Episode 199: indoor bonsai with @bonsai_raff
Ficus species make excellent specimens for indoor bonsai. Photograph: Jerry Norbury on Flickr.
Transcript
Episode 199
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Jane: Hello and welcome to On The Ledge podcast, episode 199. I am your host, Jane Perrone, houseplant head honcho around these parts and in this week's show I'm chatting to Raffaella Warren-Barbieri, aka Bonsai_raff. She's a teenage sensation on Instagram, providing tips, advice and fun on the theme of Bonsai and houseplants too. Plus, I answer a question about two Bromeliads saved from a skip! Now that's the kind of plant rescue I like!
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Jane: Thanks for all your feedback so far on last week's show. I'm collating that together and getting ready to do a follow-up interview, which will also cover the delights of Leca, expanded clay pebbles, so do keep sending in your thoughts, questions, reflections and so on.
Thank you to my new Patreons this week. Elaine upgraded from Crazy Plant Person to Ledge-end and Lynette became a Superfan. It's coming up to that time of year where I start preparing the December mail-out for Patreons, so if you're a Patreon at the Ledge-end or Superfan level, do check your Patreon account has your postal address on it and that postal address is correct because every year I get a few returned cards because the address is incorrect, which is heartbreaking, so please do check that. The deadline for signing up as a Ledge-end or a Superfan in order to get that special mail-out is 19^th^ November. If you sign up after that date, or change your address after that date, I can't guarantee that you will get that mail-out because it takes quite a long time to organise and the post is notoriously slow at that time of year. So, please do check your postal address on Patreon if you are a subscriber and if you're not, why not? Find out more in the show notes.
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Jane: I was bemoaning to my daughter the other day about the fact that I really don't know what I am doing on Instagram! She's 14, so she's a bit more clued up than me, and I said, "Please find me some people on Instagram who are doing reels for houseplants really well," and the person she told me about was Bonsai_raff and I was delighted because I've been trying to do a Bonsai episode for you on this show for many a moon. I had a look at Raffaella's Instagram and it's very inspiring, funny, clever and I felt totally overawed by her brilliance and even more so when I found out that she's just 18! So I called her up for a chat about how this all began, her top tips for growing Bonsai indoors and I asked her for some suggestions on helping my daughter with her growing houseplant obsession.
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Jane: Well, I'm so glad to meet you over this medium of Zoom and I've been looking to talk to somebody about Bonsai for a while, so this is fantastic to have you on the show, a young advocate for Bonsai! How did this begin? Where did this all start for you?
Raffaella: A lot of things happened for a lot of people in 2020. In lockdown one, it's crazy because I had absolutely no interest in plants. I didn't like going in the garden, I didn't like any of it. I was in Year 11 when lockdown hit and I would have had my GCSEs and they were cancelled, so I had this huge amount of time, six months of no school, nothing, and I was thinking, "How am I going to fill this time?" So my dad said to me, "Oh, can you help me out in the garden?" He's asked me every single year and I've always been, like, "Oh, no, I don't really want to do that!" but then I actually took him up on his offer and it was one of the best six months of my life, really! It was amazing. We're very fortunate to have about an acre garden because we live in the countryside, so I would help him doing things like taking down huge thorns and having this huge pile and just feeling, like, super-proud of ourselves that we defeated this huge thorny bush. Then what we also did, was we built a raised bed. We have a greenhouse and so, for the first time, I started planting seeds and then planted them in the veg patch and digging up potatoes and also starting the interminable destruction of the stinging nettles, which I had no idea how difficult that was to do, but, there you go, they keep coming back! So from that, I just did that every day with him. It was absolutely just like therapy for me and then, from that, I was, like, "Oh, indoor plants!" because it was quite amazing because a little shop opened up in our town and we'd never had an independent botanist before. So I ordered some plants from them, I thought, "Wow, this is really fun too!" and then I went into their shop and I saw that they started selling Bonsai and I thought "I've never seen them before". I mean, I probably had, but I hadn't taken any interest in them. My little sister, she actually bought me a book called The Little World of Bonsai, which is absolutely, like, the Bonsai bible. And she bought me my first tree from that shop and from that, I was just completely so excited by them and I sort of really niched from working in the garden to having these little trees in my room and that's how it really came about. Luckily, that same botanist, I managed to get a job in because I just pestered them and pestered them and I started working there! From that, they have lots of trees in their shop, and I now can look after their trees and I've managed to take a lot of their trees home and give them a sprucing up, so it's all gone full circle and that's how I got into it!
