Episode 164: Plants and Poses with Travis Cooper
Travis Cooper aka @plantsdecoop with his Philodendron ‘Pink Princess’. Photograph: Travis Cooper.
Transcript
Episode 164
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Jane: Hello and welcome to On The Ledge podcast! It's time to sit back, relax and let the On The Ledge vibe wash over you. I'm Jane Perrone, the British houseplant expert, journalist, garden writer and chief cook and bottle washer here at On The Ledge Towers in the fine county of Bedfordshire! This is episode 164 and I will be chatting this week to the force of nature that is Travis Cooper, aka @PlantsDeCoop on Instagram; the creator of the hashtag #plantsnposes. He's also a dancer and choreographer and a jolly nice man! In our wide-ranging chat, we cover everything from plant purges and why they're a difficult but great thing, why posing with your plants is something that you really must do and which Anthurium Travis recommends for first time growers, and I'll also be answering a question about the orientation of your house. Intriguing, eh?
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Jane: Thank you to Sara for becoming a Crazy Plant Person this week and to Henrietta who upgraded from Ledge-end to SuperFan, and in my office right now there's a massive stack of envelopes, labels, cardboard tubes, cards and more, as I put together the Patreon offering that's going out early next month, so if you're a Patreon subscriber at the Ledge-End or SuperFan level, start watching your mailbox, or letter box, with great attention because something will be coming, I would like to say, hopefully, the first week of December, from my good self! I apologise in advance for my hideous handwriting! You've just about got time to sign up and get that special festive mail-out. You need to sign up as a SuperFan or a Ledge-End by the end of play, that's midnight my time, UK time, on the 23^rd^ November, which is Monday, so not much time. That's in order to guarantee you'll get the mail-out! After that, I will try to get it out to you if I can, but I can't guarantee it because, as you can imagine, writing about 200 mail-outs is quite a lot of work, so please bear with me on that. For all the details about my Patreon offering, do check out the show notes where you'll find the links and information you need.
And a quick correction before we dive into my interview with Travis. I mentioned a new plant from my plant haul from the BCSS member who is downsizing their collection and I called it Euphorbia Platygona and I said it was embodying the spirit of 2020. Well, it is in fact Euphorbia platyclada. I did actually know that somewhere in my brain but I went with the label that I had which was actually wrong. I will correct that in last week's show notes. I don't know if I'll correct the actual episode or not, but anyway, just letting you know Euphorbia platyclada is that stick-like succulent that I was talking about in last week's show. Nobody mentioned it, perhaps nobody was too bothered, but I do like to try to get these names right!
One of the wonderful things about making this show is just being able to message somebody and say, "Hey, let's have a chat!" and by the wonder of On The Ledge podcast, it happens! I just loved chatting to my guest this week, Travis Cooper. He is such an interesting guy. Our conversation went all over the place, it got a little bit confessional at one point from me, not Travis, so I want to run it in full and uninterrupted here on the show and I'll follow on with the Q&A to wrap up this episode. Please, please, please do go and check out Travis' Instagram account while you listen because if you're not already a follower of his, it'll make a lot more sense if you're looking at his posts and seeing the kind of thing that he does. His whole #plantsnposes hashtag and his work, The Melanin Fairy, is what we're going to be finding out about in this episode. Do go and check out @plantsdecoop as you listen and, of course, as usual, the show notes are a fount of information, so do click on those and have a look through those as you're listening too.
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Travis: My name is Travis. I am not only a lover of plants but even more so, recently, starting to really feel my connection to them. I said this the other day, actually. I said to someone I was doing a consultation and at the end I was talking about how our awareness of our plants is probably the most important plant care and I said, "Everything comes from the earth and everything goes back to the earth, so we are plants and plants are us."
Jane: Yes, I like it! It's great to have you on the show! I have been loving your presence on YouTube and on Instagram for quite a few months now. I can't remember when exactly I came across you. What I really love about what you, in particular, do, is you bring so much joy to showing off your plants. I think this is something that, particularly a certain slice of the Instagram population, could learn a lot from, because I hear from so many people, "I'm really comfortable showing pictures of my plants but I don't really want to take a picture of myself" and I just love the freedom with which you are able to express yourself with your plants. That's a starting point perhaps, to talk about #plantsnposes. How did that kick off and what does that mean to you?
