Episode 255: A Deep Sea Dive into houseplants at RHS Wisley

The Houseplant Takeover is on at RHS Wisley until March 12 2023. Photograph: Oliver Dixon/RHS.

Transcript

Episode 255

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Jane: Hello and welcome to On The Ledge podcast, the podcast where houseplants take over! In this episode, they actually, literally do take over---it's the name of the exhibit! Welcome to the show, my name is Jane Perrone, I am podcast host extraordinaire! In this week's show, I visit the flagship garden of The Royal Horticultural Society, RHS Wisley, in Surrey, in England, and experience their houseplant takeover exhibit, which has a maritime theme. Cue a very bad sailor impression! Plus, I answer a question about a befuddled Phalaenopsis orchid, and we hear from listener Lynette.

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Jane: Now, people, I don't know why you're doing this to a perimenopausal podcast host, but seriously, the people who have so far submitted their voice and text thoughts for the LGBTQ episode coming up on 27th February... Well, it's been emotional already! Some wonderful, wonderful responses, but I need more. So if you haven't got around to doing this yet, get your brave pants on and give it a go! It's just amazing to hear your thoughts on the subject "What houseplants mean to me." So, I'd love to hear from anyone in the LGBTQIA community with their thoughts. Just drop me a line at ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com and I fully expect to be an emotional wreck for that episode because you've sent some lovely things so far, so thank you.

And a heads-up: no episode next week, 17th February, 2023. Taking a week off. I may be celebrating a birthday! Legends of the Leaf, my forthcoming book in which I profile 25 iconic houseplants and tell you all about their backstories and subsequently how you should care for them, well, it's just 10 episodes away from launch day, 27th April. So, in every episode running up to that day, I'm going to give you one fact from Legends of the Leaf as a little bit of a teaser, a taster of what you'll find in the book. And the fact for this week concerns the lovely trailing succulent we know as String of Pearls, aka Curio rowleyanus. Interesting, this plant, because a lot of the species featured in my book have been grown as a houseplant for decades, and in some cases centuries, but this String of Pearls is not one of those plants.

You may be surprised that it only came into cultivation really in the 50s and 60s. The name String of Pearls, well, that was a later addition to Curio rowleyanus. It's named after the famous succulent expert, Gordon Rowley, and he decided to give the variegated form of String of Pearls the name String of Pearls. So, initially, String of Pearls only referred to the variegated form of Curio rowleyanus, and he actually described this plant as resembling peas with mayonnaise, which I can actually really see! The variegated cultivar is particularly fascinating because you can look at those cream and green orbs, each individual leaf is globular rather than flat, which is very good for water conservation, but if you look at that leaf, you will find that there's always a green stripe across it and that is the leaf window. In the book, I talk about the purpose of these leaf windows. We don't quite exactly understand how it works yet, but we've got an idea. All of that is in the book, but safe to say the story of Curio rowleyanus is not very well known and I tell it in this chapter. String of Pearls actually started off as the variegated name and then came to refer to the plain green one too.

Well, I hope that's whetted your appetite! If you've already pledged for the book, and I know many of you have, you can find out more when your copy arrives. Hopefully, that'll be a little bit prior to the publication date on 27th April. If you haven't pledged, you can pre-order a copy from your bookshop of choice, or order directly through Unbound. There's still time to get a signed copy or maybe a set of postcards of all the illustrations from the book by the lovely Helen Entwistle. Do check the show notes for more info.

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Jane: One of the many bonuses of my job is I get to go and see amazing houseplant-related things and take my recorder along to record them for your benefit and that's what this week's interview is about. Just before the pandemic kicked off in 2020, I visited the first RHS Wisley Houseplant Takeover, the Monstera Mansion Tour, as it was known, and you can find out about that exhibit in episode 128 of On The Ledge. I'll link that in the show notes. Three years on and the houseplant takeover is back!

