Episode 111: Cactusworld Live
Cactus heaven at the World Garden at Lullingstone Castle, host to Cactusworld Live. Photograph: Jane Perrone.
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Transcript
Episode 111
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Jane: On The Ledge Podcast is here again, it's episode 111. This is the show where calling someone a plant nerd is a massive compliment and that can only be a good thing! In this week's show, a live recording from Cactus World Live with plant hunter with Tom Hart Dyke and House Plant Expert Anne Swithinbank of Gardeners' Question Time fame. Plus, I answer a question about Ceropegia seed pods, that's the string of hearts, and blimey, are they some impressive seed pods.
Thanks for all the lovely comments about the two peperomia episodes. You seemed to have really enjoyed those and if you haven't checked out my Instagram, please do, for a couple of videos showing the peperomia technique for propagation that I've been talking about in this show, it might be useful to have a look at if you can't quite visualise what I'm talking about. If you haven't joined the House Plant Fans of On The Ledge Facebook group, please do. It's a lovely, warm, friendly community, no drama, no annoying spammy people but more than 1,000 members who are all sharing the house plant love on there, asking for advice, commiserating when things go wrong and generally being awesome plant people. There are many awful things on Facebook, but this is one wonderful, planty area, so even if you're not a fan of Facebook, do go and take a look at that. But if you're more of a Twitter person, join me at 9pm British Summer Time on Tuesday October 8th, that's next Tuesday, for House Plant hour. Just follow me @JanePerrone on Twitter or follow @HousePlantHour and join us while we shoot the breeze about house plants for an hour. What could be better?
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Before we get started on the live recording, I thought I'd bring you a Q&A for this week which comes from Sarah who wants to know about the string of hearts and its seed pods. When we're talking about string of hearts, in this case we're referring to Ceropegia linearis subsp. woodii. also known as hearts on a string, rosary vine, or hearts entangled, I particularly like that common name, because anyone who has one of these plants knows trying to untangle them can take quite some time and I have on occasion just snipped off some in desperation once they've got in a terrible knot. So this is a lovely plant, it's really gorgeous and it is a succulent because it grows from this tuberous base and if you actually un-pot one of these things when it's really got going, you might find it actually quite a big handful of these tubers growing in a pot. To top that, they have these amazing flowers, they do a look little bit rude if you look at them in certain way, but the flowers are amazing mainly because they can trap pollinators, tiny flies that pollenate the plants, until the flowers have been pollenated and then they let the flies go, they're not carnivorous as such. And if that's successful you may find that your plant ends up with some crazy looking seed pods which is what's happened to Sarah. She tells me that her plant's been happily growing and flowering all summer and she's noticed that it's producing seed pods. Now, Sarah, you and I know, that it's actually quite a dramatic moment when you notice these seed pods of Ceropegia because they are huge and slightly bizarre looking. They are long and thin and poke out in a V shape, they're probably about two or three inches, five to ten centimetres long, they are massive compared to the flowers or the plant. Sarah wants to collect the seed for planting and she wants advice on how to harvest the seed and then, of course, when to sow it, and whether she needs to dry and store the seed before planting.
So, this is a really great question, there's not a lot of information out there about this subject, I've garnered what I can from my own personal experience and from various BCSS forums and other places. So if anyone knows better than me then please pipe up, but for the moment Sarah, here's my advice, those seed pods, what I would do, if the seed pod is green it's probably not ripe yet, whatever stage it's at I would stick a little plastic baggy over it, just so that when it does pop open you won't lose any seeds, because each individual seed does have a little parachute attached. I'll put a link in the show notes to the page on the Pacific Bulb Society where you can see a picture of the seeds. So, to avoid losing those seeds, I would pop a bag over it. I would warn you that I have read varying reports saying that you don't get an awful lot of seed from the seed pods but it's definitely worth a try and it's a great experiment. So stick the bag over, once the seed dries out and turns brown and pops open then these seeds will emerge and you can carefully remove the seed pod from the plant and I would sew the seed fresh, straight away, the reason being that generally that is the most successful method, the seed dried out. It's going to take longer to germinate, so go ahead and sow the seed. I would follow the method that you'd use, pretty much, for most cacti and succulents. Get a sterile fine seed sowing mix, maybe add in a bit of horticultural sand or Perlite just to make it extra free-draining and sow your seeds on the surface of the damp seed mix and top with a little bit of damp vermiculite and stick that in a heated propagator, ideally, or if not, in a very sunny spot with a clear plastic bag over the top and wait for germination.
If you're wondering why we aren't all sowing Ceropegia seeds, I guess the reason might be that it's very, very easy to propagate in a number of other ways that would generally produce plants more quickly. It's easy enough to take a section of stem, put it in a glass of water and it will root reasonably quickly. You can also take a length of stem, loop it back over the top of the pot and use an unfurled paperclip just to peg it down on to the potting mix and it should root that way. If you find that you have little tiny tubers that emerge on the stems, you can snip those off, push them gently into some potting mix and you'll find that will produce a new plant that way. So there's lots of options with Ceropegia and sewing seed definitely isn't the quickest route, however, you may find your seedlings are variable in terms of the leaf size and shape and the habit of the plant, so you may end up with an interesting new plant that's different from the parent plant by using the seeds and sowing those, so it's a really interesting experiment.
Given that we're moving into the autumn period here in the UK, and possibly where you are Sarah, you may want to get a grow light, if you can, on to that pot where your seeds are germinating, just to give the seedlings a really good start. Otherwise, as I say, you're very, very, sunniest window is probably the best place to start.