Travis: I love this question. #plantsnposes, once I first created my account, I did a very similar thing as most people did, you show your plants, you maybe show your hand and your plant, but that's it! It didn't take much time for me to realise that there was something more that I wanted to do with it. I'm a trained dancer and a trained yoga instructor and trained dance teacher and general lover of movement and always have been. It just felt natural for me, at some point, to get in front of the camera and play with what it would be like for me to create these shapes while also highlighting certain plants. So #plantsnposes started off as a way for me to be creative in a way that felt really good for me and what I noticed that while it was getting a lot of great feedback, I had this since the people wanted to buy what they were seeing, wanted to do the same thing but didn't know how or felt like it, maybe, it was going to be stepping on my toes as I was creating this thing. I then started the hashtag and even made this little slide on one of my posts to talk about what it is so that people could feel a bit more comfortable getting in front of the camera, being creative and showing the beauty of our own physical bodies with these beautiful plants that we love.
Jane: Yes, that's a really great message to get across because I think so many people are just uncomfortable with themselves, physically, and don't really like to look at themselves and I think the same is true with our voices. As I started On The Ledge, as I said in my last episode, I didn't like the sound of my own voice, which I'm sure lots of listeners will find surprising because I get a lot of emails from people saying, "I love your voice!" but at the time I really had a problem with my voice and it took me many years of hearing myself in interviews to really come to terms with it and love it myself. It's a really powerful thing, isn't it? That freedom is something that we should be taking full advantage of and that's what you do so well. Tell me a bit about your plant collection. Are you an Aroid addict or is there a particular kind of plant that floats your boat?
Travis: Yes, as time has gone on I've definitely become more of an Aroid addict. What it is, it's something about seeing how much they change over time, how much the leaves change and get bigger as they mature, but don't get me wrong, I have a ton of Snake Plants. There's something about a plant that is just loyal and resilient. So, yes, Aroids is where my passion and drive is and there are so many other plants that I do adore.
Jane: That's good to hear. Has this been something of a recent passion or have you been into plants since you were tiny?
Travis: I would say that there's always been a connection. There's always been this connection to plants from a young age. I can remember the feeling of being outside, of getting interested in plant- growing and the ground and the trees and whatnot. I would say I didn't really dig into that more until I was an adult and it was April 2019. It's been about a year-and-a-half at this point, that I really started to collect plants, if you will.
Jane: Recently, you had a bit of a plant purge. How painful has that been, or is it still ongoing? This is a common thing now. People get loads of these plants and perhaps for different reasons decide to divest themselves of a few. What I was impressed about with your plant purge, is that it was really well organized. You had it worked out, what exactly what you were going to do, and you knew exactly what your parameters were and how you were going to do things. I thought that was really great because it made it really clear for people who were interested. Has it been painful to separate yourself from some of these plants?
Travis: That's so funny because, I've said this several times as I've been purging, it's been relieving a bit, actually. My choice for letting go of these plants is for a much bigger purpose. I still love my plants. I'm only keeping about 20 out of over 100.
Jane: Wow.
Travis: It's been a relief realizing, "Oh okay, I only have to give my attention to 20 plants now and I can appreciate and really fully invest in these 20 right now." It's also been really sweet. Every time I've seen someone take a picture with these plants that I've spent so much time with, it's been so sweet for me to see that and know that this life will go on in someone else's care, whatever that may look like, whether they kill it or it thrives for 20 years. I would say that there is a part of me that has had a hard time letting some go, but the intention was for me to really, in a larger way, let go of unnecessary things right now in my life. So it's been really interesting to see the ones that I've had a tug of war with, "Do I really want to let this go?". So, that's what I'd say would have been the only struggle; the ones that I've had to decide, "Okay, it actually is best for me to let this go" even though there's a part of me that may want to hold on. If I'm going to continue to practice letting go, I think it's best to let this plant go.
Jane: It's a powerful thing, I think, giving away plants, selling plants, whatever you're doing or however you're doing it. It makes you really think about what that plant means to you and your ability to look after things. There is a real collectors vibe going on at the minute, where there is a thing of, "I've got to get every one, every species of this genus! I've got to complete my collection! There's always another plant on my wish list!" which is fantastic. Me, more than anyone else, I can say I've fallen prey to that many times. There is a darker underside to that, of people causing themselves a lot of stress, and possibly expense, by seeking after the next plant hit, rather than enjoying the plants they've got. Do you think there's something in that?