Let me set the scene for you before you hear the interview. The Wisley Glasshouse is a really tall, enormous space containing different zones for different kinds of plants, including tropical plants, cacti, and succulents. And within that, a section has been carved out for the takeover, using the existing beds and also adding in lots of features to make this space look like an underwater scene. How the heck have they done that, you may ask? Well, when you get down to it, it's surprising how many cacti and succulents actually look like things you might find in the deep, anemones, jellyfish, seaweed and more. So, the staff at Wisley have been incredibly clever at making this beautiful display. You get everything from a shipwreck covered in Rhipsaliswith a scary-looking eel emerging from the hull of the ship, to the beach area where there are groynes (those kind of dividers that you get on beaches) covered in succulents, which really do look like the kind of seaweed displays that you get on beaches, and includes some real showstopper plants. It's not all new plants that have been bought in. A lot of the plants are ones from Wisley's existing collection that have been shifted to take part in this display.

I always say this, but this is particularly true for this episode, if you can, go and look at the show notes at janeperrone.com where there are lots of images of individual plants and the general displays at the Deep Sea Dive display. Have a look at these while you're listening and it will greatly enhance your experience. It builds quite well on my recent succulent episode with Andrea Galbreath because it really showcases the incredible things that you can do with succulents, the way they are so malleable to create all kinds of incredible sculptures.

One of my favourites at the show were made out of upside-down hanging baskets covered in smaller succulents like Sedumsand Echeverias, with Sansevierias hung upside down to look like jellyfish, with Tillandsias surrounding as well. It's a really clever idea and something that you could always build as a temporary display in the summertime to hang outside; just so much fun! My favourite bit though, it has to be the Rhipsalis-covered shipwreck! Do check out the show notes for that! Oh, you know, I just love Rhipsalis and I just thought it looked so realistic, this incredible display of these seaweed-like Rhipsaliscoming out of the hull of a boat. If you do live anywhere within shooting distance of RHS Wisley, in Surrey, in the UK, then this deep-sea themed houseplant takeover is on until the 12th March, 2023. You just pay to go into the garden and then admission to the exhibit is free. If you can, do get along, and if you can't, well, just sit back and listen to this and have a look at the images that accompany it in the show notes at janeperrone.com

Emma: I'm Emma Allen. I'm one of the garden managers here at RHS Garden Wisley. The Glasshouse is one of my wonderful areas of responsibility. We've currently got a fabulous temporary display for winter in here.

Jane: Well, it's almost like we're by the seaside here because we've got lots of beach sounds in the background, which gives us a clue as to the theme of this display. Can you tell us more?

Emma: This time, we're doing Houseplant Takeover: Deep Sea Dive and visitors can come in and explore an underwater, rocky canyon with lots of different plants lost at sea, displayed all very creatively. The wonderful thing is they all look like either seaweed, or coral, or urchins, or anemones, or starfish and we realise, actually, that the thing they all have in commo, is a lot of these plants that resemble underwater plants or animals are drought-tolerant.

Jane: So you're giving a great message about how to take care of your succulents at the same time as making them look like a deep sea adventure, which is marvellous. There are loads of cool things in this display. Can you just tell us about your favourite element of the houseplant takeover?

Emma: Well, it's really hard to choose. Every area has got its own identity and we've separated plants out into their various types. So we've got a Bromeliad area, we've got a cacti area, a Euphorbia area, Aloes and Agaves. But I think my favourite thing is the team have been super-creative and they've made underwater sea creatures out of succulents using lots of Echeveriaand Tillandsia. It's really hard to pick a favourite, but I think the seahorse maybe, and the angler fish would be up there, but there's teeny-tiny angelfish as well. I think, across the board, the sea creatures are just adding a whole other layer of creativity to succulents and cacti.

Jane: It's showing how creative you can be because the temptation is just to put them in a pot and put them on the windowsill and that's it. But actually, you can combine them in really quite interesting ways, even in the home. Obviously, we're in a giant glasshouse, so the world is your oyster, if I can make that pun, but at home even, you can do interesting succulent arrangements too!

