Episode 216: houseplant gift baskets

A houseplant gift basket with a birdsfoot English ivy, flaming Katy, parlour palm, Dracaena ‘Janet Craig’ and a fern. Photograph: Maksim Shebeko.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Perrone 00:04

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Jane Perrone 01:22

Hello, and welcome to On The Ledge podcast. I'm your host - my name is Jane Perrone. I love a houseplant.

Jane Perrone 01:35

Welcome to Episode 216 of this long running podcast if it's your first episode, well hello. And if you've been here from the very first ep, I salute your stamina. In this week's show, I'm taking a look at houseplant gift baskets: what they are, how to look after them and what to do when they start to lose condition. But first a soupçon of housekeeping business. Thanks for all your deliciously wonderful feedback on the two soil science episodes with Ashley Esakin. Really great feedback on those episodes. Lots of people learnt loads as did I if you haven't listened to them, and you really want to crack looking after your soil correctly then do go and have a listen to episodes 214 and 215 Thank you also to Aaron who became a super fan this week. And if you are a super fan or a legend Patreon supporter, then there is a zoom dropping coming up which I have messaged you about. I will send a reminder near the time it's on Sunday April the 10th 2020 to 630 UK time for the superfans and 730. UK time for the legends. So do keep an eye on your inbox for a reminder about that. With the Zoom link. It's a chance for Patreon subscribers to pop in and asked me a question. shoot the breeze, just discuss plants. If nobody turns up, I guess I'm just going to be sitting there fiddling with some leaves. But I'd love to see you there if you are a Patreon subscriber. And that's the kind of lovely things that come to Patreon subscribers extras that you pay for.

Jane Perrone 03:40

And if you want to join that clan, do check the show notes for info on how and if you're in the UK sign up for the plant ledger, my new email newsletter on the UK house plant scene. The next one is out a week today. That's April the eighth. And it's gonna have lots of really interesting stuff in it. It's sassy, it's opinionated, it's packed full of info, so please subscribe now. So your copy is on its way and with that you get a free yes free in depth guide to tackling fungus gnats.

Jane Perrone 04:19

That's promo mode over and now it's time to get deep into the subject of houseplant gift baskets. Before we get into care, I think we need to set some parameters h ere because it's possible - it's entirely possible - that some of you have no idea what I'm talking about. But if you've ever had a birthday or an anniversary, suffered a bereavement you may have received one of these at your home. Or maybe you've sent one to a relative or friend. They are kind of what they say on the tin. A basket with a potted display of houseplants within. Sometimes they come in other receptacles, like bowls and things, but baskets are usually chosen. I don't have any actual evidence for this, but I suspect the reason why baskets are chosen is because, one, they're lightweight, too. They're not easily breakable, like a ceramic dish or a vase. And three, they are cheap to buy for the florist. And I think from the florist point of view, normally they are not expecting you to even attempt to keep your basket alive permanently. They kind of see it more as a long lived bouquet, a living bouquet that you can enjoy and get more of mileage out of the new wood do some cut flowers. Usually the plants are actually potted into some soil. But sometimes you'll find that the plants are still in their original nursery pots and they have just been placed inside the basket now, possibly from our point of view as houseplant growers, that is a more helpful scenario. But it depends how you want to handle your basket. But most of the time, you'll find they are out of their nursery pots, and they have been sunk into a substrate and they're sat in that substrate and then there's a plastic liner which protects the basket. And oftentimes when you do come to dismantle the basket contents, you'll find that the roots haven't really had a chance to grow beyond the original shape of the pot and we'll get into that in a bit. The kind of plants that you usually find in these baskets are the most popular of the mass market houseplants I would say - they're usually a mix of foliage and flowers. Sometimes you can find ones that are just foliage, but most of the time they're a mix of different shapes. So you'll usually get something trailing oftentimes that's an ivy Hedera helix or it could be devil's ivy (Epipremnum aureum) or even Philodendron hederaceum, the heartleaf philodendron something that trails nicely down the side of that basket and then you'll usually have something up right that could be a Dracaena, that could be a parlour palm Chamaedorea elegants or a Dieffenbachia the leopard Lily and oftentimes there'll be some filler foliage that could be anything from Maranta, the prayer plant family to Hypoestes the pink polka dot plant or Fittonia, the nerve plant - low growing foliage interest - Peperomia is another one you sometimes see.