Travis: 100%. I, like you, have fallen victim to this. I speak about this pretty openly, oftentimes with people so that maybe it can be normalised, so that we're not falling victim to this and feeling ashamed of it and therefore not being able to truly see it for what it is and possibly do something about it. So, I definitely think that Instagram itself, when you have something that is constantly in your face, informing you, it's not just what we may like to think, coming into our mind and disappearing, it's taking up space in there and the more that we see it, I think we're more prone to fall into this trap of greed. So, yes, I think there's something there and I think, honestly, we can continue to talk more openly about it because, as we'll see, a lot of the prices are outrageous for plants. A lot of that is has to do with greed, right? People not actually pausing and saying, "Do I want to pay this outrageous price? Just because I have it, what's the larger effect on me, just because I have the resources, buying this plant?" There are ripple effects that are happening, that, if we don't take a moment to pause and check-in, affect the masses more than we recognise.
Jane: This was something that relates to your own plant purge, in that you indicated in your information that you were going to prioritise black and indigenous people of colour as purchasers of these plants because, for reasons we should all know about but perhaps don't, historically disadvantaged groups, that you wanted to allow them to come to the front of the queue. There seems to be a fantastic community built up around black plant owners. Has that been a source of support and joy over the last few months, the tricky times that America has had?
Travis: Oh yes! Oh my goodness, yes! I did not expect to have such a sense of community with black people and plants as I've ended up having. When I first joined this "plantstagram", if you will, I didn't really see anybody like me that looked like me. That was part of the reason I decided to get in front of the camera. I didn't see anybody who looked like me and I wanted people to know that black people do this as well. Over the course of time, I started my "plantstagram", which was 23^rd^ October 2019, I'm pretty sure, from that time moving up to when the Black Lives Matter uprising happened, I discovered there was a whole slew of us out there. One thing that I have found a lot of gratitude in, is that around the time the uprising started there was this community coming together, of the black plant community. Just in general this happened, but there was this coming together in a way for us to support each other. While there are thousands of us out there, why is it so difficult to find us? Right? So the idea of, not to speak for other people, but what it's felt like to me, was that if we come together in masses, we can collectively be seen and do something. So the black plant community has been such a huge support for me. I never expected to feel so welcomed and the black plant community has been the biggest source of feeling a part of this plant community that I've experienced so far.
Jane: That's the wonderful thing about plants. There will be a group of people who fit your demographic who also like plants, so wherever you are at, you will find your people and make a wonderful community. That is the wonderful thing about it. Is there a sense of positivity going through the black houseplant community, as more podcasts emerge, more hashtags emerge, more Instagram posts emerge? You're coming together and something great is happening?
Travis: I can't speak for everyone else but I can say that this sense of community and coming together amongst the black community, the black plant community, has, I think, created a support for each other that has allowed us to, for me, I say this, I felt so confident in creating and releasing things that I'm passionate about, as it refers to plants because I 100% know that, if nothing else, I have the black plant community to back me and say, "Yes! Keep going!" so I think, if anything, I don't know if 'positive' is the word, but I would say that there's definitely a sense of support and grounding that I feel is stronger than it was prior to the Black Lives Matter uprising.
Jane: I'm always wondering, look in wonder at my plants, and I'm amazed by the level of decoration and adornment that so many plants are able to do. Has that inspired your own looks that you've chosen for #plantsnposes? Literally, it's this amazing outpouring of confidence and beauty and style that is mirroring back on your plants, which I absolutely love. Sorry, that's a really rambling question! Does any of that make any sense or resonate whatsoever?
Travis: Yes it does! I haven't done it recently, I can even do it right now; I'm sitting in front of my plants, where I'll look at my plant and just take in the beauty of it. There's so many plants that I can look at when I just really pause and look at them and like, "Holy crap, this is absolutely gorgeous!" What I'll do is I'll go, "Well, if I'm a part of the earth, that's in me as well. What I'm experiencing right now is also within me." So what I would say with #plantsnposes, 100%, because just the fact I take moments like that with my plants, there's no way that couldn't spill over into a project that is my body with these plants. To be more specific, there are moments. For instance, I have a picture on my Instagram with a Philodendron Pink Princess.
Jane: Yes, I was just looking at that. I'm so jealous! I don't own that plant and it's gorgeous. Have you purged that one, or is it still with you?
Travis: I have purged a piece of it and I'm going to purge another piece of it tonight, then I'm also going to keep a piece for myself because I really do enjoy that plant. For instance, that picture with that plant, it was definitely the look was inspired by that plant. If you see another project that I've been working on recently, there's a lot of deep green and deep blues in the fabric that I'm wearing and you'll see me with the Anthurium regale that very much mimics those same colours and feel and tones.