Jane: That's amazing! Wow! That's a really lovely story and I guess there have been some good things come out of the pandemic. That is really one of them, so many people getting into gardening, especially young people, so that's fantastic. Bonsai is something, in my 47 years on this planet, I have not ever dabbled with. I've admired, up close and from afar, delightfully elderly Bonsai, but I've never tried it. What is it that really appeals to you about this particular form of gardening and what makes it different from just growing regular houseplants?
Raffaella: I love all houseplants, but the thing about Bonsai is they grow with you and the thing about them is you can change them and manipulate them and make it so it's completely your own. They last for such a long time because they are just little trees, so they'll last for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. From my age, I could, when I'm 90, have the same tree if I've looked after it well enough. What I find amazing about it, is I find it extremely meditative when you're actually working on it. You can do so many more things with it compared to other houseplants because other houseplants you can water, you can propagate, but with Bonsai you can repot, you can wire, you can prune, you can shape it, you can display it and you can put it into competitions and things like that. It really sets it apart. Also, it's an architectural piece, so if you have one of them in your dining room, or something, it's really quite amazing. It's the only hobby that I have and that I got into, that when I'm actually doing it, nothing can distract me from it. So I'll be in the middle of wiring and it might take me an hour and I will not have picked up my phone, I wouldn't have had a drink of water, I would just be completely focused on that and it's so absorbing. Also, it sounds a bit cliche, but it kind of, like, teaches you about life. So when I started, I really didn't know what I was doing. I had this amazing little, thickest tree and, luckily, it was very forgiving. I tried to do things like give it a trim, I ended up taking off a third of it and it was just bald and then I tried to do a take... because also with Bonsai there are loads of different techniques, so you can get really nerdy about it. So there's a thing called Jin, which is when it's the Japanese art of creating a sort of driftwood effect on a tree. You can't really do this with indoor trees because indoor trees are tropical plants but, let's say you had a lovely Juniper, I think they're the ones they use, and the whole effect of driftwood is that's how the tree would have been worn away if it would have grown on mountains. So then you try and replicate this in your own sort of garden, or if you're keeping it indoors, and it's got this beautiful, like, carved-out effect, with a paler bark underneath that you've scraped off. So, anyway, I tried this with my tree, it looked awful and I was like, "I'm so sorry! What have I done?" So it was bald and bits taken out of it, I'd forgotten to water it at one point because I didn't realise how much you had to water it, but it's still fine and that's the thing. I look at it now and I think, like, all those little things that you've done, it's, you know, just like with life. A tree isn't going to look perfect, your Bonsai isn't going to look perfect, so if you mess up, like, it is a representation of how true you're supposed to look and actual nature in the wild and when you see a tree, it's not going to be perfectly symmetrical on each side, the branches. So if you snapped off a branch, you don't have to be worried about it. If you see a Great Oak that's been through so much, it may have been struck by lightning or had some sort of wind damage, so it's going to be scarred and gnarled and everything like that. That's the whole thing with Bonsai, as well, is you want to show that through the tree. The whole thing about Bonsai is you want so how much is aged. So that's the thing in competitions, that trees that - obviously, in competitions, you have the ones that are 20 years old - but the ones that have the most amount of life in them, is the only way I can describe it. They're the ones who usually win the competitions. It's nice because you've sort of grown up with it and it's cool.
Jane: It sounds amazing and I love the fact that you've started as a teenager because that is going to be... as a 90 year old, or whatever, you're going to have trees that you've been caring for for all those years! How wonderful would that be? It's like having a tortoise, isn't it, or a parrot? It's probably going to outlive you, which is amazing. You talked a little bit there about indoor and outdoor Bonsai. I think sometimes people think that all Bonsai can be indoors but there are certain species that are happier indoors than out and vice versa. Can you just tell us a little bit about good choices for indoor Bonsai?
Raffaella: Yes, the only trees I currently own are indoor varieties. So I have a Jade, Ficus and you can also get Brazilian Rain Trees, which are less common in the UK. I also have a Weeping Fig, which, I did check this before the show, but I don't think it does lose its leaves because, obviously, it's like a houseplant as well because I bonsaied it from a houseplant. They are the go-to indoor ones because, unfortunately, indoor Bonsai are much harder to get your hands on because the ones that they present are these beautiful, deciduous outdoor species in garden centres and, like, "Oh yes, you can keep them indoors!" when, in fact, you can't for some of the months. So the ones I would really recommend for you to get are Jade and Ficus. The Jade, the Bonsai masters say that Jade doesn't technically classify as a Bonsai but I disagree because mine looks very cute and because the Jade is a semi-succulent, so the only thing is, you can't wire the branches. You just have to be a bit more careful with it because the branches contain water. So, when you wire it, it does cut into a bit more. That's the only reason.