Jane Perrone 07:36

And then when it comes to the flowers, the flowers tend to be what I call florist flowering plants. This isn't really a botanical label. This is a group of plants that are favoured by florists - things like the cyclamen, Cyclamen persicum, chrysanthemums, African Violets, gerberas, and the old favourite, and the one that you most often see is Kalanchoe blossfeldiana or flaming Katy as it's commonly known: succulent leaves, and then these brightly kind of candy coloured flowers in yellow, red, pink, white, mass produced all over the world. Don't always assume that everything that's in that basket will be ideal for growing inside in the long term. So this episode was partly inspired by going to my mum and dad's house in Canada, and they had some gift baskets that I had sent on, my sister had sent for various things like Mother's Day, and they really needed some attention. And one of the plants that I found in those baskets was a small miniature Cypress, which, yes, you could kind of grow it indoors, you will see reference to this being grown indoors, but quite honestly, it would much prefer to be outside. Another flowering florist plant that is often included are those miniature roses. And while they're really lovely, they're really hard to keep growing inside longer than a few days. And they are much better off planted outside. They just don't do well inside. So if you see any plants that you're thinking to yourself, Oh, I think this might be an outdoor plant, then don't just assume because it's in that indoor basket that it's really okay.

Jane Perrone 09:27

Now, I want to just tell you, before we move on about the worst possible combinations that you might get in these gift baskets, I've been looking around the interwebs looking for various examples of gift baskets, and I've seen some horrors I can tell you, a lot of the time the plants that are being paired together are not entirely compatible with one another but some baskets really take that to quite another level. I'm thinking the basket I saw that was an Aeonium succulent, some other succulent I couldn't really identify and a moth orchid, I mean, that's a terrible combination.

Jane Perrone 10:04

I guess in a way though, I'm playing devil's advocate here quite a good combination in that even if you put them in a dark corner, none of these plants probably are going to immediately die. Like some other plants that you get in these baskets would do. So it just my concern is obviously in the long term for these plants and obviously sitting together a moth orchid and two succulents just have such different needs and light levels that it's really not going to work. The other plant that you see in the mix that I just makes my heart start to sink is ferns. Or oftentimes you get bird's nest ferns but also the absolute worst, the maidenhair Fern and there is just no way that you're going to be able to keep moisture levels correct in that basket to make a maidenhair Fern work. The other kind of gift basket that you might have, and particularly now at the beginning of April you might be particularly concerned with are the kind of spring gift baskets now I get one of these every year from my mum for my birthday. And these are mostly made up of spring bulbs. So we're talking about things like Narcissi - the daffodils - Hyacinths, grape hyacinths - muscari, as they are known: less often but sometimes tulips are included. And then you usually get some kind of trailer it's usually Hedera helix, the English ivy, and also maybe one other spring plant like a Primrose. Now these are a bit of a different category to all the rest of the baskets because they do really need to be broken up as soon as those bulbs start to die back, keeping them in that basket, it's going to sit around looking bare and ugly for quite a few months and is not the best conditions for re growing the following spring so they need to be broken up kind of about now. So I'm going to head out into the garden now and take a look at the basket that I've got to deal with and show you how I'm going to break it up and make sure that everything gets reused.