If you have a question for On The Ledge drop me a line to ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com
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Regular listeners will know that I love cacti and succulents and I'm very happy to say I'm an ambassador for the British Cactus and Succulent Society and so it was a real pleasure to go along to their inaugural Cactus World Live event at Lullingstone Castle in Kent. I know I've been banging on about this in the podcasts over the last couple of weeks. Let me set the scene for you, you really feel like you are in a rural area when you get to Ainsford which is the village in which Lullingstone Castle is set. There's a beautiful little bridge over a ford and fields full of highland cows, weirdly, and horses and it's just a lovely setting and then you drive up to Lullingstone Castle and you're presented with this incredible gatehouse, which was built in the late 16th Century, well that really does look like a castle, the actual manor house itself it's more giant country house than castle, but it is a beautiful setting. This is the home of Tom Hart Dyke, who is a patron of the BCSS and a most wonderful person.
He is a modern day plant hunter and you may have heard his story at some point because he was kidnapped by FARC guerrillas, while he was in Colombia plant hunting when he was a younger man. During that time, which was very stressful, months held in captivity, he came up with the scheme for the World Garden at his home in Lullingstone Castle. Lo and behold, you can go to the castle today and see how it turned out because he actually made that daydream, while he was being held against his will, into a reality. It's arranged like a map of the world with the plants grouped according to the region of the world that they're from and of course that means there are lots of other plants that we love, from orchids and cacti and succulents, to begonias, forest cacti and so much more. So if you ever get the chance to go to Lullingstone Castle, please do take it because it's a wonderful place.
So turning up to Lullingstone Castle, going through the gatehouse on a gorgeously sunny morning a couple of weekends ago and laid out before me were two marquees where Cactus World Live was taking place. Even though I arrived just after the doors opened, the place was absolutely buzzing, I hadn't realised that the really serious cactus enthusiasts, they bring their own plastic tray to put their plants in as they purchase them, so I felt a bit of an amateur to be quite honest, but plant sales were very brisk. The great thing about this particular event was that there was loads to do for families as well. So chairman, Ian Thwaites, has really thought about how to attract younger people to the society, there was face painting, there was a wonderful cactus-based coconut shy type thing where you had to knock over models of cacti in order to win cacti which was absolutely brilliant and I was delighted to be able to record a live event there and interview both Tom and another patron of the BCSS Anne Swithinbank.
Anne is a regular on the wonderful institution on Gardeners' Question Time, the BBC Radio 4 programme that's run for many, many years. Anne has many books to her name and is a wonderful gardening expert and one of my heroes, so I was a little bit starstruck to meet her and Tom. Now, I should say that this was recorded in a very busy, very noisy marquee, so I hope you can bear with the sound. I've done as much as possible with the help of my sound person Lisa Hack, thank you Lisa, to make the sound as good as it could possibly be, but there is lots of background noise. So I do hope you can concentrate on the voices of myself, Tom and Anne and the background isn't too distracting. As I say, this was the first year that they've run the event, so we weren't exactly sure how things were going to work and in the future I would ask to be in a slightly quieter part of the festival, but it was fantastic to be at the heart of the action as well. So, I really hope you enjoy listening to this, and you can hear the excitement in my voice, yes, I get very excited about cacti and succulents. So, do have a listen and if you're inspired to think about joining the BCSS check out the show notes at the end to find out how.
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Jane: I have to admit my knees have gone a little bit wobbly, it's a good job I'm sitting down, because I'm truly in the company of gardening royalty here. Anne is one of Britain's best known horticulturalists, gardening broadcasters and writers, she's a member of the Gardeners' Question Time panel for BBC Radio 4 and she's worked at RHS Wisley and she's written many books, many of which I have, including The Greenhouse Gardener, The Conservatory Gardener, No Time to Garden, The Half-hour Gardener, which is my style I have to say.
And Tom, what can I say about Tom, he's a horticulturalist, author, plant hunter, and his family seat is right here at Lullington Castle and he's the designer of the World Garden of Plants and I haven't had a chance to look round yet. In fact Tom, just to warn you, when you lock the gates tonight, just check that I've gone because I might be bedding down with some of those 8,000 plant species. Well, what are we going to do today? I wanted to start with a little quiz just to test the audience and my lovely guests knowledge and one of the things I love about cacti and succulents is the names. The common names are crazy but also the Latin names are funny too, so we're just going to start off with a little test, we're going to start easy and we're going to get harder. I'm going to show these to the audience first and see if anyone wants to have a go at some of these names. So if you think you can pronounce this, shout it out please. Come on!
Audience member: Tylecodon wallichii
Jane: Tom, would you agree with that, is that correct?
Tom: Absolutely.
Jane: Anne?
Anne: Wallichii
Jane: Okay, let's go for another one. This is a good one. Anyone? Front row?
Audience member: (Unclear)
Jane: Any advances on that?
Anne: (Unclear)
Tom: Excellent Anne. That's perfect!
Anne: Was that good?
Tom: 100%
Jane: It's getting harder now, brace yourself. I think Colin Walker, the president of the BCSS, should say this one all by himself. Colin?
Colin: Weberbauerocereus horridispinus
Jane: Excellent. And that, my friends, is why Colin is the president of the BCSS. Well done, Colin. Okay, let's have a look here. Have we got anyone else who wants to have a go at this one? Come on!
Audience member: Coleocephalocereus buxbaumianus.
Jane: Oh my gosh, that's amazing. I liked the last bit, buxbaumianus, that's amazing. The last one. Oh that's another piece of paper, that was the last one. Have you got any favourite Latin names that really make your heart sing when you see that really long alphabet soup?
Tom: I think there are so many, I think it's when they change, the cacti and succulents certainly, there's such a range and even quite shorter names Echinocactus grusonii and all these different, they're often so descriptive, the names, when you break them down. Cleistocactus strausii, you can say it with such passion and enthusiasm, which all the growers do. I just absolutely love it. Welwitschia mirabilis.