Jane: Who hasn't got a Jade hanging around? A Jade Plant is so common that if you want to start somewhere that would seem like a really great place to start?
Raffaella: Yes and also, if you forget to water it, I've had mine drying out completely, it's going to be forgiving. So I'd recommend that.
Jane: You've gone and joined Instagram and are providing the Instagram world with fantastic Bonsai content, which is amazing. I imagine you get lots of questions because you've got lots of people following you? What are the kinds of things people tend to ask you on Insta about Bonsai?
Raffaella: The most common questions I get are either people will send me a picture and be, like, "What's going on?" and it's usually all of the leaves dropped off, or the soil is completely dried out, anything like that. Usually I can tell the species and most the time, as I said before, it's because they're outdoor varieties. You can keep them indoors but the only thing is, as you look outside, as the leaves are falling in autumn and that's when, October, you see all the leaves falling, that's exactly what's happening to your tree indoors. So it's not your fault a lot of the time. You've done everything right but, unfortunately, it will lose its leaves but it will come back in the spring, just like as you see outdoors, as the trees do! So it's usually just because it's the natural cycle of the trees, so I just try and reassure them. Or it's because of the watering. I think watering is a big thing. So either people tend to over-water because they've heard that you can't let them dry out and they have to be really moist, but you don't want to make them too damp because they're prone to pests, but you also don't want to let them dry out because that's not what a tree needs; a tree needs a lot of water. So I just say let the tree just all dry out and then give it - the way, the best way to keep your tree, is if you do the immersion method. So you get a little dish and you just submerge it completely in its pot, as long as a hole in the pot, and it can take up through the roots and that's the best way to prevent any sort of fatalities.
Jane: Brilliant and you mentioned to me, I think you've commented about this on Instagram, that Bonsai as a hobby, as a gardening practice, is generally dominated by older men and you're going about starting to change that, but can you tell me about why that was something that you felt like you needed to take action on in terms of promoting it as a hobby for everybody?
Raffaella: Well, I'm quite feminist and I just saw that! For me, when I'm part of the UK Bonsai Association, which is really amazing, when I start looking on their competitions and their past event photos I thought, "Oh, that's so good!" and I zoomed in, I thought, "Wow, that is 200 people in there. I think I can spot two women!" Then I looked at all of the competitions they'd done with young - and when I say "young", I mean these people who were doing it were like 30 to 40 and they were in the "young" category - and they were all men and there were no female winners that I could see. I might be wrong on that, but none that I could see and that I could find and I thought, "Alright, let's get me in there! I want to try and change that!" and that's another thing that really pushed me forward with Bonsai because I thought I want to show women and girls on Instagram that anyone can do Bonsai because Bonsai is also very male-dominated. I don't want to generalize, but it's one of those things, I've seen it when people in the shop, the main people who buy them, are men because they're sort of seen as a challenge and seen as, sort of, like, "Oh yes! It's a tree. It's a man thing!" and you want to try and wrestle with it, with the wires and stuff like that and I think that's just not true. On loads of accounts that I see, they're always run by men, so I thought, "Yes, I'm going to show people that an 18 year old girl can do Bonsai and can teach others how to do it" because, also, those older men, a lot of the time, can be quite closed off about how to do it, not intentionally, but just because, I think, because they've been doing it so long, they're just, like, "How don't you understand how to do it?" and I want to show - I've only been doing this for about a year-and-a-half. I'm no master. I'm still completely learning and I learn with people and people, when they ask me questions, it pushes me to learn more - but I just want to show people that, as I'm in these early stages, that I can really communicate with people and be, like, "Oh, don't worry. I understand why you're confused. This is how you do it." Also, I think, with my Instagram, that's the thing that I really love about running my account is because I am still kind of shocked that people are interested in me and showing people how to have a Bonsai tree and how to have houseplants and everything like that and I still think, "Oh, that's kind of weird!" but I think it's because when you see someone who's passionate about something, no matter what it is, even if you're not passionate about that subject, it's something that you think, "Oh yes, I want to be on board with that!" and so I enjoy it because as a passionate 18-year-old about something, I hope younger girls who follow me and stuff like that, or any gender, they think, "Oh yes, she's passionate about something!" My passion, even though it's really niche, maybe someone else might like it and, you know what, maybe me having this passion isn't that nerdy and maybe it is kind of cool?". So that's what I like to do!