Jane Perrone 12:14

A cold spring day here. As I said previously, like a lot of them it's all planted in it's actually just a bit of cellophane. With the baskets lined with it's fairly easy to lift the bones if you do it when the when the soil is quite dry, it makes it even easier. But it is a good idea to pre soak the soil before planting just to make sure that everything has got some moisture. I'm going to talk when I get back in the studio about what to do the basket. So for the moment, we'll just put that to one side. This one has actually got a plastic lining as well which you could take out and we'll talk about more about what you can do with that in a bit but let's have a look at these volumes. So in this pot I have three hyacinths, different Hedera helix plants varigated Hederas - I've got a pink Primrose, which looks pretty dead. But let me tell you I've revived quite a few of these. So I have hoped this will revive. Finally I have a bunch of what is it about eight small daffodils I can't remember I think they will probably 'Tete a Tete', it's good to record these things because then that gives you an idea of where you're gonna plant them. My bowls from these gift baskets which I tend to get every year, they go in the back of my garden near the vegetable patch. And here's the irony. Despite the fact that most of my garden bulbs are kind of all matchy matchy coordinated the bit at the back where I just dump all the bolts from the gift basket looks the best. Yes, it's a riot of colour rather than something that looks a little bit too staged. So there's a lesson for me in there. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to have a look at what I've got in this container, have a look at the bulbs and then figure out what's going where So, the primrose these can be grown temporarily indoors but to be honest, they are far better off outside so this is going to go this is going to be planted in One of these bunk beds, alongside my raised vegetable beds, and most likely will come back. If it doesn't, it's not the end of the world. The header helix, I've got two locks here, I'm kind of in two minds about this. And in fact, as I look at this, what I'm actually looking at here, when I break it apart, I'm looking at about in each clump of hetero helix of which there are two, I've got about six cuttings, rooted cuttings. So I could make quite a few plants from this if I chose to. Or I can bunch them all up together, I think well I'm going to save these for is my spring outdoor hots. So for the moment, I'm going to pop those up for use with my containers. My permanent container party, which we'll be redoing, you could obviously pop those up and have them as internal indoor plants. But as I've said before, head or helix, it can be a bit of a struggle in doors. And to be honest, I don't need any more house plant jobs to do. So I'm going to pop those up, keep them outside. And then as soon as I'm ready to do my outdoor pots, they will go into those pots as part of the mix. So that leaves me with my daffodils and why hyacinth. So the main thing to do with these is just pull them apart, check the bulbs are healthy, they shouldn't be looking really squishy. Doesn't really matter if they're dry. But if they're really squishy, then you may have a problem. And if the size of any kind of disease that can also be problematic, they're often planted really close together. Don't be afraid to pull them apart, doesn't matter if the roots get a bit broken. It helps if you pre moisten them, as I said, so I'm just pulling these daffodils apart. And I assessing what I'm going to do with them. With that I'm now going to move over into my trusty regular listeners will know I have a truck well actually more than one trusty old washing up bowl. So they're going to go in here, ready to be moved to where I'm going to plant them. This just gives me a chance to check all the bolts are healthy, which they are. If you can take the display apart while the leaves are still alive, then it helps the plants to gain a bit of energy by photosynthesizing and drawing nutrients into the roots before they die back.

Jane Perrone 17:24

And that leaves me with a couple of things left to deal with - I've got some moss that was on the top of the soil and the rest of the substrate the plants were in and I'm going to admit the moss is been largely I could wash this moss and put it in my one of my propagation boxes. But I'm not going to do that because it's quite well mashed and it's not, it's mostly dead. So I'm going to put it on my compost heap and the substrate, I'm going to put that onto my vegetable beds. It could be reused in the light. Repotting a plant obviously you need to be careful to look for any signs of pests or diseases in there. But for me right now, the quickest and easiest thing to do is just either put it on a compost seat or on my vegetable beds where it will act as a nice little spring mulch so I am just going to do that now.

Jane Perrone 18:28

And I'm left with this piece of cellophane which is really not unfortunately very much nothing to do with. It's damaged. It's dirty, I could wash it, but I can't think of anything else I could use it for. I might give it a wash down it may be able to serve some kind of purpose. I always feel bad during this kind of plastic away because I don't think it can be recycled. And I've also got a green stick label which I shall stick in my label supply. You never know when it's going to come in handy. Right I need to find my bulb planter and then let's go and get these bulbs planted.