Jane: I think that one of the wonderful things about what you do, is that you just take that almost childhood spirit of dressing up and playing and bring it into an adult realm. As somebody who is a classic English person and a little bit reserved, it's very inspiring but also a bit scary to me and it reminds me of when I was a teenager. I'm going to tell you something now that I don't think I've ever told anybody! When I was a teenager I really, really wanted, for about six months, to have a waistcoat with one of those victorian pocket watches with the chain and everything. I don't know why, but I really have this desire to dress up in that. Of course, I never did it because I was a reserved English teenager who was a complete dork, so I never did it! I think back to that and think I wonder how my life would have been different had I felt the confidence to go:, "You know what? I'm a teenager! I can do whatever I like! I'm going to get myself a pocket watch and waistcoat and I'm going to try it!" It makes me wonder how my life might have been different had I had that freedom to express myself at that age.
Travis: The question that comes up for me is what would your life be like or how would it be different if you did that right now?
Jane: That's a really good question! How I express myself now is through brooches. I have a big brooch collection. I don't know if you saw before the video went off, today I'm wearing a really big sparkly spider brooch which, long story, but is kind of a political statement here in the UK. Anyway, I'll put a link to it in the show notes if anyone wants to have a look at it. I express myself through those brooches. Every day I'm always wearing a brooch and it'll always be different and it's very low key, it's not a dramatic thing, but I have become a little bit bolder in my dress, but you're right, why not embrace it now? I'm not sure I still want to do the waistcoat and pocket watch thing but yes, you're right, why not just try to do something different and allow, maybe, plants to be an inspiration in that?
Travis: I love that, I love that! What comes up for me is creativity. When we were younger, before the world gets a hold of us, if you will, it's just natural. It just flows through us. It just happens. And then we start to have all of these things, that we try to check all these boxes based on what we've learned and what we're supposed to be. It can easily dumb down our creativity and part of why I did #plantsnposes is because it's pretty much going to be all adults that would come across my page and my work and I wanted to offer the invitation for people as adults to go, "Oh, I can be creative still too! Just because I'm not a kid anymore doesn't mean I'm not creative." I always have access to creativity, it'll just look a lot different than when I was younger and I'm so passionate about creativity, especially in adults, because we're expected to be so serious. There's something that, as we get older, we're supposed to just drop the playfulness, the fun, and it's like we're trying to live on one side of our being, right? We're so expansive. There's so much happening within us. We're supposed to live this one side of us. For me, creativity opens up this new realm that actually informs other parts of us in a new way, if we allow space for that creativity.
Jane: That's so true. I would also credit, in the last few years, the LGBTQIA+ community has had an amazing impact on everybody else, if I can put it that way, in teaching us about how we can play with our style, incorporate all of these things into our daily lives and enjoy expressing that. I think that's come across in so many things that have come into our understanding that we might have not have ever seen before and I think that, for me, is a really, really powerful thing. This leads us onto The Melanin Fairy. I've been watching your Instagram posts with great interest! You've been teasing us and building it up. What can you tell us about this amazing new project? These stunning photographs that you have taken, I'm fascinated by the jewellery that you're wearing and you've got various plants, featuring that wonderful Anthurium. Please tell me that's staying in your collection?
Travis: 100%. I couldn't let it go! This project, oh my goodness, it definitely has become much bigger than I thought it was going to be. When I first thought of this idea, it was after a friend was talking to me and I had been doing these #plantsnposes as photoshoots for a while and I've never really gone into a photoshoot with an extensive concept. I would usually go in with a loose idea and let the moment guide me once I started photographing, changing, adding different plants, taking different plants out, adding different rings or sunglasses and just playing in the moment. After talking to this friend, they said, "I really missed you on the photoshoots that were conceptual. You always had so much fun!" I went, "Huh! What would it look like if I really spent time conceptualising a photoshoot and went in with a very specific idea?" I was like "Let me just sit down and see what comes out" and I took my notes out on my iPhone and I just let my mind run and the first thing that came out was The Melanin Fairy. I had no idea what that really meant but I was, like, "I just see this as a thing for myself. I don't know what that would look like but that sounds awesome." Fast forward to the actual conception of the project, what I learned was that this was a part of me, that, as a kid, and even leading into my adult lifed and even currently is with me, it was this feminine energy that's a natural part of all of us that had been suppressed. That this character, through my mind in that moment, was really just wanting that part of myself to just speak, to say, "This feminine energy has a place here and maybe through this character we can allow that energy to come forward and we can explore what that means" and even after knowing that, what it's actually helped me come up against, was the way that I have embodied the word 'feminine', and feminine energy, based on what society has taught me. Really, what that project is, is now an addition to this beautiful art that I've created. It's a project that's on my Instagram through story-telling and questions that I'm asking to everyone else and the conversation I'm going to have on my IG live with a friend of mine about this. It's investigating what feminine and masculine are and what does that look like inside of us? How important is it to actually know them within ourselves, or is it that maybe defining them isn't important? So it's all of these questions that I'm starting to come up against that this project has brought to me that I didn't expect when I was just sitting down going, "Oh, Melanin Fairy!" and writing it down.