Emma: Yes and we've actually got a video which will be - it's on our website now, and I think our YouTube channel - which is how to make a succulent sphere. One of our very talented team members here puts a couple of hanging baskets together and then shows you how to fill it, so you can do that at home. Our jellyfish are, in fact, just half a hanging basket with the chicken wire underneath. So I think we may do more with that going forward and perhaps have a few more videos coming out with maybe how to make starfish, for example.

Jane: Excellent, well that sounds like great fun! I like the fact that you're separating out the Euphorbias from the cacti. It's a bit of a pet hate, probably, of people who are into houseplants, that everyone thinks that Euphorbias are cacti. It's probably only a very small majority of us that get wound up about this kind of stuff, but Euphorbias are amazing! We're standing in front of this huge, I mean it's a tree-like structure of Euphorbia ingens. Some of these cacti that we could have as tiny plants in pots do grow quite large, don't they?

Emma: They do. As we were recently discussing, we've got a Pachypodium in a pot at home and it's manageable at the moment, but you can see the ones here are probably about two metres tall and they're quite spiney, so they will get large eventually. They'll get larger here in the glasshouse because we have such incredibly high light levels, so they will be much slower to do that in your home.

Jane: Absolutely, that is the key, isn't it? Good light, really good light is best for these plants. Well, let's have a wander around and have a look. I think we're probably on the edge, we're moving towards the waterfall which is noisy but I think we still need to have a wander around and have a look at this amazing display. I'm loving this Crassula here, that's a venerable specimen! Is that Gollum, or one of those...?

Emma: Yes, it's Gollum. It's got a 2002 date on but that doesn't necessarily mean that's when it started its life. That's just when we when we brought it into the Wisley collection, so it's at least 22 years old, 21, I can't do the maths!

Jane: How good care and light can give you an amazing plant because that's absolutely stunning!

Emma: We've got more Sansevierias in here. Again, you can see how they look a little bit like seaweed, particularly these very large leaved ones. We're now going through the groynes into the water.

Jane: These amazing displays that you've got here, where you've got lots of String of Pearls. I see some Lithops on the top of one of these posts, Echeverias, some Rhipsalis-type succulents. It really does look like seaweed. When you look at it from a distance, you would actually be fooled by this! It's very, very clever. I believe this was a design that you had to put on ice because of Covid?

Emma: That's right. We were going to do this the year after Giant Houseplant Takeover, but obviously, not long after Giant Houseplant Takeover, Covid hit the world. Running the risk of creating and putting all this energy into an indoor display, when quite often the glasshouse would be closed if the garden was open, because we're an indoor space. So, this has been three years in the making. It's wonderful to be able to do it, finally!

Jane: Well, it's really fantastic to see it back. I was here for the last one and I love what you've done this time, it's so much fun! Teaching about succulents is important, I think, because they're so popular, and yet so many people get them a little bit wrong. What are you expecting people to be particularly captivated by, and what tips would you give people for their cacti and succulents at home?

Emma: I hope that people are captivated by the diversity. There's so much diversity within the cacti and succulent group. Even just looking here at the Agave, just within that genus the diversity is phenomenal in terms of colour and the size of the leaves, the size of the palms. They really are spectacular. You can have something that's really easy, Echeverias, for example, are really easy to grow and that's something everyone can have a go with. They're also the really fun ones if you want to start making something. So, things like Echeveria and the Tillandsia usneoides, Spanish Moss, are super-useful for anything and they'll just need a bit of misting over, really, on the sculptures that the team has made.

Jane: Yes, this beautiful seahorse sculpture made of Tillandsia and Echeveria is lovely. Obviously, it's quite big, it's about as tall as me, but probably you could create something a little bit smaller at home.

Emma: Absolutely. We've got little angelfish we've made, on the other side. There's a clam with the Echeveria as the pearl inside. You could make a very small starfish but you don't have to make an underwater-looking creature, you could make whatever you like. The jellyfish, particularly the smaller ones, where we've used a smaller sized hanging basket, we found the smallest one we could get. That would be much more do-able at home and it'd be less weight to hang as well, so I'd suggest those to get you going.