Jane: I always tell my daughter that the cool people at school never turn out to be the cool adults. The people who've got nerdy interests always turn out to be the most interesting adults there are. So I always try to encourage her to not feel like you've got to stick with, or just do something because this is seen as being the cool thing. So yes, I love the fact that you're into Bonsai! It's a funny thing with the wires. I'm thinking to myself that you, with your young nimble hands are probably... maybe that's a good thing? Does it make it easier to manipulate? It's not like you're dealing with a massive oak tree trunk of full size. I'd imagine having small, nimble hands might be a good thing? I don't know.
Raffaella: Yes, I think so. I haven't been able to have the luxury of having this huge, one-metre Bonsai because, obviously, people do sometimes think that Bonsai are the ones that you can fit in your hand, but when they're about 50 years old, you do have to slightly plan ahead in the sense that when they get to 50, it's going to be quite a hefty thing. It's going to be half your height! If you think about it, if a 56-year-old oak tree was outside of your house, it's sort of to scale, but yes, even with that, I wouldn't have a go at wiring that thing, wiring the beast!
Jane: Yes, it sounds amazing. I mean, there is so much to this particular branch of gardening and I imagine that it's partly terminology. It's partly there's a philosophy behind what you're doing as well, which is often the case with other elements of Japanese gardening. How have you gone about learning that? Has it been through books, through other social media accounts? How do you accrue your knowledge in this area?
Raffaella: I definitely would have used social media accounts, but I only got social media in December 2020. I didn't have anything before then. From that, I have learnt new things, I've learned about yamadori which is all about, basically it's quite cool, where you go and get Bonsai from the wild, so it's like nature has created their own Bonsai. Obviously you have to get permission from the landowner for whatever it is, but it's due to lack of nutrients, a sort of dwarfism, these little species of trees have grown to their own little Bonsai out in the wild somewhere, so I didn't even know that existed, I thought you could only do it because of artificial means. Probably mainly books has been the biggest thing for me and, at work, my managers have been amazing in describing exactly what they need. I used to go in every few weeks when I didn't work then and be, like, "So, what does this mean? What does this mean?" and just asking people. But I think books are the biggest thing, especially books with pictures. I know it sounds, like, really childish but, especially things like wiring, it's quite hard to describe to someone without showing them. So yes, pictures are the way to go!
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Jane: We'll be back with more from Raffaella shortly but now it's time for Question of the Week and I just wanted to update you on the Quadricolor question from a couple of weeks ago. I've had a response from the lovely Avery, of Parvus Plants, which is a tiny houseplant nursery in Wales, and Avery has been doing a great deal of excellent research into the subject of Tradescantia species and cultivars and confirms what we already knew, which is that this is a complete mess. I will add Avery's comments in full on to the show notes from the Quadricolor episode. The summary is that, yes, Cherie's plant is most often called Tricolor, but it does come under many other names, and indeed the species name is contested too. Avery says that the better match to the species is actually Tradescantia mundula and indeed the Tradescantia zebrina quadricolor name, well that doesn't seem like it's correct either. It was first published under the name Tradescantia multicolor madame lequesne - I don't know how to say that; lequesne! - so it's even more of a mess than I thought, I think is the summary! But Avery does say that he would agree with my use of the most common contemporary name tricolor for the plant that Cherie showed me and Quadricolor for the variegated Tradescantia zebrina. So if you want to read that comment in full, do go back and look at the show notes for episode 197 and I'll just include a reference to that in the show notes for this episode, just so you can find that. What a mess taxonomy is but I do love these plants and, in fact, I'm on the waiting list for a Quadricolor from Avery because I've been lured into wanting one of these plants! It happens quite frequently with this podcast!
Right, let's move on to this week's question which comes from Ben. Ben has found two sad-looking things in a skip and thinks that one is a Guzmania and the other is a Vriesea. I mean that's great work right there, Ben, for identifying what you've got in the first place! Ben goes on to say, "Both middle stems are brown/green and there are two or three small spikes, or stems, forming at the base. What do I do?" I don't know if everyone in the world calls a skip a skip, maybe you call it a dumpster, but a big metal thing that people put building waste in is what we're talking about here? Somebody had, obviously, decided these Bromeliads had had their day and abandoned them without checking first with On The Ledge podcast, which is always a mistake!
So what's going on? Well, Bromeliads are monocarpic, which means they die back after they've flowered, but they do do this handy thing of putting out baby plants from their base and this is how you can save these two specimens. So these young plants, known as pups - which I think is what you've got here, without seeing a picture, I can't be 100% sure but it sounds like that, Ben - once they're about a third of the size of the adult plant, then you can take them off. Now, if they're very small at the minute, I don't think that main stem is dead yet because there is some green on it, so you could let it grow out a bit longer and wait for those pups to increase in size. But if they're about, as I say, a third of the size of the main plant, you can take the plant out of its pot and just, very carefully, hold the pup by its base and tease it away from the main plant. As long as you get a little tiny bit of root attached, it will be absolutely fine. Then you can pot that up separately, use a nice, really free-draining mix of substrate. I would probably go for something like 50% John Innes No. 2 or houseplant compost, ideally peat-free, as I always say, and combining that with 50% fine orchid bark. There are loads of different concoctions that people put together for this kind of plant, but bear in mind it doesn't need a massive pot because this is an epiphyte with quite small roots, so don't over-pot it.