Jane Perrone 19:14

Into the shed! Please let it be obvious - yes it is obvious. Okay, I've got bulb planter, will grab a trowel as well. So take my glove off to carry you to the bulb planting area. Now I know I said that most of my bulbs are in the back of the garden but I'm actually going to bring these daffodils to the front of the back garden if that makes sense. But recorded down here because I've got I know I've got lots of these daffodils already planted in this bed, but they're all sort of in an odd position, they're all kind of behind the quince tree. So I'm gonna plant some of these daffodils further forward. So there's a better spread. And I've got this bulb planter, which basically a metal tube with a handle on it sharp indentations on the bottom of that metal ring and it helps you to make a really nice easy hole when you're planting bulbs. And if you aim to make the depth of the hole two to three times the height of the bulb you're planting, you can't go too far wrong. The other thing to say about bulbs though is most of them have what are called contractile roots, and then that just means a bit like springs and that means that the plant the bulb is able to move up and down in the soil. So even if you plant it in the wrong height, oftentimes bulbs can compensate for themselves by changing their position in the soil, just gonna refill backfill with the stuff that I've taken out. There we go, that's the first bulb planted. If you've got hard soil, it's probably worth waiting to for after rain to do this job. Because you may struggle otherwise. Bit of rubbish, let's move that out the way

Jane Perrone 21:24

This is quite a shady bed but these daffodils are fine in here. The rest of them are just finished flowering. In the soil, we've had a lot of rains nice and moist. Just turning the bulb planter to bring up a nice big plug. They can go in individually or in words got soil in my mouth, they can go in individually, I'm just going to take a bit of soil off because this one's got a lot of soil left on there. Or they can go in very small groups. This one's going in in a pair because it kind of joined together and what I love about bulb planting is it's really quick and easy and the results also surprised me anyway I kind of forget what I've done and then come along in spring and we would love to bother doing that. Having said that, fine. If you are anything like me, you may have spring bulbs that even now - I'm talking to you the end of March beginning of April 2022 - You haven't got around to planting seeds beat yourself up about this but hey, don't be feel bad if you have on planted bulbs come spring just trees over the kindness check them out have a look at the bulbs if they're still fun, even if they're dry, get them planted I got some tulips that I just couldn't get around flaunting I'm going to plant them after I finish this job and they'll probably be fine. They'll probably grow really nicely. So I'm not going to beat myself up about it life happens and bulbs are incredible at being very very durable. So I'm not gonna worry about that I'm just gonna plant my bulbs and see what happens they probably won't flower this year. But they probably will flower next year. I't's not that warm here. We had a warm spell and then the weather this time more spring like again. Okay, but one two bunches left of trying to leave the hyacinths out from the plant those separately and when you're planting don't try and make them look orderly - don't try and do a nice straight line - looks much better if he tried to make it look natural. So one thing he will sometimes do is literally just throw the bulb up in the air and then plant where they land. Just moving around a bit to get this bare spot here because the soil is not ideal for bulb planting.

Jane Perrone 24:39

If you're planting when the soil happens to be very dry, unlikely but possible, then do water your bulbs in if you can and that way they will die back and put as much nutrients as possible into the soil into the bold rather ready for next year. One more bunch here. Well these go is might go here so it was quite stony because there used to be a pond here back in the day. alright, that's the last lot in - I am off to plant my tulips now, and I'll meet you back in the studio.

Jane Perrone 26:12 One thing I didn't say in that bit of audio is which way up the bulbs go. Obviously, if you've got a green growth coming out of them, it's pretty darn obvious. But if your bulbs have died back to nothing, or indeed, if you're planting bulbs, afresh, you may be very worried about which way is up, usually you'll find that the root plate, the point on the base, where the roots come from is generally flatter than the other end of the bowl, which is usually has some kind of point, or in some bulbs, it will look like as more of a sort of a flat shape, but you'll still see the very first signs of where green life will start to sprout. Don't worry too much, though, about planting bulbs the right way up. As I said, they have contractile roots, they can move themselves in the soil. If you've ever seen a mass planting scheme being done, the likelihood is they're not checking that the bulbs are the right way up when they've got 1000s to plant and most bulbs will be able to right themselves and get it growing in the right direction, because they're just awesome like that. So pop the bulbs in and see what happens.

Jane Perrone 27:25

Back to houseplant gift baskets, though, what do you do when you've brought one home? Or you've been given one? And you've got really two courses of action at this point when it's first arrived in your house? Do you leave it as it is? Or do you take everything apart and repot? It's a tricky one. Because obviously the way that these plants are set up for combinations, as we've already discussed, is not necessarily exactly ideal. It's partly a case of whether you enjoy the aesthetics of the basket you've been given. And if you do, then you might feel very free to leave it as it is for a few weeks or even months. And enjoy that display. The plants won't come to any major harm. And as soon as they start to look a bit rough, you can obviously break it up. And it may of course be that the person who bought you the basket may be coming round at some point. And so you want to show them Oh, look at the lovely basket you gave me so there are reasons why you might keep these things as they are. Also, of course life gets in the way, you may just be too busy to do anything with it when it first arrives.