Jane: Absolutely. It's an amazingly sort of pliable material, the succulent, really, for using on these kinds of displays. I'm loving this array of Agaves. You've got some real scarily spiney specimens here, which are thankfully set back from the path! I love Agaves. People often struggle with them, again because they get big, if you can get them that big. I've lost a few over the winter. Agaves: perhaps not ideal, necessarily, for the windowsill. Echeverias, again, absolutely lovely and easy to care for. Anything else that you'd recommend from the display here, for somebody who's looking for something to get started but maybe a little bit more unusual, perhaps?

Emma: I really love Euphorbia obesa and, again, they're small, they're never going to become an enormous plant. It's almost like little, slightly tartan looking markings too.

Jane: I think I've seen it called the Tartan Tennis Ball!

Emma: There you go! It's just such a fun little curiosity. So, again, very easy, won't take up much space but an unusual plant to have in your collection.

Jane: Let's keep moving forward a little bit. We've got Sansevierias ahead of us too. I do love this display. This waterfall is gorgeous and I do love the display in front of it, with the whale tail and this beachside display of Crassula and Kalanchoes. Again, so much fun! It's great!

Emma: I think they aim to do a version of The Wave, you know, the painting?

Jane: Yes.

Emma: I think we did that last time for the glasshouse takeover.

Jane: Even the substrate is shaped into waves here by the Sansevieria area, which is really sweet, I love it. Dr. Agave the botanist has got a nice breastplate of Sansevieria leaves, which is fun.

Emma: That's right and a belt. We've used Sansevieria leaves to create some of her adornments.

Jane: Kind of correct really, in that in the past, Sansevierias were used for fibres, so there we go! That's actually not that far from the truth!

Emma: That's good to know. They're very tough, aren't they?

Jane: They're very, very tough.

Emma: Tough plants. Again, there's just such diversity. You can get the cylindrical types that are very narrow and round, and then you're getting more plastic, flat and variegated, shaped leaves. But then there's also these little ones here, with the yellow centres, I think it's Star Canary? Sansevieria Star Canary.

Jane: Yes, they're becoming so popular.

Emma: Again, just such diversity within just one genus. I think we're just trying to show people they don't just have to have your classic looking Sansevieria. There's so much out there you can choose from.

Jane: Yeah, I've got a bit of a thing . . . I know that the Laurentii, the banana yellow margin one, is popular, but I do like the Trifasciata species as well, which is just this amazing green and silver shimmery look. You're right, even among the sort of, what we might call very workaday plants, there is something nice to be enjoyed. It's fantastic. Let's just go around the other side of this amazing... I love the angler fish, that's so clever with all the little Bromeliads, and then he's got his fishing rod and that's got a brilliant... are they Anthurium seed pods, or something, on there?

Emma: Yeah, something like that. They've used palm fronds for the fins and the tail and I think a little bits of Agave for the teeth; nice, spiney teeth!

Jane: So clever! Well, I know you're hoping to attract lots of children to visit the exhibit. What do you think children are going to make of this? Is it something that hopefully will spark off an interest in cacti and succulents?

Emma: I think that's where the sea creatures come in because I think seeing plants used to create animals, I think that's what will capture the imagination. When we did giant houseplant takeover, we had cacti cupcakes and just put things in forms where you just wouldn't expect to see them. So I think that's where using plants to make animals, I think, will capture their imagination. They'll also have to hunt. Each area's got a kind of feature plant and we'd pop them in a terrarium, and they'll have a booklet to go around and they have to help Dr. Agave, a botanist who's lost their plants at sea, the children will have to then look for the plants and find them in the terrarium. So for the Agave section, we've got Agave Blue Wave in there, we've got the Echincactus grusonii, the Barrel Cactus, representing the cacti section, so they'll have to learn and find a plant in each area as well.