Jane: That's amazing. I love the jewellery that you're wearing. My sister is a jewellery designer so I have to mention this kind of thing because I'm sure she'll be listening and interested. Was that designed by somebody for you, or where did that come from?
Travis: The jewellery itself was, I had a stylist on the project and a seamstress, the seamstress made the tunic dress kind of garment and then the stylist actually found the jewellery and bought it from somewhere, from different places.
Jane: It looks like it's been made especially for this project so well done to the stylist! It's absolutely amazing!
Travis: He's amazing!
Jane: One thing occurred to me while you were talking about sexuality, and I was having a discussion with my teenage daughter the other day which she said afterwards, "You've blown my mind!". We were talking about sexual reproduction in plants and I was explaining to her - and I actually got a book out that explained this because she was just so blown away - I was explaining to her, some plants are female, some plants only have female flowers, some plants only have male flowers, some species have male and female, some species have bisexual flowers and also male and female flowers, or just one, or just the other. She was going, "Wow! I can't believe this!". She was blown away and that's a really interesting thing that ties into what you're doing here and is so hidden because, obviously, like a flower is just a big old sex sign, right?
Travis: Yes!
Jane: I think we've still got this Victorian mentality about plants, that it's all hidden away and we're not going to talk about that, of course! That's all going on in there!
Travis: What I'm hearing, as you say that, is if we, as human beings, we look out in nature it would give us all the answers. It's these limited beliefs that we tend to have about how we're supposed to be as human beings, but there's so much fluidity in nature. If we can acknowledge that we're a part of this and we can look at nature and it teaches us so much about how we actually operate and what is true within our bodies that maybe these limited beliefs are keeping us from noticing.
Jane: It's one of the reasons why I'm always disappointed that more houseplant people aren't into flowering houseplants, because, you know what, I've just got a Paphiopedilum Orchid that's flowering and you just look at this flower and it's like "Phwoar! Sexuality going on there!". It's like this meaty lime green flower and it's just like "Wow!" Looking at the different parts of the flower and how it's put together is just really, amazingly inspiring, so more flowering plants please, that's what I would say! Where will you be taking The Melanin Fairy? Are you finding your way with this or do you have a planned path that you're following?
Travis: It's not planned. I'm really letting it guide me. As I'm learning things about what this project is really teaching me, I'm letting that guide where this goes. I don't know where this is going to end up and I like it that way. It takes a lot of the pressure off me having to produce something that is perfectly finished and thought out. It's actually just letting this moment guide me because, obviously, there's more to it than I even realised from the beginning, so if I continue to let it guide me, it's going to unfold in a way that maybe can't be thought-out. It just has to happen on its own time. I'm very much trusting the process right now.
Jane: I'm sure that you're getting feedback from people on Instagram which might be also adding thoughts to what you're doing and giving you more ideas and that wonderful feedback loop that you get when you do engage with a community?
Travis: 100%. Every time I pose a question, that I have posed a question in the caption of these pictures during this project, oh my gosh, I'm getting so many awesome responses that are taking me further into investigation within myself and then it will inform the way that I caption the next post and what I choose to do even after that. So, definitely, a feedback loop that's been more of a community project than I realised too. It's actually very informed by the people who are participating in this.
Jane: Can we just talk about Begonia Luxurians?
Travis: Oh! So pretty!
Jane: Can we share the pain, though? I don't know whether you've been struggling with this? I had a really big one last summer and it went down like a lead balloon over the winter and it's gone. It's a beautiful plant but it's so hard. Have you had any success keeping one alive long-term?
Travis: Jane! It's dead! It breaks my heart.
Jane: I feel better now!
Travis: Oh my gosh, it breaks my heart because it's absolutely stunning and I could not figure out how to keep it happy. Begonia in general, honestly though, I struggle with Begonias.