Jane Perrone 28:34

So if you keep things as they are, then your key activity assuming the basket has no drainage is going to be careful watering, because you're going to need to try to keep that substrate moist, not letting it dry out entirely but also not letting too much water gather at the bottom. So it may be a question even of measuring out the amount of water and making sure that you keep that roughly the same bearing in mind of course that applies water needs will go up and down according to temperature, light levels, etc. As ever a soil moisture metre or indeed your finger is very useful because you can actually test moisture levels and add more if you don't feel like this substrate has been thoroughly saturated. And that's what you're aiming for is to moisten the whole thing, then let it dry a little bit. Obviously, again, it depends on the plants, but you're not going to be able to individually help these plants, they're just going to have to all survive with the general conditions for the overall basket. What you will find is that larger baskets tend to last better than the small ones. And this is just basic physics. There's less evaporation the surface area to volume ratio on the bigger ones means that they don't dry out so quickly and generally you're creating a bigger microclimate of those plants all grouped together. So that tends to be the way it works.

Jane Perrone 30:06

And do remember to make sure that you put something under the basket or other container to protect your furniture because you will find that they do leak, even though they're lined with plastic, you do get leaks, and you don't want to ruin you know, your best mid century teak sideboard or the like, after about six weeks, think about starting to add fertiliser, the substrate they come in, we'll probably have about six to eight weeks of food already in there. So they will need feeling after that. And as soon as you think things are starting to unravel, it may be time to report now for you. Going back to the point on aesthetics, if that basket arrives, and you think I really don't like the way that looks flaming Katy and a Croton, and a parlour palm, it may be there's only one plant in that basket that you really like and want to keep. What I'd say is assuming that you don't need to keep the basket on display for that relative to see, don't feel bad about breaking it up. And also don't feel bad about giving away the plants that you don't like while they're still in good shape. Because it's a lot easier to give away a blob that's in good shape than a plant that's looking really rough. So feel free to break your basket apart at any point and rehome plants that you're not happy with. You know, if you are not on social media platforms like freegle or freecycle, or Facebook marketplace, you know, you can just leave them outside your house.

Jane Perrone 31:43

My sister when I was helping her with her houseplants had an orchid that she really didn't want to care for any more. It was planted in sphagnum moss and she didn't really want to have to rehab it. And I just said look, just put it outside with a sign saying free and somebody will take that plant and hopefully that person will have the skills to revive it. So that's another option. At least it's giving the plant a child's rather than being chucked onto a compost heap, or even worse the bin and when you take the plants out, you know get your old your standard Perrone old washing up bowl scenario or tarp or whatever you have, and carefully tease away those root balls. I usually find that they're still quite intact and it's easy to take them apart and you'll be left with some substrate to can be reused. Just obviously check for pests before you do that. And then just have a really good look at the root ball on each plant. If they're very dry, you're probably going to need to pop them in a bucket of water to revive them before you report but before you do that, have a look at the roots.

Jane Perrone 32:49

Any root rot that's going on trim those roots tease out some roots so they've got a chance of spreading once they're in the new pot and also poke lots of holes into that root ball. You know from anything from a cocktail stick for a tiny plant right up to a big knitting needle for a really larger one. Poke lots of holes that will help the plant absorb moisture. If you can knock old substrate off once you've soaked your plant, then I would usually recommend doing this it depends on what kind of plant you're dealing with plants with really fine fibrous roots. It may not be a goer so just assess your plant and see what you can do if you can knock off some of the old substrate do so. Then have a look at the plant. Take off any dead leaves have a listen back to my rotate prune mulch episode, I'll put a link to that in the show notes for advice on pruning and have a really good look for pests. When I visited my mum and dad's house, their parlour palms had nasty case of scale. And yes, this happens sometimes with gift baskets. Obviously, they're coming from a florist where there's loads of plants. And oftentimes, they might arrive with a pest or indeed pick a pest up from your other plants. And because they're more likely to be a little bit stressed, the likelihood is that they might well end up succumbing to that pest. And you can put up the plants individually you can recombine certain ones that you feel like similar conditions and will work well together. The world is your oyster, but don't feel like just because it's in that basket that you have to keep it together. Unless you like it that way that's absolutely fine.