Jane: I'm loving it, amazing stuff! Well, it's a really beautiful display and obviously, as always, for the listeners who won't be able to make it, I'll put some pictures in the show notes so they can follow along, but it's gorgeous and thanks so much for sharing.

Emma: Our absolute pleasure. Thanks very much, Jane!

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Jane: Thanks for your lovely feedback on recent episodes. I'm still getting suggestions on the pot hacks episode. I particularly liked Julia's contribution. Julia sent me a picture-packed email of many of her plants thriving using plastic bottles for moss poles and also as planters, getting really, really crafty, which I love because a lot of people spend a lot of money buying virgin plastic moss poles. Why!? We can just recycle things. Julia, I particularly like the one full of Begonias, but that's probably not surprising to anyone who's been listening to the show for a while. Another top tip from Julia in her email was about how to make sure that you can separate decorative pots from the inner pot. She said that somebody on YouTube called Minimalistcali, who I hadn't come across before but I've now subscribed, suggested using medical tape folded over on itself, but the tail end free to stick to the pot, so there's a little handle to grab onto. This kind of tape is usually waterproof, so it works well as long as you have enough room to hide your little tape handles between the inner and outer pots. So, I'll put a link to that video in the show notes if you want to go and check it out from Minimalistcali. Very, very handy. I'm loving that tip. Usually, I'm the person who's just getting compost all over the floor trying to separate the two, so now I just need to find some medical tape. I need to raid my first aid box! Now it's time to hear from listener Lynette.

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Lynette: My name is Lynette and I live in the Southern United States in Tennessee Zone 7A. I've lived here all my life.

Jane: When did you get into houseplants and why?

Lynette: I've always loved houseplants. I grew up in the 70s and have such good memories of my mom making macrame hanging baskets for her heart leaf Philodendrons. There were always cuttings propagating in a pretty vase on a window ledge. She always knew just when to put the Christmas Cactus in a cooler room, to force it to bloom for the holidays.

Jane: When did you get into houseplants and why?

Lynette: I have several plants, both houseplants and garden flowers, that I've kept through the years, that were my mom's. One I'm especially proud of, that was my great grandmother's, that dates back to at least the 1920s! Both of my grown daughters have a propagation from it, and honestly, I always have two spare propagations just in case something happens to the mother plant.

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

Lynette: I can't resist an Aroid, especially Philodendrons. Most recently, I added two Philodendrons: a plowmanii and a melanochrysum. Please forgive my terrible pronunciation!

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

Lynette: I love houseplants because they bring nature indoors. I've always been connected to nature and being able to have a natural element in my home centres me. It's honestly my main form of self-care. I've generally been able to keep houseplants to what a normal person might call reasonable, but two things happened all at once. First, with the pandemic, I started working at home, and my position converted permanently to working from home. So, I always try to surround myself with nature and calm; that's never been more important to me. Second, as empty nesters, we bought a smaller home. Why would a smaller home mean more houseplants? It's a great question and my husband is still trying to figure it out! Our new home is wrapped in windows that are east and south-facing. The bright indirect light floods the house from morning to night and it is honestly a houseplant paradise.

Jane: Who is your houseplant hero?

Lynette: Aside from Jane - proud Superfan here! - my go-to resource is Summer Rayne Oakes and her YouTube channel, Plant One On Me. She's so in touch with nature and she brings it into her home in a perfect, lovely way. Her channel is the first place I go when I purchase a new plant, to see what her advice is.

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

Lynette: Okay, honestly, I can't keep a Spider Plant alive! I know that sounds ridiculous, but I've killed three in two years! I'm sure it's our county water, that's filled with minerals but I already buy distilled water for my pitcher plants and I'm sure not buying water, or collecting rainwater, for a Spider Plant. For that, it's survival of the fittest!

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Jane: Thank you so much, Lynette! Reminds me of my time living in the Southern US to hear your glorious accent. If you'd like to take part in Meet The Listener, drop a line to my assistant Kelly at ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com and she'll send you the very simple instructions for taking part!

