'll put a picture in the show notes so you can see. It's got dark green and light green areas in kind of slashes, a bit like maybe makoyana but just longer and thinner. Hard to describe! Look at the pictures. Anyway, I searched around on the interwebs and finally found that it is a hybrid between Calathea albertiiand Calathea louisii, or, should I say, Goeppertia albertii and louisii. I think that's what it is. As far as I can see, that's what we're dealing with here. It's a very, very beautiful plant, actually, but Susie's plant was looking pretty grim. I gave her my usual advice for this family which is, if you've only had the plant for a couple of months and it's looking really grim, like hers is, all floppy and some brown edges, then it's time to have a serious look at the plant. Check for spider mites, back of the leaves, look for grainy white marks that indicate those skins of spider mites being sloughed off along the mid-rib of that leaf's underside. I also suggest looking at the roots because with these plants, often the substrate is something that will either be extremely damp or dry out and be dry as a bone. So I suggested having a look at the roots and repotting if necessary.

"Is it too late to repot, Jane?" I hear you cry! Well, I think this plant will be fine. It'll be happier repotted than in a really poor substrate, in my opinion. I think this probably does need more light. I suspect it's one of those plants that people think, "Oh, it's a shade plant. I'm going to put it in the shadiest corner of my room". Don't do that! Not a good idea! "It was in an east-facing window," says Susie "And then it was moved further back". So I think that the plant probably needs to go back into that east-facing window to get a bit more light. Just be careful, as I said in the conservatory question, that the leaves don't touch the cold glass, which will not do them any favours over winter. Yes, a really nice plant, actually, this hybrid between Albertii and Louisii. Do look out for it and, hopefully, you'll be able to get it looking good again, Susie, because it is a really beautiful one.

Those are the main things to affect these plants when you buy them and they look gorgeous from the DIY shed or wherever: spider mites, an inadequate substrate. What should you repot into? I should also mention that. Well, you need to improve the drainage which will allow you to water a bit more which will allow the plants to remain happier. If they are happy, these plants will fill their roots into a pot in no time at all, so you can really tell the difference when these plants aren't happy. I would take some houseplant compost, ideally peat-free, if you can get hold of it, or John Innes No.2 and add in a good old handful of something like perlite, one-third perlite to two-thirds houseplant compost. You could add in a little bit of activated charcoal, or maybe a tiny bit of fine orchid bark, if you choose, but it'll be absolutely fine with just a bit of perlite in there and your plant will be 100% happier.

So that's a little quick guide to reviving that Goeppertia. They're so popular, and often so abused into the wintertime, you've got to make sure also, in addition, that it's not going to sit close to a cold window and it's not in front of a radiator because that's the other thing they absolutely hate is a nice blast of heat. So, yes, beautiful but sometimes a little bit tricky for the houseplant grower who's just starting out. Good luck, Susie! let me know how you get on.

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Jane: Well, wasn't that fun? Thank you so much for joining me this week. I will be back next Friday and remember I'm always open to your questions. I answer as many of them as I can, so do drop me a line: ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com and I'll see you next Friday, folks. I hope your days are packed with plants. Bye!

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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, Chiefs, by Jahzzar and Namaste, by Jason Shaw. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.

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I answer questions on everything from growlight use in winter to the mysterious everfresh tree, and we hear from listener German.

Check out the notes below as you listen…

Erica’s growlight setup.

Growlights in winter as a ‘treat’?

Erica got in touch from Washington state in the US to ask if it was advisable to give her houseplants a little ‘treat’ by putting them under a growlight for a few hours at a time. She has too many plants to have them all continuously under artificial light, but would this compromise work?

I don’t think there’s one easy answer to this question - certainly plants that require a certain day/night schedule might be disrupted by bursts of growlight time, such as Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera) and Poinsettia pulcherrima.

For tropical plants, I think a few hours of extra light could work well as the plants will still be trying to grow.

For many succulents that are dormant over winter, this could work well too - and in their native climate light levels would fluctuate anyway, but remember that many succulent species should be enjoying a cooler, dryer rest through the winter months. I’d advise keeping a close eye on how your plants respond to the light, and prioritising plants that are more likely to suffer from low light conditions in a way that’s harder to fix, such as Echeveria species.

Take care if you stick a plant that’s been used to shade right under a growlight as it may burn the tissue.

Seeking the everfresh tree…

Graham got in touch because he’d spotted an attractive houseplant called the everfresh tree and wanted to get hold of a reasonably priced specimen in the UK.

This plant seems hugely popular in Japan, Singapore and Malaysia - to the right is one of many Instagram posts from that region showing it growing as a houseplant - but seems completely unavailable in the UK or indeed the US. It’s often known as Pithecellobium confertum but the taxonomists prefer to call it Albizia splendens.

This member of the Fabacaea (legume family) is a native of Borneo, the Lesser Sunda Islands, Malaya, Sumatra, Thailand and grows 30-50m tall: the wood is used for furniture: it is also grown as a tree for parks in the same part of the world.