You can put the plant into that pot, just make sure you don't bury it too deeply because that will cause the whole thing to rot, so the base of the plant should be in the soil so it's stable. So what you want to avoid is burying the vars, which is the name for the receptacle at the centre of that rosette, which is where rain water gathers, and that's where the plant gets most of its water from, as opposed to the roots. So you don't want to bury as low as that, you want to make sure that the vars is just above the surface and you need to keep that vars topped up, ideally with rain water or distilled water, some kind of soft water, pouring the water in there and you should find that those pups will start to grow and thrive. I haven't done a Bromeliad episode for absolutely ages, in fact, I'm not sure I've ever done a full episode on Bromeliads, so I shall add that to the list, Ben, but I hope that helps for the moment with your problem! Well done for finding those plants. I've said this before, but I just don't find plants on the side of the road or in dumpsters! I'm obviously looking in completely the wrong place, but good luck with your Guzmania and Vriesea, Ben, and I hope they both thrive!
If you've got a question for On The Ledge drop them to me ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com is the address.
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Jane: So if you've got, say, a Jade Plant, or some kind of Weeping Fig maybe, that's maybe a youngish smallish plant, where do we start with the Bonsai process? I'm not expecting you to download every step of knowledge, but what's the starting point? Presumably we've got to think about how to limit the growth of that plant and make it smaller?
Raffaella: So I'll give you an example of... I was given a Weeping Fig houseplant and it was definitely the most challenging thing that I've done. So it was wrapped up in a sort of like straw mesh and it has about eight different trunks and it was also bushed up into a ball at the top in a little plastic nursery pot. That's not a tree, that's just a houseplant. So, what I did was I unwrapped it and what you need to do when you start with Bonsai is, I'd say, start with the wiring because lots of people think, "I'll go in for the pruning first" but the thing is, is yes, you can prune, but you can never get what you've just pruned off back. So if you wire it first and you see how the wire is, if it doesn't look good then you can chop off the branch, but instead of trying to chop it into shape, wire it into shape. So if you get a shrub from a garden centre you want to Bonsai, or if you've got a Bonsai that just doesn't look very good, like it's come out the grower looking a bit wonky, what you need to do is have a look at whatever species that is online, look at the pictures and look at the picture of it in its full size, its full glory, as a proper tree because the whole thing about it, is trying to replicate it from that miniature. I had a look at Weeping Figs and the main, go-to shape, for me, is a sort of triangle, bushier at the bottom, tall at the top. Especially if they're young, they're more of a 2D shape. So, with Bonsai, they definitely have a front and a back and you really need to present that. The back will be more rounded, if that makes sense, and then the front is more 2D so you can see more of the structural layout. Anyway, you wire, and with young trees, you need to be really quite careful with the wiring because you need to have a thin wire and you need to be very gentle with the branch because they're so small and delicate. You need to do tight little curls around and then once you've wired that branch, it becomes malleable, so you can bend it. So what I've done is I've bent it so there's literal waves in the branch. I have done it before and it's all broken off so, you know, it's okay if that happens; you learn your own strength, that you have to be gentle. Then you should, I'd say, only wire about three/four branches maximum because if you wire every single branch it's just going to die because it's going to be so stressed. So only wire three to four, depending on how big it is. Then obviously, if you're wiring, you can also wire the actual trunk of the tree and with that, you need quite a thick wire and you bend that and that's, basically, what you do! With the wire, you think, "Oh, how long has that been? Like, a few weeks?" You probably have to leave it on for a few months and the bit that I would really recommend you doing, is every few weeks, just lift up the wire slightly and have a look at the branch and check that there's nothing called scarring, which is when the wire digs into the branch and then it leaves a whole little scar. So just check that doesn't happen and then, after a few months, it should be set in place, you unwire it and it's all set! However, if you've done the trunk, you need to leave that wire on for a year, maybe, and that's what I did with mine. I've sort of wrapped the wire around - because mine has got six different trunks - I wrapped it to try and simulate one big trunk, so I'm going to make it plaited. Then the next step you need to do is trim. Never trim more than a third of the tree because it's going to look bald and it's going to look very unhappy. Then the final step is... the definition of Bonsai is plant potted in a tray, basically, tree in a tray, so you need to get one of the beautiful... you can get so many different kinds, like, if it's particularly artsy, you can get lots of like beautifully painted ceramic trays and pots and you need to put it in one of them, which are quite shallow, and you just need to put it in that. When you're Bonsai-ing, the actual process is going to take about... so, for me, it took me about six months to get to the stage I'm in now. You can't wire and trim and repot all the same time because that tree is going to be so unhappy. You want to do a very slow glow-up of the tree and, yes, and that's, basically, everything you need to do!