Jane Perrone 34:30

And then it's really a question of figuring out which plants go with which I think grouping plants together in a single pot is a lovely idea. Just make sure their care needs are kind of similar. So how much light do they need how much water and you want something that's kind of tall, you want something that's trailing and possibly something that's clumping and putting those together in a pot will give you a really nice looking collection that pleases the eye and hopefully includes a variety of leaf textures as well, if there's anything that's really dead, then that's absolutely fine to get rid of. And maybe just maybe you might fall in love with one of those florist plants that you've previously spurned. I mean, I love African violets, the Saintpaulias, but I know lots of people are not so keen. I think they're coming back into fashion. I'm starting to see them coming in at trendy plant stores, particularly the variegated ones. So you never know you might fall in love with them. But if not, there will be somebody out there who wants that plant.

Jane Perrone 35:30

Then we come to the question of what to do with the basket. Now, baskets are really, really useful. But oftentimes, the houseplant gift baskets come with these big tall handles. If you like the handles great, you can reuse baskets for all kinds of storage purposes if you don't want to put plants in them again, and let's face it in the home, they're not overly practical for plants, for reasons of not being that watertight, but you can use them for all kinds of storage. If that Bo Peep handle really gets on your wick as it does for me, you can saw or cut them off a sand down the point where they joined the main bowl of the basket. You can also give them to thrift stores, thrift stores will take this kind of stuff, charity shops, they will sell them on and somebody will be very happy to have that. The other thing I use baskets for is collecting produce in the garden. And so you if you're collecting I don't know salad leaves, or brassicas or fruit then you can just use those baskets to tote around your produce. So if you're an edible gardener as well, that's something that is worth thinking about. The other thing you can do is just keep them stored until the autumn and then you can plant some more spring bulbs in them. That tends to work quite well provided that you've lined them with plastic or check the plastic that's already there isn't broken. If you're feeling particularly inventive, you could also sink a little shot glass into that newly arranged select plant selection. You can make a pot et fleur planter - that's just French for 'pot and flower'.

Jane Perrone 37:13

I don't know why we have to call it pot et fleur, but it sounds very fancy. So yes, pot et fleur, let's see your examples - into that shot glass, you can add some water and put some seasonal flowers in there, it could be something from your garden, something you've bought. It's a fun thing to try and just allows you to keep mixing it up. So if you want to have a go at that, I'd love to see some of your results. If you give that a try. You can use anything if you've got one of those test tube things that vanilla pods come in, as long as it's got a reasonable volume of water for the amount of flower stems that you're going to be putting in there. It's fun, and why not? I'd love to hear from you about your house plant gift baskets. Have you got any they've been going in the same container for years and years and years or maybe some horror stories. I'd love to know what you think. Do drop me a line ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com.

Jane Perrone 38:31

That's all for this week's show. I will be back next Friday, where I share with you a recent On The Ledge field trip to our great capital city of London. Join me also on the Twitterverse Tuesdays at 9pm is the time for #houseplanthour. That's 4pm Eastern time, you'll have to work out your own timezone from there. It's an hour of house plotting chat on Twitter, the most wonderful, generous and relaxing corner of Twitter you will ever find. So please join me there. If you follow @houseplanthour you'll get in on the action. Until then. Until next week's show, have a great week bye.

Jane Perrone 39:40

The music in this week's episode was Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, The Road We Used to Travel When We Were Young by Komiku and Plantation by Jason Shaw. All tracks are Licenced under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.

You’ve been given a houseplant gift basket - now what? Find out how to care for them, and what to do when they start to look miserable.

Check out the notes below as you listen…

What is a houseplant gift basket? It’s a group of plants potted into a wicker basket or other similar container, usually dominated by widely-available foliage plants and ‘florists’ flowering plants’. Usually the basket is lined with plastic. Occasionally you’ll find the basket is just filled with inidividually potted plants that you can pot up as you wish.