Now, it's time for Question of the Week, which comes this week from Heidi and concerns a Phalaenopsis orchid, the Moth Orchid; probably, well, no, definitely, the world's most popular and ubiquitous of the orchid family, in terms of houseplants anyway. I don't actually know which is the most common orchid in the wild. I should try and find that out. Anyway, this is a tale of two spikes. Spike A came about late last summer and then stopped growing. Spike B started growing in October and has been thriving. So, as I understand it, Heidi, Spike B, although it appeared after Spike A, has run away with growth and decided to bloom much more quickly than the one that came before it. You've helpfully sent lots of lovely pictures of your Moth Orchid, which does look nice and healthy. It's got a good set of roots on it, I can see that the roots are lovely and green and in no way rotted, or distressed, or shrivelled, so that is a great start when it comes to Moth Orchids.

Looking at these two flower stems, I can see exactly what you mean. Why the heck has one of them just decided to stop growing? And Heidi's thinking that maybe snipping it back might be the answer - cutting it back to one of those nodes, those little scaley bits on the flower stem - might jolt it into growing a bit faster. Heidi's not overly concerned. This orchid has been in Heidi's possession for about four years and it's the first time it's re-bloomed, which is thrilling! Heidi points out: "I don't need that spike to bloom, but it would be fun!"

Looking at your plant, Heidi, first of all, well done! Nice to get a re-bloom. It looks like it's got loads of growth on it actually. The flower spike that is budding up and is about to flower - not only have you got flowers, but you've also got side stems coming off that, which are going to produce flowers as well, so it's going to be a productive one.

What do you do with that other one? My approach with this kind of thing would be to just leave it alone and see what happens. There could be all kinds of reasons why that particular spike didn't quite grow as fast as the other one. It could be to do with light, the root system around that particular stem, the availability of nutrients, all may be factors - hard to know, really. We'll probably never know exactly what's going on, but I suspect that eventually that flower spike will start to grow again. It may be that you move the plant and it just meant that one side was getting better conditions than the other side and so the one on the slightly less favourable side just decided to put all of its energy into the other spike. I think it'll come good though and it's exciting that you've had two flower spikes!

Phalaenopsis orchids that you buy from general stores and garden centres are massively hybridised. Their genetic history is intensely complicated and they've been bred to be floriferous, to flower a lot. So it's not surprising that, oftentimes, orchids will develop more than one flower spike. You only ever get one flower spike at a single point on a stem. So a single point on a stem will not develop two separate spikes. If you look at the position of those spikes, they tend to be about two leaves below the top. So look at your budding plant and you'll count down two leaves and that's probably where these flower spikes are coming from, one on each side of that stem, as is the case with Heidi's orchid. If you provide it with enough resources in the form of good light, nutrition, water, temperature etc, then your plant is more likely to produce those two flower spikes, rather than just the one.

I think that Heidi's plant has paused one of them because maybe conditions aren't quite as good. That move may have changed things a little bit and the orchid's saying: "Hang on!" because, of course, flowering takes up an enormous amount of energy for the plant. It's vital for the plant to flower because it needs to reproduce, but at the same time it doesn't want to put a load of energy into flowering when conditions might not be exactly right. I think that if Heidi continues to care for this plant really well, it will flower. I would just hold on, Heidi, and once those flowers have finished, there's a big debate in the orchid world about whether you should cut the flower stem right back to the base once the flowers are finished, or whether you should cut them back to a node. I tend to cut them back right to the base because then the plant can reset itself and grow and develop more, ready to go again. The plant will have to then put on some more leaves in order for the next set of spikes to come along.