Jane: I do as well. Somebody has just sent me a gorgeous, gorgeous, pink spotted Begonia and I'm looking at it, going, "Oh God, the pressure is here to keep this going!" I've got some, like my Beefsteak Begonia is my real OG Begonia, which is so easy. I've got different struggles going on all the time. I have to say, I'm kind of glad you said yours is dead because I feel like I just don't know what I could have done wrong because it was just such a big plant and it was doing so well and then disaster, but you've got to keep trying. I guess, this is tying into the vulnerability but also the keep-on-keeping-on mentality that we need to adopt when we're travelling through life and also through our plant ownership.
Travis: I love that. If we look out in nature, it's going to keep on going whether us human beings are here or not. It keeps on going, so what a great reminder that that resiliency is actually built into us as part of the earth. I love that, Jane.
Jane: It's ups and downs, isn't it? There has to be ups and downs. I'm currently panicking because it's going to be really cold here tonight and I've got to go out to my greenhouse and bring in a few more tender plants that need to come inside and it's a constant battle. You're in North Carolina. What's the climate like there? Do you have a lot of stuff inside to help your plants get through the winter in terms of growlights and propagators, or heat mats, or anything?
Travis: Absolutely! My story - I've not heard anybody else's like it, though I'm sure there are people who have a similar story - when I first started caring for plants, it was in an apartment that only had north-facing windows and there were major obstructions outside, so when I would take out a light meter and I'd turn all the lights off and measure the foot candles, if my plants were pressed up against the window at the peak of the day was like 150 foot candles, 200 foot candles, which is very low, that's low light at that point. I would still want to grow plants, so I invested in a lot of grow lights, so my journey with plants actually started with growlights for the first year. So when I moved into a place where there was a place of natural light, I was like, "I don't like this! I can't control the light outside! It changes throughout the year! I don't have as much control over it!". So, yes, I have a lot of growlights. I'm currently in my plant room and I'm surrounded by growlights and humidifiers and a little mini indoor greenhouse. Really my plants, for the most part, keep on going throughout the winter almost as if nothing has changed because of the extra, controlled conditions that I give them.
Jane: People are always looking for growlight recommendations which I can't give Americans because I'm obviously in a different continent. What growlights do you have and which ones do you swear by?
Travis: I would say the ones that I swear by the most, it's a company called Monios-L, and I actually got mine off Amazon. They're long bars that I hang on shelves. Those -- I have, I think, at this point, 20 of them around my plant room - those I swear by. There's also some great grow bulbs that can work really well. I can't remember the name of it. If it's okay I could give it to you afterwards if you want to put it in the show notes.
Jane: It's interesting how much it changes if you get a different apartment or house, with different orientation. It really does change everything and suddenly it's not controllable anymore. I'm just considering cutting down a tree, which is dying anyway, and thinking how much it's going to affect the light in my greenhouse and I'm going to have to put up some shading because it's going to take away the shade. There's so much to think about, you're right! The light meter is good to have to hand when you're trying to get a grip on what plants you can grow and what's going to work. Also, as well as your wonderful #plantsnposes, you've got a practical edge too and you've been really killing it with your wonderful, gorgeous Aroids. Any Aroid care tips? You seem to have a nice line in terracotta pots! Do you prefer potting in terracotta and have you got any particular tips on those gorgeous Aroids?
Travis: Yes, I would definitely say, for me, terracotta or orchid pots are my go-to. Now, I know people who can grow Aroids in plastic or glazed pots but, for me, I am the king of overwatering - I tend to over-parent - so the terracotta pots and orchid pots are for me and my style of plant parenting. The biggest thing for me and this, once again, is partially because of my heavy hand in watering, but I love a really chunky substrate that maybe I have to water more frequently but really gives the roots a lot of space to breathe. My roots usually go off in my plants because of how much air they have. For me, it's usually a mixture of coconut chips, charcoal, some sort of bark and Sphagnum Moss and that usually keeps my Aroids nice and happy. For Anthuriums, a friend of mine told me this, I've tried it and there seems to be some truth to it, is that with my Anthuriums, specifically the velvety ones, oftentimes they are told to get bright, indirect light and I've noticed if I go more on the medium, close to low-light spectrum, they give me bigger leaves faster. A friend of mine told me, from some of the old heads, older growers that he talked to, is that the idea is if they're getting just enough light, they'll produce bigger leaves so that they can photosynthesise better on a larger surface area whereas if they're getting an amount of light they won't produce as bigger leaves. I have found that to be true thus far in my experience, so that's something else that's a fun tip, especially for Anthuriums.