What plants generally feature? The template for these baskets is usually pretty similar:

• A trailing plant such as an English ivy (Hedera helix), devil’s ivy (Epipremnum aureum), Dracaena marginata or a heartleaf Philodendron (Philodendron hederaceum).

• A upright plant such as a parlour palm (Chamaedorea elegans), a croton (Codiaeum variegatum), a Dracaena such as ‘Janet Craig’ or a leopard lily (Dieffenbachia sp)..

• Flowering plants such as flaming Katy (Kalanchoe blossfeldiana), cyclamen (Cyclamen persicum), pot Chrysanthemum, African violet (Streptocarpus sect. Saintpaulia) or gerberas.

• Clumping foliage plants such as Marantas, polka dot plants (Hypoestes phyllostachya) and the nerve plant (Fittonia argyroneura).

• Sometimes outside plants are included, such as small cypress trees, mini roses and primroses. These can all grow indoors but generally do much better outdoors.

Photograph: Cloudlet.

In spring, baskets often consists of a range of spring bulbs, including muscari, daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses and tulips. These will need to be dismatneled as soon as the leaves start to die back. The bulbs can be planted outside, or dried off and kept in a paper bag for replanting in autumn. People often claim that hyacinths from these setups will not flower again when they are planted in the garden, but in my experience most of them bloom really well! Some will be a little more sparse than the original flower, but most come back exactly the same year after year, so don’t just throw them on the compost heap!

What do you do with a gift basket when you get it home? The main decision is whether you take them apart immediately, or leave them as is for few days, weeks, months or even years: it’s a question of whether you enjoy the aesthetics of the arrangement, and whether the selection of plants have similar care needs. They key is that as soon as the plants show signs of stress, such as wilting leaves, mass leaf drop or browning leaves, it’s time to take action.

If you keep the basket as is, the key to success is careful watering - you want the substrate to get damp, but not allow there to be water gathering at the base of the plastic liner. Make sure you protect your furniture or whatever the basket is sitting on, as the plastic liner is no guarantee they won’t leak! I like inexpensive cork trivets/coasters for this job. After about six weeks you will need to start fertilising the plants.

Eventually your basket will need to be broken up as this is not a long-term planting choice in most cases. When you do break up your basket, don’t feel bad about giving away the plants you do not want. Carefully remove the plants soil and all, and have a look at the roots, checking for rot, and teasing out the roots so they can begin to grow into the new substrate. If you can knock off the old substrate from the roots, do so, but this is not always easy if the plant has fine fibrous roots. Do take a cocktail stick, kebab stick or similar and make some holes in the rootball to help water and air to permeate. You can pot up plants individually, or plant them in a grouped container according to similar care needs for light, heat and water. Sink a test tube or shot glass into these mixed planters and you can enjoy a “pot-et-fleur” arrangement, adding cut flowers as a seasonal feature.

Wondering what to do with the basket? give to charity/thrift store, use it for storage or harvesting produce from the garden, or keep it to plant spring bulbs in in the autumn. If you don’t like the “bo peep'“ handle, cut it off with a pair of secateurs or a pruning saw and sand down the sharp bits to leave you with a more useful receptacle.

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THIS WEEK’S SPONSOR

SOLTECH SOLUTIONS

If you’re investing in growlights, it pays to choose something that’s high quality and stylish and that’s where Soltech Solutions comes in. Their range of full spectrum photosynthetic plant lights are both sleek and modern and they’ll look right at home whatever your decor: I know that because, well, I’ve got some - I took delivery of one of their bulbs and it screwed straight into my standard floor light fixture for a super quick setup, but if you need pendant lights or track lights Soltech Solutions can help too. Each light comes with a five year warranty, so you can rest assured your investment is one that will last. Check out Soltech Solutions’ range of lights now at soltechsolutions.com and get 15% off with code ONTHELEDGE.

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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.

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CREDITS

This week's show featured the tracks Dill Pickles by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra, Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, The Road We Use To Travel When We Were Kids by Komiku and Plantation by Jason Shaw.