Jane: I wish you could see this, people at home, but Tom's getting very excited. Anne, do you ever get tripped up when doing Gardeners' Question Time and somebody comes up with a plant and you've got to remember the Latin name? It's a lot of pressure.
Anne: It's more of a question of just remembering something I've forgotten, old lady syndrome, but it comes back eventually, but quite often I have to say, "I've remembered! I've remembered!" to the chairman and I'll get it back.
Jane: Talking about ladies, one of the terms that's very prevalent on social media when we're talking about house plants these days, is the crazy plant lady. Anne, do you like that title, do you embrace it or do you feel a little bit strange about it?
Anne: No, I've never heard anyone call me crazy plant lady, they call me house plant expert, which is worse. I'd rather be crazy house plant lady I think, wouldn't you?
Jane: Yes, I think so. Tom, I think you're known as the plant nut.
Tom: All sorts, Jane!
Jane: You were wearing your sombrero earlier.
Tom: Poncho.
Jane: It does give you a slight air of nuttiness.
Tom: But it's that enthusiasm and passion that everyone in this marquee, everyone at Lullingstone today, has got for the World of Plants that just shines through. It's such a leveller of everything and it's so wonderful and especially when you're interested in this particular range of plant, that's so diverse. It's just brilliant. Yes, I get called all sorts!
Jane: What is it about cacti as such, that produces such, can I call it, mania in some people? Why are we so fascinated by these plants?
Tom: Sheer diversity, in my view. Here with the small collection, we're relative to a lot of growers here today, that we've got at Lullingstone, it's that sheer diversity from Mexico through to South Africa, through to Asia. Succulent and cacti grow absolutely everywhere, excluding Antartica. There is such a huge range, but what people don't realise, that almost all of them come from the Americas and the Caribbean and the islands either side, the Galapagos. There's a couple of disputed cases that Rhipsalis is from Madagascar but otherwise there are no cacti from Africa, there are usually euphorbias which look like cacti, with the milky sap they produce, these candelabra structures up to 40-45 foot tall, Jane, and I've had the privilege of going to some of these places and seeing them in the wild, I was always going to have an interest, they're so aristocratic, they're so imposing, but it is that diversity. The range from something that's almost subterranean for most of its life, 15,000 feet in the Andes of Peru, it flowers just about above ground level to things that are 40-50 foot tall and over 1,000 years of age. And the colours! I'll calm down.
Jane: You don't have to calm down.
Tom: The flowers, would you expect them to be brighter orange than this microphone top? The fluorescent pinks, the iridescent greens, and the mass of flowers that cover the whole body of the cactus when they're out. It's a superb family to be enjoyed.
Jane: Anne, tell me a bit about your own plant collection. Like me, I imagine it's a constant temptation to buy more plants. Do you have any plants that you've had for a really long time that are really precious to you?
Anne: I do. Just looking around here, the sheer variation of plants on sale to the side of us on the table, really long trestles absolutely full of plants which you can buy and my eye keeps sliding across.
Jane: I know, it's terrible.
Anne: The amount of variety that can actually be called a succulent is quite amazing, isn't it? I can see Tradescantia sillamontana and you think, yes, that's not what you think of as a succulent, but it is a succulent, and an amazing climber-y thing, with bright orange or red flowers there which looks it could be a Tweedia, or something like that, and I'm desperate to get over there and investigate. But you did ask me about my own collection and they might be in it soon. I have got plants that go back to when I was a child, really, and some of them haven't grown as much as you would think they should have done because I haven't potted them on as much as I should. That's, I think, the problem with literally growing them on the ledge. There is a limit to how much space these things can take up in a house, but they still look pretty good even though they're smaller and things like Echinocactus grusonii, a plant that I've had for, say, 30 years, there's still only about, and I'm making a shape with my hands here, it's about eight inches across, which should be massive, shouldn't it, if it was planted outside? But by the same token, I've got such an eclectic collection, they're all over the place, some are outdoors, I've still got Kalanchoe thyrsiflora outside, that's the paddle plant, that would have to come in very soon, it doesn't like the cold, so yes, loads of them.
Jane: We are at that dangerous time of year where loads of us who do have cacti and succulents outside are getting very scared and very concerned that our family are going to start noticing quite how many plants we have that need to come inside.
Anne: And I haven't even mentioned South African bulbs because that's another passion because they've got to come in the porch as well.
Jane: It's a big job at this time of year, unless you happen to be Tom, and of course, you have this amazing... are you looking round here thinking: "I want one of those?" Are there still plants you want to get hold of?
Tom: Jane, there's one reason why I haven't been in the marquee until now, today, because that should answer it! Absolutely! There's always something and everyone says: "I've got no space." You make space! Don't give me that, you can always make space!
Anne: Of course you do, you can get bowls and shove several succulents in one bowl.
Tom: Of course you can, absolutely.
Anne: There's even a tombola, have you seen the tombola?
Tom: It's very funny.
Anne: I must go and have a go on that, you can win succulents on the tombola.
Jane: That's the best prize of all. How can you top that!? That's brilliant!
Tom: Jane, what Anne was saying about things in containers, what we've been so lucky at Lullingstone is with a bit of space and quite a large polytunnel we've got here, is they're undercover yes, but they're in the ground and Anne was alluding to, the minute they're in the ground, it changes the perception of a cactus succulent and their allies. Bang, the growth rate is absolutely incessant, you've got euphorbia putting on, big candelabra euphorbia, putting on five and half foot a year and it is from seed just nine or ten years ago and it's pushing out the plastic now, sixteen foot of it, so we cut a metre off a year with a very sharp blade. It's not that you perhaps imagine when you see them in the pot and you can feed them and yes you can pot up to a degree, but how heavy do the pots get? Lugging these things around, honestly, when they're in the ground, if you can do it.