One of the things that can affect orchid flowering, is temperature, and, traditionally, a drop in temperature, particularly a night-time drop in temperature, has been important for initiating flowering. However, as I was saying about breeding, lots of hybridisation means that the strength of that need for a drop in temperature has reduced in some orchids. So, some orchids might flower perfectly well at a very, very steady and continuous temperature without that drop in temperature in the autumn / winter to initiate flowering. Sorry to be a little bit vague, but it's one of those things where the orchid world is complicated! Everyone has their own view about how to do these things, but I would say in your case, Heidi, leave it alone, see what happens, and I think that probably your second spike will come good in the end. I do hope that helps and if you've got a question for On The Ledge, do drop me a line: ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com

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Jane: That is all for this week's show. Reminder: no episode next week! What will you do with yourselves!? Well, do check out the back catalogue. There's more than 200 episodes to go back and listen to, or indeed listen again. And also on that page, which I'll link to in the show notes, there is a list of other podcast interviews I've done for other shows, so you can still hear my dulcet tones! Anyway, have a fantastic week with you and your plants. Take care of yourselves and love to you all. Bye!

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Jane: The music you heard in this podcast was Roll Jordan Roll, by The Joy Drops, The Road We Used To Travel When We Were Kids, by Komiku and Whistle, by Benjamin Banger. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.

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I visit the Houseplant Takeover exhibit at RHS garden Wisley in Surrey and answer a question about moth orchid flower stems. Plus we hear from listener Lynette.

Celebrating the LGBTQIA+ houseplant community February is LGBT+ history month, so I’ll be devoting an episode on February 27 to celebrating the incredible houseplant community among LGBTQIA+ people - and I want to hear from you! Record a voice memo 30 seconds to 2 minutes long, taking up the theme ‘what houseplants mean to me’. Send your recording (or a written message if you don’t want to talk) to me at ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com by February 16.

Thanks for all your feedback on the pot hacks episode! Check out the video recommended by listener Julia that suggests using medical tape to help ease nursery pots out of their cachepot. Its here and comes from Minimalistcali.

This angler fish made from bromeliads, palm fronds, Echeverias and Tillandsias was one of my favourite elements of the display. Click to enlarge. Photograph: Oliver DIxon/RHS.

Check out the shownotes as you listen…

  • Scroll down for a gallery of images from the Takeover to view as you listen: click on the individual images to enlarge them. Photographs by Jane Perrone and Oliver Dixon/RHS.

  • You can find out more about Wisley’s Houseplant Takeover on the RHS website.

  • Thanks to Emma Allen of RHS Wisley for taking me on a tour of the Houseplant Takeover exhibit.

  • Download the RHS’s full list of plants at the exhibit here (PDF download).

  • Want to hear about the last Wisley houseplant takeover exhibit, Monstera Mansion in 2020? hear about it in On The Ledge episode 128.

Heidi’s first flower spike stalled while the second romped away.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Heidi wants to know what to do about her Phalaenopsis orchid (aka moth orchid) which has two flower spikes - the spike that emerged first last summer has stalled, while a second spike produced a couple of months later is racing away and almost ready to bloom. Is snipping the stalled spike back a good way of getting something to happen, wonders Heidi?

I suggest leaving the stalled spike alone. Heidi says the plant was moved, and this may have changed availability of light, temperature or other factors that promote the growth of flower spikes. Flower spikes on Phalaenopsis only arrive when the plant has put on good growth through the year - they usually emerge on the stem two leaves below the growth point. Sometimes reducing the temperature at night can prompt Phals to flower, but extensive hybridisation means that some moth orchids will still flower very usccessfully at an even temperature.

There’s a lot of disgreement in the orchid world about whether to cut flower spikes back to the base after flowering, or whether to cut them back to a node to give them a chance to reflower from that spike. (The node is the scale-like points you can see on the stem in the picture above). I tend to cut them back to the base: it will take a little longer to reflower, but there should be a bigger display!

Find out more about moth orchid care in On The Ledge episode 181.

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.

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 Whistle by BenJamin Banger (@benjaminbanger on Insta; website benjaminbanger.com).

Cacti & succulents, Styling houseplantsJane Perroneorchids, PhalaenopsisComment