Jane: That sounds very absorbing and, as you say, you've got to be in it for the long game. You've got, hopefully, a long life ahead of you to be training your plant and, you know, how exciting to think of what it's going to look like in, you know, 10/20 years' time! One thing that you also talk about in your Instagram is how adults can be intimidated by passionate teenagers. I've known this from my daughter monologuing about various things that she's been into on dog walks, where she's telling me about some particular series of books she's reading, or films she's seen and I'm just out there, going, "I have no idea what you're talking about!" She's starting to get into plants and she's 14, so what can I do to really encourage her without being an annoying parent?
Raffaella: Well you're probably in the best position that you're going to be, like, "Hey, have a look at this plant!" but I'd say the big, the biggest thing... I mean the only way I can speak is from my perspective is, for example, recently my mum has really wanted me to do yoga and it was, honestly, years of her saying yoga and then only recently, then I've suddenly switched to my head, like, "I'm going to do yoga. I'm going to try that!" and I think, "Oh, this is really good!" So with your daughter, she's starting to get into houseplants, it has to be on her own terms, but I think the best thing that you can do is take her to lovely, independent plant retailers and maybe beautiful gardens and things like that. Then, when she walks into these really cool trendy shops, she can be, like, "Wow, I want my room to look like that!". So you need to prepare for that! So it's inspiration and then, if she tells you anything about her plants that she's particularly happy about and you're, like, "Oh, wow! That's cool!" and maybe if a new plant ends up on her desk, that's not such a bad thing?
Jane: I think that's great advice! She has told me she wants a specimen plant for her room. She wants, like, a big Palm or something and I was, like, "Well, you're lucky because you actually have the warmest and sunniest bedroom in the house, so you're actually in with a shot of that!" so yes, we do need to go to my favourite houseplant shop to have a look for something because I haven't got anything like that, particularly that, the kind of thing she wants, anyway. So yes, that's really good advice and you're absolutely right, you can tell teenagers to be interested in things, but really it's got to come from them, otherwise you're just nowhere. It surprised me when she started to sort of want plants, so yes she's already had a fair few plants off me and cuttings off me but, yes, I think we may have a bigger plant in our future!
Raffaella: I'm very lucky because I've got a south-facing window, so I started this with the best room!
Jane: Yes, I mean it does make such a difference, doesn't it? It's just coincidence, but it's great to see her start to get interested and it's just interesting to see that she's got a different approach, in that I don't name my plants, whereas all of her plants have got names, which is absolutely fine, but it's just that's really different from me, as a teenager, because I was into plants as a teenager, but I was learning Latin names and I have to realise that she's not me, so that's part of my learning process as a parent, which is a lifelong thing also! Now, we've talked a little bit about the rise of lots of Generation Z - do we say Zee? Zed? Let's say Zed. Zed or Zee? - plant owners and, obviously, you're part of that. How do you feel about that sort of title, of, "Oh, you know, all these young people getting into plants!". Do you get annoyed by patronising approaches from old farts like me, or...!?"
Raffaella: I'm lucky, I haven't had anything patronising.
Jane: Oh, that's good.
Raffaella: I've only had lovely people, including you, and I think it's really come about, the whole houseplant boom, obviously, because of lockdowns, people spending so much time in their homes and realising how much we needed to connect with nature, that we hadn't before. Also, I think, because my generation... there are so many uncertain things, not just to do with Covid, like, to do with climate change. I'm a big activist towards that. I think that when you feel you haven't got much control to do with the natural world, you want to bring it in and surround yourself with it. So if you're able to care for plants, and not just plants, I think this is very directed, as well, towards growing vegetables and fruit, you can really appreciate how long it takes things to grow, how the conditions need to be just right, how you can produce your own food and eat your own food. I think it's something that has really appealed to my generation because what's going to happen in the future? We don't know and it hasn't been our fault, what's happened up until now. We've had to be put into the deep end for this and have to try and look to the future and try and be optimistic about it. I think also, from that, there's been a lot of mental health issues and I think that, with plants, they really do help with your mental health and I know you mentioned this in some of the other podcast episodes. I think that it's something that, when you plant that seed, obviously, sometimes, they don't all grow, but you think, "Okay, that's going to sprout in April and then from April, I repot it in August," or something like that. It's those little milestones in the future that makes it so we can have that little bit of certainty. So I think that's definitely one part of it and also, I think another part of it is with social media. There's been so much. People love having all the plants in their Instagram feed and it's very aesthetically pleasing. I think as people evolve their rooms, having loads of nature in your room, it's just so lovely to have your room purified with all the lovely plants and also, you're surrounded by, like, living furniture and I think Generation Z really like that, especially as we've grown up in such a technology age. So we actually can connect with something that you can respond to and care for.