Jane: What's your tip for repotting? I've heard everything, every possible Heath Robinson technique for repotting a spiny cactus or an Opuntia with those little tiny spines that like to stick in your fingers. What is your tried and tested, gold standard, will not get a spike in my hand, method for repotting?
Tom: Don't do it. Don't do it. Honestly, the scars, I mean, look at that one that went right in yesterday, that's a fantastic scar there. Anyway, I think a pair of gloves, leather if possible, because they block small and fine hairs, they're so deceiving and you don't feel they go in and three or four days later, you've still got them, to avoid that, thick gloves. With most cacti, if you could lift, if it's not too heavy, being very careful, this probably won't go down very well, turn the whole thing upside down, making sure you've got a bit of the pot and a bit of the compost to grip on, force the thing out, put a bit of bubble wrap on the floor in case you drop it. If you try, Jane, depending on what the variety is, try and grab it at the top. They're also maybe aggressive and spiny, but they're so vulnerable they're quite often easy to break and snap, if you drop it, it'll almost, like a water melon, explode on the floor. I just turn it upside down and just force it out of the pot and then you've got the whole of the root with, hopefully, a bit of compost that you might tease off and repot it in something slightly larger and just don't drop it.
Jane: We've all been there. I mean I did actually put on my Instagram a while ago my beautiful string of pearls which I managed to knock off a very high shelf, smashed all over the floor, it's fine, but it is a traumatic moment when it all lands on the floor, particularly as most of mine are in terracotta pots.
Tom: It's the noise.
Jane: It's horrible. Also, controversy such as there is within the BCSS, seems to mainly extend to pots, terracotta or plastic? And also top dressing, this is a very controversial issue. D o you top dress? What do you top dress with? Can I have both of your chapter and verse, what would you do, what would you like to see your cacti succulent planted in and do you top dress them with any grit or anything?
Anne: So you want compost as well?
Jane: Yes, give me the whole process.
Anne: I usually use John Innes No 2, mixed equally with a soilless compost to give a little bit of body to it, and then I'll add about, half again, of really good grit, or more, depending on the cactus or succulent. Then when I've potted it, I will sometimes use the pot as a template, which is another good one, so having extracted the plant from its pot, you then pot the pot, then you slide carefully the cactus in because otherwise you often can't get your fingers underneath the body of it, with the spines. Then I'll top with either a good potting grit and finding good potting grit is really difficult, the right size and grittyness, because quite often you go and it's too small a size and you're faced with a choice between something that's like two small bricks and a whacking great shingly grit and you want something in between. So I'll either use the sharp grit or a small shingle, whichever looks best. Then, of course, if I'm doing an arrangement in a bowl, with several, or I've got Lithops, those pebble cacti, I'll often find some stones that are compatible that make a little stone formation, a rock formation, to go with them.
Jane: That sounds lovely, Tom, anything to add to that?
Tom: Jane, similar to Anne, with the containers, similar thing, a bit of Perlite occasionally, the grade, yes, as small as possible, with some of the stones, especially some of the cacti, they get so unstable in the pot sometimes, and they really root into a small mixture that's draining great. However, as I've said, most of the ones that we've got, we're so lucky to have them planted out, and all we've used is builders ballast with grit and sand in it, mixed in a cement mixer, 18.5 tonnes of it, with no cement obviously, with a three-to-one mix of a certain type of multi-purpose compost and used that as the base. They are in the ground, so that wouldn't suit a lot of plants, it's quite alkaline, the sand, it's quite alkaline usually, but in the ground you've got so much more margin for error, things like salt build up on the root if it's in the container and some cacti don't like that, we don't use any rain water for the cacti, it's liquid chalk from great grandad's aquifer, the chalk that he's got at the back, you put in, it's 12 on the PH scale, it's so hard, the tap water, but they look all right. You get a bit of calcium deposits on the sides of the stems, but as they're in the ground I think I'm getting away with a lot more in containers, I do use rain water for the containers that we've got because they would struggle I think, long term.
Anne: How long do you leave your newly potted cacti before you water them in? Because that's another issue, isn't it?
Tom: It is Anne, straight away.
Anne: Do you? I usually leave quite a few days, so any broken bits can heal up.
Tom: That's what I do Anne, that's exactly what I do!
Anne: I think I was taught that by someone in the British Cactus Society.
Tom: Everyone's looking at me here, that's exactly what I'd do!
Jane: Well, I think that's the amazing thing, lots of people have their own tried and tested techniques for things and if it works for you and your plants are healthy and happy, then it's working for your conditions and your setup, so don't feel like you have to adapt to somebody else's ways. I'm interested about the idea of having cacti and succulents growing outdoors in a bed. Can you give us a few tips on what kind of things can survive outside in the British climate?
Tom: It's surprising Jane, I would have to say here, it might not feel like it today at 27C, amazing, we're in quite a cold dip here, it's a small valley, but that cold air sinks and in the walled area over there, where the garden is, it doubles the cold, the wall keeps the cold, magnifies it. So we've got a big Mexican set on the outside, with lots of cacti, especially prickly pears and lots of succulents, lots of agaves, dasylirion and so on. Nolinas are doing well. We cover the whole lot, 55 foot long, 23 foot wide and 11 foot tall, with a temporary polytunnel in the winter. In my view, to actually answer your question, every type, some will disagree here, a lot will, from reading the journal, a lot will, that basically, without a layer of plastic, or if you're doing it small scale, a bit of glass raised up on bricks to cover in the winter at Lullingstone, almost every winter except last winter they'd be either dead or damaged enough to look rubbish in spring, because they take a while, perhaps, to recover. But with that, quite a big structure, every year, we put it up with concrete foundations in the ground, I know this is isn't practical for everybody, obviously, it's a lot of work, but there's hardly any damage, none of the agaves are frozen solid in the winter, you see the icicles pouring out of the leaves, the prickly pears are frozen solid, there's hardly any difference in temperature underneath that polytunnel, it's not heated, they're outside, but they're dry, at the root, the crown, they can be frozen for three or four weeks, like in the 2010/2011 winter, unmarked, and the lot of them coming from cold areas.