Jane: That's a great tip! Do I own any Anthuriums? No I don't! I'm just trying to remember if I've forgotten anything! I don't own any Anthuriums! If you could suggest one Anthurium for me as a non-Anthurium owner to start with, what would you recommend?
Travis: I love this question! I would say Anthurium veitchii. That was my first Anthurium and I put it in a plastic pot with very dense soil and it's still alive. It's been very, very forgiving. I feel confident that I have watered it too soon, I feel confident that I've waited too long, I feel confident that I haven't given it a ton of humidity and it still has been thriving. I think a really forgiving Anthurium is a good place to start and I would say the Veitchii is where it's at.
Jane: I shall bear that in mind as I attempt not to buy any more plants! Although, you know what? What I love about the plant community is that people send me stuff! I do some lovely swaps and I also get sent things by people, which is amazing, and I do like to, as much as possible, to do swaps and it brings me great joy to receive things and also to give things. It's a really good feeling to pass that on. I love the idea of your plants, from your plant purge now, hanging out in all these other homes around your state and no doubt the rest of the US. Have you had any feedback on how your plants are doing, that you've purged?
Travis: The purge is very recent, so people haven't had much time to grow them but I have had a lot of people get so excited about having these plants. Some because they are rare plants that I intentionally sold these plants at a much cheaper price than market price, just to offset the insane pricing right now in the market. Then there's some people who, I think, just have a sense of me and who I am and the love that I put into my plants, so I think that made them feel excited to have them. There's definitely been a lot of great feedback, but as far as growth goes, they haven't really had them long enough yet to see much growth.
Jane: Time will tell! I'm sure that much love will be poured into them and they will be doing really beautifully. Travis, it's been amazing to talk to you! It's been a wide-ranging conversation. I hope that my slightly curveball questions were okay!
Travis: Totally.
Jane: It's really cool to talk to you. There's so many things I'd like to talk to you about, dance, so many more things! It's just wonderful to have this chat and, as ever, I'm just learning so much from others in the plant community and I hope that will always go on because that's what's so wonderful and refreshing, that there's so much incredible knowledge and information and fun out there. That's another aspect of your work that's just so refreshing. I can always smile when I come and look at your Instagram, so thank you very much for joining me today, Travis!
Travis: Jane, thank you so much, and I've already told you this, but this is a really special moment getting a chance to talk with you because when I first started my journey, especially in the first year, Jane, I played your podcasts every day, all the time, so I'm very familiar with you and your work and I appreciate you so much for choosing to have me!
Jane: Thank you for that compliment, that's very nice to hear! I'm terrible at accepting compliments but I'm going to accept this one with grace and say thank you very much because that means a lot and it's lovely to make this connection.
Travis: Thank you so much, Jane.
Jane: If you want to find out what that book about the biology of flowers I showed my daughter was, or more about that sparkly spider brooch or, indeed, the picture of Travis with his Philodendron Pink Princess, head on over to the show notes for all that information and more!
Now, it's Question of the Week which comes from Colette and Colette is looking to move house and wanted to know what would be the best orientation of a house for growing houseplants. Colette's house is currently west-facing at the front and east facing at the back. Colette writes: "Obviously for a garden, south-facing is great but I would worry about the north facing aspect of the living room and the bedroom being too dim for plants. Am I worrying too much or is there some sort of ideal medium? Any help would be fantastic!" I love this question, it's a really interesting one to consider even though most of us can't choose the orientation of our house, or choose a home solely based on the suitability for houseplants, it's definitely worth thinking about light when you are considering what your house is like for plants. I would say that east to west is probably the sweet spot for houseplants because there are so many that don't like really full-on sun that you get from a south-facing window and would do better in an east/west orientation. That said, if you're into cacti, I would probably say north to south would probably be better.
Why does orientation matter? Well, if you think about the sun's movement across the sky from east to west, if your house is south facing, then generally it's going to get the most hours of daylight. If your windows are south-facing they're going to get the sun for many more hours of the day than a north-facing window and the sun's going to be shining directly in. East to west, well, east-facing windows tend to get the sun in the morning and west-facing windows tend to get the later afternoon sun. That afternoon sun does tend to be a bit stronger, so in the hierarchy of orientation, if I can put it that way, we're probably looking at south as being the sunniest, then west, then east and then north. It does depend on the size of your windows. If you're living in an ancient cottage with tiny windows, then an east facing window is not going to offer the same amount of light as an east facing window in a brand new apartment block that's got floor to ceiling windows. If you've got things like Velux windows in the roof, or glass-roofed areas, or just really big windows, that will massively help with your plants. I must, of course, add if you're living in the southern hemisphere all of what I've just said is obviously completely wrong and is, in fact, the other way around. I'm sorry if that hasn't been much help to those if you in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere but just flip the script and the same principles apply.