Jane: Yes, you're on the money there and I absolutely sympathise with your statements about climate change because I do feel that your generation, as you say, you've been lumped with this problem that is going to be a lifelong issue for you to deal with and it's not your fault. It's tremendously unfair. I know both my children feel really strongly about it and worry about it a lot, so it is something that we all need to be thinking about. But, you're right, growing fruit and veggies or, I know this is a houseplant podcast, but I just have to agree with you there, that it's an amazing thing to get into and, yes, I don't know if you've planted any fruit trees, but that would be my other big piece of advice is plant some fruit trees. Have you got any in your garden?
Raffaella: Yes, we have, but a lot of Muntjac Deers eat them!
Jane: Oh, gosh! Okay!
Raffaella: What I find amazing is you can actually bonsai fruit trees! You can bonsai apple trees.
Jane: Are the apples big or small?
Raffaella: Yes, people always say that! They look quite gangly on the actual plant, so if you look at it... a normal apple will grow to the size of a little plum on the tree and, even though the tree is quite small, it's quite funny because you have these really big fruits that are hanging down on the branches, so they kind of look a bit weird, but yes, you can't eat them, but you know when you have citrus fruit plants in your house and sometimes you can't quite eat kumquats, or something, but they kind of look a bit like that on the Bonsai tree, which is quite cool, so you literally can bonsai any tree you want!
Jane: I guess that's good because it means that you don't have to go and buy an expensive plant. You can just get a young sapling and start like that, I guess?
Raffaella: Yes.
Jane: That's really cool. This is a very selfish question, final question, very selfish on my part and totally designed to help me! You've grown, excuse the pun, a great Instagram platform. I'm terrible at Instagram, really. I don't know what I'm doing and I know that I have lots of people wanting to connect with me on Instagram but I'm a bit rubbish at it! What makes a good botanical Instagram?
Raffaella: For any gardeners out there, or plant enthusiasts, I think what you need to do is... your biggest tool is education, so the thing is, on Instagram, is you have to have a niche. That's why I think that I've grown so much. My niche is, like, 18-year-old girl Bonsai Tree. There's not a whole lot of accounts out there that has that. So you need to have a unique selling point and, obviously, there are a lot of plant accounts out there, a lot of gardeners, but a lot of gardeners spend their time, rightfully, outdoors, so have less connectivism technology. So you need to sort of try and teach yourself but, as I say, your biggest tool is educating people because you have something that people don't, which is, people who are not into plants and don't understand it, it's very overwhelming, so they will look to you for advice. So you need to be there, so... the very basics, not in a patronising way, you don't want to assume what people know. So you need to show whatever your speciality is. Let's say some people like orchids and stuff like that, you really need to share exactly how to water them, when to water them and the best way to show that is through Instagram reels, which is a little video and which can be up to three minutes long and that is the best way because Instagram is no longer a photo-sharing app. So you really need to, like, utilise reels because that's how you're going to get to young people and that's how you're going to get to anybody who wants to see that kind of stuff. So you're just going to make them short, snappy, like you've got to try and make it really basic language, as well. You've got to make it so people understand it. That's why, a lot of my reels, I try and make a bit funny because the best way to teach people, I think, is through, like, comedy and that's how I like to do it. I think that's the best way to do it, really, and there are so many amazing things in this time that you can do. You can do Instagram live! So if you're, I don't know, propagating something, you can just... because people kind of think of Instagram lives as just a Q&A, but I view that as quite self-centred. So you can do something like, "A Q&A while I'm propagating this Rubber Plant" or something like that, or you can be, like, if you're a gardener, you're out there planting a tree and you're teaching people on Live. Also, if you're young and you've got plants, that looks really good on your grid posts. So taking lots of pleasing pictures, doing lots of hashtags is the way to do it.