Jane: Well, that's fascinating to hear, I think it's a great idea to experiment and the dryness is the key, my agavesare in an unheated green house and totally dry and they seem to be fine as well. I really don't really know what I'm doing with agaves, so they must be easy. Anne, I hate to bring up the subject of pests, but this is one of the questions I get a lot on On The Lodge podcast, about what's this strange fluff on my cactus? What happens when a mealybug makes itself known in your collection? Aside from scorching it all with fire, what is the ultimate mealybug solution? Is there one?
Anne: Yes, there is. Two things have happened, once a mealybug infestation has taken hold to such an extent I actually threw all the plants away and started again. What I had done wrong, was I didn't quarantine the plant that I brought in, it was downstairs, and my Stapeliads were upstairs and there was no liner, and I didn't realise, you know, a ponytail palm, I didn't realise that it had mealybug on its fleshy roots, just under the surface of the compost and it must have travelled up in the air currents, got on the wall, I was busy, I just thought I can't have this spreading any further, I'll get rid of them and start again. But, elsewhere in the establishment, on a lesser scale, I still have it, a beautiful variegated hoya, and I really love hoyas, that started mealybug almost as soon as I bought it, and I controlled it by squirting it with SB Plant Invigorator. So do it one day to really get through the waxy coating of the bug, then the next day to kill it off more and a week later, then eventually it went. It tried to come back a couple of times, but I zapped it again and off it went, and that's a fairly non-toxic pesticide to use, so that's what I did.
Jane: I think once you start spending any excess money you've got on SB Plant Invigorator you know you've truly made it as somebody who collects plants because this seems to be the thing that lots of people are buying to deal with pests. Tom, any other mealybug suggestions?
Tom: We've got quite a bit of mealybug and, Anne, you're absolutely right, you've really got to watch the plants from whereever it is, garden centres, just one or two with a mealybug. All we use, this is going to sound a bit old, a garden hose. They haven't got wings, so they really get stressed out, you soaking them, soaking with the hose, making them physically leave. What really is tricky, I find, especially with things like prickly pears and when the flowers have finished, I can't see any around, you take the old flower head off to reveal this indented cup, full of these mealybugs and I was doing it yesterday, because of today, with minor mealybug infestations at Lullingstone. Minor we've got. I was doing it yesterday, just to make sure there were none for people to see today, and I was getting the garden hose and squirting them off. Of course, they'll get their feet and come back up but they get really stressed out and that's all I've ever done over the years. It's perhaps, spray may work, a garden hose, black fly on dahlias, they'll very rarely come back that same day, they get all exhausted and they can't be bothered to climb up the plant again.
Jane: That is the stuff of nightmares, I am actually have nightmare about that. That sounds absolutely horrific.
Anne: I think root mealybug are even worse than the top mealybug, I hate them.
Jane: We're getting a nice level of mealybug hate which I'm enjoying. Other than mealybug, are there any other pests you have problems with? Any sorts of bigger animals here, do you get rabbits, or deer or anything coming in and having a nibble?
Tom: I'll tell you the worst that beats mealybug, unbelievable when you see, in the morning, just a pile of spines from your favourite Opuntia phaeacantha from Apache trail in Arizona, molluscs destroy whole pads are just taken out by snails. Slugs aren't too bad, but snails will eat, eat, eat through the prickly pear and fall out of the other end and you're left with this 50p piece and you know for the rest of its life, that particular pad, which can last, obviously, for years, would try and callous over, but you've usually got holes in it. I say it's a rare species, with holes in it, and it's just a nightmare, molluscs. Now most people might be quite surprised, perhaps you'd say "Scale, Tom, or a rogue deer", but no, it's snails. Maybe don't expect that with a prickly pear, it's just so well-armed usually, and you're left with these spines in the morning, and the whole pad is split into two, but you're just stamping them and that pressure point on your foot, it's so satisfying.
Jane: Yes, I've done that a few times wearing slippers or indeed bare foot, going outside, which is not ... I don't know about you, but sometimes I'll wander from house to office, for some particularly domestic reason, nothing to do with my plants, and then two hours later, my husband will come out and go: "Dear, you were just going to get that stapler, and you haven't reappeared?" and it's me just, you know, I'm repotting something by that time.
Tom: And there's slug trails all over the house.
Jane: Exactly, it happens all the time. I think with these problems that we get with pests, I guess it makes us ... it's a journey we're on isn't it? The more we learn we learn about these pests, the more we learn about our plants. We've got to take the rough with the smooth, haven't we? Things go wrong, plants don't always survive. I always like to say that killing a few plants is a journey of discovery towards understanding more, so I always try to be positive about plants dying for various reasons, although, I can imagine the hatred for the snails is understandable. Now, I try as much as possible to buy from lovely independent nurseries like the ones we've got here today, but occasionally I do find myself ... I had an incident. I was in Lidl the other day, I think I was buying cheap prosecco and brioche burger buns, or something, and there's a plant that called out to me across the store. It was just on its own, on a shelf, and I ran towards it throwing old ladies and small children out of the way to get to it, because I thought someone was going to have it before me, when I got to it I thought: "Yes, it is! I've got to have this plant!" It was the propeller plant Crassula falcata and it was just so perfect, and I would generally tend not to buy plants in Lidl, but I just thought I've got to have that plant. Now, I'd love to know from you guys, what is it that you're looking for, when you're choosing to add a new plant to your collection? Is it like me, totally irrational, but something gut? Or are there particular qualities that you're looking for in a new plant?