Although the everfresh tree seems well adapted to life as an indoor plant when young, it does not appear to have been introduced to houseplant markets outside Asia as far as I could find - I couldn’t even find a source for the seed! If anyone knows different, please do let me know. I’d also love to hear from any listeners who are growing this plant - how easy is it to grow and where did you source it?

Coping with a cold conservatory

Camilla has a cold conservatory and is worried that her houseplants won’t do well over winter.

It’s really dependent on what plants Camilla has; for instance, most cacti and succulents will be fine in a cold conservatory, provided that they have not been watered in the last few weeks. But anything that comes from a subtropical or tropical climate, eg Begonias, Philodendrons may start to struggle if the temperature drops below around 15C/59F.

If you have plants like this that must stay in the conservatory, try these tips…

Saxifraga stolonifera, the strawberry saxifrage. Photograph: Jane Perrone.

  • Offer a microclimate by putting plants in a plastic greenhouse within the conservatory - just make sure you ventilate during the day.

  • Move plants away from the windows so the leaves don’t touch the glass.

  • Check for cold spots and keep plants in the warmer areas, as temperatures will fluctuate throughout the conservatory - a max/min temperature gauge is really handy for this. Mine is made by Thermpro.

  • Horticultural fleece draped over sensitive plants at night may help to keep the worst of the cold off.

  • Installing blinds or curtains and checking around for gaps and installing extra insulation will help.

  • If you do use a heater, make sure it’s on an accurate, programmable thermostat so that you can keep heating costs to a minimum.

Plants that will be fine in a conservatory down to 0C/32F include…

  • Strawberry saxifrage (Saxifraga stolonifera)

  • English ivy (Hedera helix)

  • False castor oil plant (Fatsia japonica)

  • I didn’t mention this one in the episode, but aspidistra (Aspidistra elatior) will also be fine.

Begonias do well potting in a free-draining mix but watered generously. Photograph: Jane Perrone.

A poorly Begonia maculata

Adam from gardening podcast View From The Potting Bench got in touch about his Begonia maculata ‘Wightii’ which is looking rather peaky, including suffering from crispy leaf tips. (You can hear my interview on Adam’s podcast here.)

I suspect Adam’s plant has suffered from too little light; remember if a plant has been in too much shade, move it gradually into increased light to avoid leaf burn.

I suspect that this begonia could also do with some attention to the substrate. They like moisture but hate to be soaked, so the answer is to make sure they are potted in free-draining potting mix, but watered generously. I group begonias together, still in their nursery pots, in an outer dish (I use a salad bowl) with lots of expanded clay pebbles (leca) at the base. I water freely from the top and the excess water goes into the leca and helps to increase humidity around the plant and ensure a regular supply of moisture. This tecnhnique was in part inspired by listener Tom Cranham’s advice on begonia care. Read Tom’s begonia Q&A here.

Want to know more about Begonias? Steve’s Leaves begonia episodes are here and here.

Do I need to be registered for plant passports?

** This is only relevant to UK growers, so if you are outside the UK, you’ll need to check restrictions set by your own government**

Duan wants to sell young plants from his prized Aeonium online, but is wondering if it’s necessary to register for plant passports.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) is the government agency that deals with registering plant sellers in the UK: their position seems to be that if you are advertising plants online and posting them to buyers to gain any kind of regular profit, you classify as a professional operator in the eyes of the APHA and therefore do need to register and be authorised to issue plant passports. There’s a detailed info page here, and an explanation of how this affects hobbyist growers like Duan here. I guess the grey area is the term ‘regular’ - I suggest contacting the APHA direct if you are not sure if you qualify. You can contact the APHA at PlantHealth.Info@apha.gov.uk.

The e-learning module I mention is here.

I am going to be registering as a professional operator in 2022 as I start up my micro nursery Perrone’s Plants. Watch this space!

Susie’s miserable Goeppertia.

Help for a poorly Goeppertia

Susie got in touch about her plant which is looking a bit peaky two months after purchase. After some hunting around for this unfamiliar-to-me Goeppertia, (the new name for the genus Calathea) I found this seems to be an unnamed hybrid of two species - G. louiseae and G. albertii.

I suggest Susie has a good look for the signs of spider mites on her plant - grainy white stuff on the undersides of the leaves, and considers changing the substrate to add something more well-draining: repotting at this time of year shouldn’t be a problem for a tropical plant like this, and by spring it is likely to deteriorate further unless the substrate is corrected. Adding a couple of handfuls of a drainage material to houseplant compost - perlite, pumice or expanded clay pebbles (leca) should do the trick.

Goeppertias are often described as low light plants, but this does not translate to putting them in the darkest corner of the room, so I suggest moving the plant closer to a window, especially in winter.

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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, Chiefs by Jahzzar and Namaste by Jason Shaw.

Jane PerroneOn The Ledge, growlights, Calathea/Goeppertia, Begonia, everfresh treeComment