Jane: Well, you've done a great thing in getting lots of people to start thinking about Bonsai, something that's a little bit more accessible, not necessarily just the domain of men over the age of 50, so that's a great achievement! You've definitely inspired me to have a think about Bonsai! I'm thinking about a Bonsai fruit tree now. That would be so exciting, but I think I might have to start with something more basic, like a Jade, because at least I have one of those to hand that I can just have a go with. It's been tremendous fun to talk to you, Raffaella, and thank you very much for sharing your expertise! I'm sure lots of listeners will also have been inspired, so thank you very much!
Raffaella: Thank you, it's been a pleasure!
[music]
Jane: Thanks so much to Raffaella. What a total star! I so enjoyed chatting to her. Do check out the show notes for some images of her with her trees and also her delightful Instagram, which is at @bonsai_raff
That's all for this week's show. I'll be back next Friday for the 200th episode! Wishing you a fantastic week. I hope you get lots of time to spend with your precious plants. Bye!
[music]
Jane: The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll, by The Joy Drops, The Road We Used To Travel When We Were Kids, by Komiku and Quasi Motion, by Kevin MacLeod. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.
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Raffaella Warren-Barbieri aka @bonsai_raff joins me to talk about how she got into bonsai, where to start with indoor bonsai, and what it’s like being a Gen Z plant aficionado. Plus I answer a question about giving new life to a couple of rescue bromeliads.
This week’s guest
Raffaella Warren-Barbieri aka @bonsai_raff got into houseplants generally - and indoor bonsai specifically - during the pandemic. She lives in the English countryside and, at 18, she’s a great example of how young people are shaking up the world of horticulture.
Raffaella Warren-Barbieri, aka @bonsai_raff. Photograph: Peter Warren.
Check out the notes below as you listen…
Not all bonsai will be happy indoors year-round! Most will find centrally heated homes too hot and dry.
Many bonsai that are grown from deciduous tree species will lose their leaves in autumn just like a large tree. They will resprout in spring.
The book that set Raffaella off on her bonsai journey is The Little Book of Bonsai by Jonas Dupuich (@bonsaitonight on Instagram).
Raffaella finds the bonsai scene is dominated by men, but she is working to change that! She is a member of the UK Bonsai Association.
For indoor bonsai, Raffaella suggests using tropical trees usually grown as houseplants such as Ficus benjamina (the weeping fig), Ficus microcarpa (curtain fig) or Pithecellobium tortum (the Brazilian raintree).
The jade plant (Crassula ovata) can also be used for indoor bonsai - it’s not considered a ‘real’ bonsai by the bonsai masters, but it is a great choice if you have a sunny windowsill.
Watering is key for bonsai success. Don’t let them go dry. Raffaella recommends immersion watering - placing the pot in a dish of water for a few minutes, then allowing to drain. Do this when the surface of the compost is dry.
Wiring is the first step for shaping your young bonsai. Look at pictures of your species online to see how they look in nature, and use that as your guide. Use thin wire and be gentle with the branches.
Yamadori is the branch of bonsai where trees are taken from the wild - bear in mind you need to get permission from the landowner first.
Want to see some bonsai fruit trees? Check this out.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Quadricolor update/further info: If you want to read the comments from Avery of Parvus Plants in full, check back into the episode 197 show notes (Scroll down for the Q&A section).
Bromeliads on display at the Chelsea flower show 2021. Photograph: Jane Perrone.
This week’s question: Ben got in touch to ask what he should do with a couple of Bromeliads he rescued from a skip/dumpster: the main plant was going brown, but there were some things Ben describes as spikes/stems at the base. He reckons one is a Vriesia and the other is a Guzmania, but without seeing any images I can’t confirm that!
Bromeliads tend to die back after flowering, which explains why the central plant is starting to go brown (and probably why they got chucked out by a shortsighted owner). This dieback is known as monocarpism and is also typical of other houseplants, such as Agaves and Kalanchoe thyrsifolia, the paddle plant. It can take many weeks or months to complete, but the plant can look rather ugly during this period. But all is not lost! Those spikes/stems forming at the bottom of the plant are probably 'pups' ie young plants that will grow from the base of the parent plant as they start to die.
If they are around one third the size of the adult plant, Ben can take the plant out of its pot and tease away the pup - as long as it has the tiniest bit of root attached it will be fine and should grow on. Pups can be potted up individually or in groups in a free-draining mix of houseplant potting mix and orchid bark and allowed to grow on.
Bromeliads are epiphytes that prefer to be watered via their central ‘vase’ - use rainwater if your tap water is hard. When planting the pups, make sure you do not plant them too deep - the vase should be mostly above the surface.
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!
LEGENDS OF THE LEAF
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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 and Quasi Motion by Kevin Macleod.