Anne: Completely irrational, window shopping, always, especially with cacti and succulents.
Jane: Tom, have you got a completist spirit? Do you need to have every cultivar in a particular species or genus?
Tom: Rational random behaviour, Jane, but I have to say I try and act quite disciplined, quite, you're going with a bit of a list, that would be quite nice, that would be quite nice, and you see, to my left here, and you just fall apart, the list is not on you anymore, you've dropped it down somewhere, and you're just getting things that you've never heard of. There is a gap thing with it, I think there is something telling you perhaps it's whatever, you just have to have it.
Jane: I don't know if you've had chance to look at the show plants here today, have you ever gone down that route and tried showing plants at a BCSS event or anywhere else?
Tom: I wouldn't be good enough, not to the standard today. A lot are in the ground, I would give it a go but I'd be rubbish.
Jane: What about you Anne?
Anne: When I was about eight, I used to enter the local allotment society show and enter three cacti. I used to do that all the time, and win, but the standard wasn't as high as this, obviously.
Jane: What do you think the BCSS can do to attract a new generation of people into succulents and cacti? Obviously this event is part of that, but is there more we can do to excite younger people about these plants?
Anne: I think they're excited, they possibly just don't realise the society exists, and also, I don't know the depths of knowledge that's caught up in the society, if you actually go to one of the big meetings, the big sales, or the shows, or where speakers are coming from all over the world and you speak to people with thousands of plants in their collections and you realise to what extent they've travelled and looked at plants in their wild environments and gone back and compared whether they're still there and are they threatened, the depth of knowledge is just amazing. You think you can start with the small collection on the windowsill and you might end up one day being a very, very knowledgeable expert in cacti.
Jane: Well, that is the hope. I get a lot of questions on the show about cacti and succulents, and on Gardeners' Question Time and I'm sure here at Lullingstone you get asked lots of questions, what are the most common things that people ask about when it comes to cacti and succulents? Those kind of eternal questions or the sad one that turns up for you to look at, what do you get asked?
Anne: It seems to be the etiolated cactus, the one that's not had enough light, being kept in a warm room, all the way through its life, it might have been kept in an office, so it's gone lanky and it's grown on and on and on, toppling and nobody knows what to do with it. That seems to come up time and time again and it is almost always offices rather than houses where these are the problem. Really, all you can say is, perhaps, put it down, make it make some new babies and put it somewhere on a cooler windowsill.
Jane: That does seem to be a very common question and the most depressing of all, I find, when it's a picture of a cactus which is literally a pile of mush and the person's saying what can I do to save it? And you're thinking: "Nothing," put it on the compost heap, that is a depressing scenario and I guess this comes from, now we can buy cacti succulents so widely, they don't always come with good sets of information, somebody posted something online the other day, I think it was a supermarket label, it was a cactus of some kind, and it said something like: "Foliage plant, keep warm and water daily," and you just thought "that's not going to go well, that's not going to end nicely". What can we do to help people to get access to more information about cacti and succulents? Is there a way that we can reach out to people? Is it social media?
Tom: By doing this, by becoming a member of the BCSS, and joining in and getting stuck in, as Anne said, you just enter a world that you'll never leave, and when a kid, there's so much here for youngsters on their mobile or whatever it is playing the games around the garden, the parents are into the plants, they're coming to see the little cactus collection we've got here today, and they're entranced, and they buy one and that, to me, is such a rewarding thing, they've never had a plant before in their lives, there's something about a cactus that's a real, however much they've got on their computer games now, whatever it is, the image, etc, a cactus still has that appeal to override it, and once they start, they're in, and they'll never look back and I've seen kids come out year after year here with more and more collections and you've seen them getting madder and madder.
Anne: And they'll still have them twenty years later.
Tom: And they'll still have them, yes.
Anne: My son is 25 and he's still got cacti on his old bedroom windowsill which we have to look after, that he still loves dearly, but he doesn't take them with him, he just leaves them behind and we have to look after them, but there we are.
Tom: And another thing as well, Anne was mentioning a bit earlier, but also the issue with cacti, what's the biggest thing, something hasn't worked out, they come and bring a cactus that's half dead or whatever it is, "Oh, it said on the label, don't water at all, leave it on the windowsill," they need more water than you might think a lot of these plants, especially during the growing season, and people often come to me, not so much with the over watering, which can be the case with house plants, but no water. "We bought it a year ago, Tom, we haven't watered it, what should we do?" And there's this cactus that's never going to come back. So, water a bit more, sometimes, that's the biggest thing we get from that. Once you get them enthused, they're in there.
Anne: To get the cacti to show standard, that is what is important, isn't it? Keeping them growing steadily so they don't have fits and bursts and get this waste around them and they go again and they get a bulge and they get a little bit scorched and dry and they have a scar on them. They become slightly uglier, they've all got character, but they get a bit ugly and certainly not show...
Tom: It is an art.
Anne: It is an art, yes.
Tom: To get them to this standard, all year round attention. The image of cactus, just leave it. This is a very high standard today.
Anne: They're still alive, but they won't look great.
Jane: You've travelled round the world looking at plants, you're fairly famous for that, shall we say? You're notorious for it, could we say? Has your experience of seeing cacti and succulents in the wild inspired you in the way you've grown them in your own home? Is that important, the fact that you can see how these plants actually grow in their own environment?