My house, in fact, is north to south and the front you've got a nice big bay window which gets the sun all day and then at the back is north facing but I'm lucky enough to have a glass-roofed conservatory there. The other thing to look out for if you are scoping out new properties, deep windowsills are always fantastic and I say that as somebody who has hardly any windowsills in my house. How did I choose this house, eh? I guess there were a few other considerations other than my houseplants.
It's great if you've got some sheltered areas that are covered over but outside, so, porches, covered balconies, covered patios are great for so many of the cacti and succulents that we love. If you're in a temperate climate, many of those can stay in a really sheltered spot, the Agaves for example, will absolutely love it out there. So you can have something that looks cool and full of succulents without having to bring them in all winter. It depends on your climate though. I'm obviously speaking to people all over the world here, so look at the spaces you've got and the light levels you've got and then that's how you decide what plants you want to have. But if I was looking for a new home and looking at orientation in an ideal work, as I say, with the kind of plants I grow, east to west would probably be my preference.
If you do end up with north-facing rooms, obviously you can add growlights, but also, there are lots of plants that will do reasonably well in low-light conditions and do check out my episode on low-light plants for more info on that front. I do hope that helps, Colette! If you've got a question for On The Ledge, do drop me a line ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com is the best way to get in touch.
[music]
Jane: That wraps up this week's show! Thank you to my guest, Travis, for joining me and to all of you for being lovely, lovely listeners: I love you all! Have a great week, remember to keep moving, keep breathing, stay hydrated and keep your plants close. Bye!
[music]
Jane: The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll by The Joy Drops, Rashem Pidity, Pokhara by Samuel Corwin and Whistle by Benjamin Banger. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. Visit my show notes for details.
Subscribe to On The Ledge via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Player FM, Stitcher, Overcast, RadioPublic and YouTube.
My guest this week is Travis Cooper aka @plantsdecoop, creator of #PlantsNPoses on Instagram: we cover everything from plant purges and the best Anthuriums for newbies to the power of creativity and the joy of tapping into our childhood playfulness. I also answer a question about choosing a new home with your plants in mind.
Check out the notes below as you listen…
Travis with his Anthurium crystallinum. Photograph: Travis Cooper.
Travis Cooper as The Melanin Fairy. Photograph: Travis Cooper.
Check out Travis’s hashtag #PlantsNPoses on Instagram
Interested in Travis’s plant purge? It’s going on now (November 2020): check out full details on the @plantsdecoop Insta stories and this post.
My sparkly spider brooch is available here. And here’s the background to the origins of this brooch.
Check out Travis’s incredible The Melanin Fairy project.
The book on plant biology I showed my daughter to explain sexual reproduction in plants is The Biology of Flowers by Eigil Holm.
Begonia luxurians aka the palm leaf begonia is the plant Travis and I have both killed.
Travis’s favourite strip growlights are Monios-L T5 Grow Lights and his favourite growlight bulb is the Miracle LED® Ultra Grow Light Bulb.
Travis likes to use terracotta pots and a chunky substrate of coconut chips, charcoal, bark and sphagnum moss for his aroids.
He’s found that Anthuriums in particular produce the biggest leaves in medium rather than bright indirect light. Travis recommends A. veitchii, the king anthurium, for newcomers to the genus.
Travis with a Begonia luxurians. Photograph: Travis Cooper.
Question of the week
Colette wanted to know what would be the ideal orientation of a home when thinking about houseplants. For those in the norther hemisphere, I would say East-West is probably the sweet spot for houseplants, offering lots of that old saw ‘bright indirect light': if you love cacti and succulents though, you may wish for a North-South orientated house! That is not the only factor though: bigger windows are better than small, and deep windowledges are also a wonderful feature! (If you are in the southern hemisphere, just flip the script - north is sunny and so on!)
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!
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CREDITS
This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, Rashem Pidity, Pokhara by Samuel Corwin and Whistle by BenJamin Banger (@benjaminbanger on Insta; website benjaminbanger.com).
Logo design by Jacqueline Colley.