Tom: Critical, absolutely critical. You can go on Google all you want, BCSS are fantastic. You can read all their journals and publications, all you want, and everything, but you can't beat seeing something in the wild to improve your husbandry back home. The soil it's growing in, the aspects. Some cacti, a lot of them burn in our sunlight, they're often under the shade of a shrub, or subterranean, and you think a cacti burning in the sun almost doesn't make any sense, but it's seeing them in the wild to improve your conditions back home, it is so important, Jane, and that's what I've really drawn from travelling. For example, as we're celebrating a lot of the Mexican pants today, going to Mexico, about 20 years ago now, to see them in the wild, whatever it might be, across to Salvias and Penstemons whatever it is, all the plants there seeing them wild. So important, that your learning curve is absolutely huge, Really important.
Jane: Anne, have you had a chance to visit any places where you've seen cacti and succulents in the wild?
Anne: Not very much, I have been to Arizona and have seen a few but I was very young and I didn't really know what I was looking at so much then. I have been to South Africa but not the places where lots of succulents were growing, I was accompanying a tour. But on the train on the way here, I was just looking up about Francis Masson who collected loads of succulents back in the 1700s and talking about latin, he wrote really well actually about, you can read it online, about how he felt about collecting plants from the wild in South Africa, but then when he goes on to describe them, it's all in latin, all of it, all of the descriptions because that's what they did in those days. I would love to follow some of his footsteps, he collected a lot of Stapeliads and wrote a book about them, very interesting man. History and geography are two really good topics that come with the cacti, aren't they? It's not just the plants themselves, you get totally involved, where they've come from, who collected them and the stories in history surrounding them.
Jane: Last question for you guys, before I throw it out to the audience, do you give cacti succulents names? Do any of your prize specimens have a name? I'm noticing there's more and more, I'll get an email from somebody and they'll say: "Jason, my Euphorbia milii is suffering from mealybug," and I think, Jason? How did you choose that name? Is this something that's happening in your life?
Anne: I did use to call all my handbags George, but I have not called my house plants anything. I tend to call them all "you", "You're doing really well, You've flowered," so I sort of pat them and talk to them and call them "you" but I don't give them names.
Jane: I don't talk to my house plants, but I do talk to the pests, when I see a pest, I'm like: "You little, I'm going to... I just can't believe..." So I talk to the pests not the plants. What about you Tom, any names?
Tom: Not really, I think you've got to go online, or some of the common names for cacti and succulents are hilariously comical and you can draw on the wealth of the names, the common names, for one plant can be called the same latin name but 100 different common names and choose the funniest most applicable one to the shape of it or whatever. That's all I need to do, you don't need a George, or a Phil, or a Bob, because the common names are hilarious.
Jane: I'd love to hear from the people in the audience if you've got any questions for Tom, Anne or myself, then I would love you to put your hands up and we'll try to get you with a microphone.
Tom: Graham's put his hand up. Laurence put his hand up.
Jane: Come on, there must be a question from somebody, you've got the patrons of the BCSS here, let's have a question. Thank you. Let's just get the microphone over to you.
Audience member: I've just tried germinating cactus seeds for the first time ever, I've sown them way too densely, so they're about two metres across, but I've got hundreds of them and there's, even at that size, there's no soil visible, what am I going to do? I can't bare to kill them. They'll obviously need thinning out but I'm worried about disturbing the roots of the ones that I leave behind.
Jane: When did you sew them, in the spring?
Audience member: No, about a month ago.
Jane: Any suggestions?
Anne: Usually, you would leave them about a year, so they can put down more of a root before you disturb them. If you've got hundreds, I think I would thin them out. How you feel about getting rid of the ones you're thinning, I'm not sure, you might as well try potting them, why not? Nothing to lose.
Audience member: If they die...
Anne: You're going to have hundreds and hundreds of them, you could go into business.
Audience member: Yes, does anyone want to buy any Jimlo cactus seeds?
Jane: Anything else? Any more questions? Things you've been longing to ask Tom and Anne? I can't believe we've got no more questions from the audience. I'm very disappointed. It is very, very hot in here. Well, I have got one last challenge actually which perhaps we can do. I'm just going to come off the stage, hang on. I wasn't sure whether I was going to do this with Tom and Anne or a member of the audience, is anyone feeling brave and want to win themselves a bit of On The Ledge merchandise? I have a lovely drawstring bag and mouse mat for somebody who wants to have a go at this little challenge. Yes, okay. I'm not going to blindfold you because that would be a bit weird, but I'll ask you to shut your eyes. I'm going to hand you either a cactus or a succulent, I can guarantee that it's not spiny, it's not going to hurt you, but I want you to have a go at identifying it. This is a little challenge. Other members of the audience, you can give her clues if she's struggling, but give her a chance. This is the first one coming out now. I'm putting it in your hands, it's not going to hurt you.
Audience member: Oh.
Jane: Audience members, remain silent for the moment, she looks like she might know something here!
Audience member: I know this one, my neighbour's got one, but I don't know the name of it.
Jane: Can anyone give a clue?
Audience member: I really can't remember the name, I'm so sorry, there is a common name.
Audience member: It's called a cactus isn't it?
Audience member: There is a common name for this cactus, it's like an ocean? What's in the ocean? What's swimming in the ocean?
Audience member: Fish cactus, fish bone cactus?
Jane: Well done, well done, Epiphyllum anguliger, That was quite tricky, I don't know why I started on a really hard one there. Okay, we're going to have a couple more. Are your eyes closed? Here's number two. It's slightly spiky but it's not too bad. Have a good feel. You never thought you'd be doing this, feeling up a succulent in the marquee.
Audience member: Echeveria?
Jane: It's a good guess, but it's not right.
Audience member: Agavoides?
Jane: No, it's a good guess though. Anyone going to give a clue?
Audience member: You were looking at this one...
Audience member: Sansevieria
Jane: Yes, well done, Okay, I'm going to have one last go before we go. Maybe I'll give you a break now, you can open your eyes now, well done. You get your own bag and your mouse mat. Okay, close your eyes, Tom's going to do this one. There you go. That's the label. That's not helpful. I'm not looking for a species, I'm looking for a genus.
Tom: Lophophora
Jane: Close.
Tom: Gasteria?
Jane: Close.
Tom: Haworthia?
Jane: Yes.
Tom: That's a lovely one.
Jane: That's from my own collection, this came all the way from the US because I have such lovely listeners. One for Anne now, the last one. I don't know if this is going to be easy or not, I'm just going to show this to the audience, don't shout out. Anne, have a little feel of this one.
Anne: That does feel like an Aeonium?
Jane: Any clues from the audience here?
Anne: Cotyledone.
Audience member: South African.
Jane: South African, it's in a fancy pot.
Anne: Yes, I can feel the fancy pot, that felt really weird.
Jane: This plant may have been mentioned already.
Anne: Kalanchoe?
Jane: Colin Walker is saying you're close Anne. Shall we put you out of your misery?
Anne: Yes, go on.
Jane: Open your eyes. It's Crassula falcata.
Anne: I'm worried now I've taken all the bloom off its leaves.
Jane: Don't worry, I do have a few stunt plants that I tend to bring to things like this, so I'm sure it will recover. That just shows how much plant knowledge we've got in the room, because that's a pretty hard challenge guys. So well done, thank you very much everyone for joining me, have we got any more questions before I go? Otherwise, I'll say thank you so much to Anne and to Tom for joining me today, and thank you to you for listening and please do go and listen to one of my 109 episodes of On The Ledge Podcast, I'd love to have you as listeners, thanks everyone, take care.
[music]
Jane: Well, that ended, as every episode of On The Ledge Podcast should, descending slowly into barely concealed chaos. Thank you so much to Tom Hart Dyke and Anne Swithinbank for being such good sports and to everyone who came along to clap and support the show live. To my sound person Lisa Hack, for doing a great job on the mixing desk. Check the show notes for your chance to test out your pronunciation of those tongue twister latin names. More information about Lullingstone Castle, Tom and Anne, that's all for this week's show, I'll be back next Friday and I do hope you'll join me then. Bye.
[music]
Jane: The music you heard in this week's episode was Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, and Water in the Creekby Josh Woodward. With ad music by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra with Dill Pickles all tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. See my show notes at www.janeperrone.com for details.
Subscribe to On The Ledge via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Player FM, Stitcher, Overcast, RadioPublic and YouTube.
I jumped at the chance to present a live episode of On The Ledge at the inaugural Cactusworld Live event organised by the British Cactus and Succulent Society (BCSS), with two cactus-loving guests, BCSS patrons Tom Hart Dyke and Anne Swithinbank.
Succulents on sale at Cactusworld Live. Photograph: Jane Perrone.
The event was held at Lullingstone Castle in Kent in the UK, Tom’s home and the site of the wonderful garden he designed. It was wonderful to see so many families, children and newcomers to cacti turning up to buy plants and learn about them.
If you’re interested in cacti and succulents, do check out the BCSS’s Instagram account and Facebook group and consider supporting this wonderful plant society by becoming a member.
A quick warning: that the show was recorded in a really noisy marquee outside: my sound person Lisa Hack and I did as much as we could to minimise the background sound, but at times it’s a bit loud, so I apologise if this is a tricky listen, but I hope you’ll bear with it, as Tom and Anne have some interesting things to say!
Anne Swithinbank, Jane Perrone and Tom Hart Dyke in discussion at Cactusworld Live. Photograph: Lisa Hack.
This week’s guests
Anne Swithinbank is one of Britain's best known horticulturists, gardening broadcasters and writers. She is a member of the Gardeners' Question Time panel for BBC Radio Four, has worked in the famous glasshouse at RHS Wisley, in Surrey, and has written many books, including The Greenhouse Gardener and The Conservatory Gardener.
Tom Hart Dyke is a horticulturist, author and plant hunter whose family seat is at Lullingstone Castle. You may remember Tom’s unfortunate brush with fame back at the start of this century, when he was kidnapped in the Colombian jungle on a plant hunting expedition that went dangerously wrong. Tom and his fellow trekker Paul were kidnapped and held for nine months. During that time, in the depths of despair, Tom kept faith, despite facing possible execution, by designing what is now the World Garden of Plants.
Business was brisk at the plant stalls! Canny collectors brought along their own trug or plastic tray to place their purchases in! Photograph: Jane Perrone.
Want to try some tongue-twister cactus names? Here are some to wrestle with!
Coleocephalocereus buxbaumianus
Echinofossulocactus coptonogonus
Weberbauerocereus horridispinus
Want to know why botanical Latin is important? Check out this episode!
Ceropegia seed pods. Photograph: Forest and Kim Starr on Flickr.
Question of the week
Sarah wants to know whether she can sow the seeds from her string of hearts, aka Ceropegia linearis subsp. woodii.
These seed pods look amazing (although between you and me, they can’t help but remind me of someone sticking two fingers up in a rude gesture), but it’s worth sticking a bag over each one, as the seeds will pop out when the seed pod bursts open, and as they have ‘parachutes’ attached they may float.
I advise sowing these fresh on some moist seed growing medium, covered over with a thin layer of damp vermiculite or sand. Keep in a warm, sunny spot and wait for germination.
Sowing this plant from seed isn’t tremendously common, though as it’s very easy to propagate from the teeny tubers that grow in the stems (hence the name rosary vine), or by rooting sections of stem.
Want to ask me a question? Email ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com.
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CREDITS
This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops and Water in the Creek by Josh Woodward. This week’s ad music track is Dill Pickles by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra. All tracks licensed under Creative Commons. Sound engineering by Lisa Hack. Logo design by Jacqueline Colley.