Episode 128: Monstera Mansion tour at RHS Wisley
Horticulturist Callum Munro-Faure enjoys the plant-filled dining room at Monstera Mansion. Photograph: RHS/Luke MacGregor.
Transcript
Episode 128
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Jane: Love is in the air here at On The Ledge - that's love for your house plants, of course. I'm Jane Perrone the host of this here show, your houseplant guide and mentor leading you gently by the ear through the jungle that is the world of houseplant care. In this week's show I'm heading to Wisley, the famous RHS garden in Surrey in the UK, to experience their house plant takeover first hand. I answer a question about whitefly on hibiscus and we meet listener, Amy.
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Jane: It's been busy on the Patreon scene, we've got Maria, or is it Mariah, a new Patreon at the Ledge-end level and EJ and Oli who have joined as Superfans. Welcome to the three of you and thank you for supporting the show. Thank you to Caroline for writing a lovely review on Apple Podcasts telling me that On The Ledge is her favourite horticultural podcast - well you have impeccable taste Caroline! Thank you so much. And I got a lovely message from Laura who sent me a picture of her newly rearranged plant area, writing: "My sister-in-law got me the painting for my birthday this week aptly named Venus Eye Trap." You're going to have to go to the show notes to see this picture but it's an amazing picture of a venus fly trap with eye balls for traps. Laura, you just won the houseplant world. That's amazing and you've got a great collection of plants there as well, so thank you for sending that through. I now want a venus eye trap! Laura, you have a great sister. She obviously knows you well.
Thanks to Charlie who wanted to respond to the Q&A from episode 123 about the Rhaphidophora tetrasperma. Charlie has been really helping me with this one and been doing some experiments on plants at their work, which is way above and beyond, so thank you very much for that Charlie. What they did was this - they tried getting the plants rather on the dry side then giving the plants extra water and monitoring them at every stage to see the reaction. Lo and behold they found that the plants did develop the same markings that Ashley found on her plant. If you recall, Ashley had got in touch to say that she was finding these darker markings on the underside of her Rhaphidophora tetrasperma leaves - that's the mini Monstera aroid that is very popular right now - and was wondering if this was normal. I speculated that it was some kind of edema, in other worse some kind of damage being done by over watering, a sudden rush of water into the cells causing them to burst.
So Charlie writes: "I soaked the terracotta pot at eight, ten and twelve and by 8pm the leaf had the same markings," and I'll put a picture of the photos that Charlie sent in the show notes. They've asked some co-workers if they've seen this in any other species and no one had. So Charlie wants to hear from more of you, if anyone else has had this issue with Rhaphidophora tetrasperma because looking at the photos they do look exactly the same as Ashley's. I'm going to experiment with my plant. So, if you've got a Rhaphidophora and don't mind it being a bit of a guinea pig then try the same experiment with yours. It doesn't seem to cause any lasting damage and this may just be the plant's way of dealing with that burst of extra water, but do let me know if you've got any thoughts on this one. It's fascinating to see how different plants react.
If you listened to episode 126, my joint podcast with the RHS gardening podcast, you'll have heard me talk about the Houseplant Takeover at RHS Garden Wisley and I headed down there today to check it out in person and boy was I impressed! I was lucky enough to get a tour around the already very busy glasshouse. It was first thing in the morning but the hordes were already arriving with someone who was really involved in the planning of this incredible installation.
Picture, if you will, a lost and abandoned Victorian house that's been overrun by its dwellers, the housplants, and this just happens to be situated within the wonderfully large glasshouse at Wisley. There are plants that we know and love as houseplants which are going nuts - that's all I can say - smashing to pieces all the usual rules of plant display and all the much better for it. So, without any further ado let's get inside that glasshouse.
Callum: I'm Callum Munro-Faure and I look after the tropical house here at Wisley Garden. I look after the display house and also manage the nursery house as well.
Jane: You must be pretty excited right now because houseplants are taking over this amazing space?
Callum: Yes, we're really, really excited to introduce this space and encourage people to grow houseplants in their own space, really. Our entire display is to emphasise that and encourage people to do that in their own space and play with the traditional idea of having a pot and a plant, so having plants interacting with the environment they're around.
Jane: What I love about this already, having seen the photos and peering through the archway that we're near now, is that I think a lot of us fall into the trap of having houseplants in pots with a cache pot, which is really quite boring. You're showing off here what you can do.
Callum: Yes, it's a bit more artistry there, a bit more creative finessing going on in the display. Let's go and have a look.
Jane: I'm getting excited now. Let's start moving because I want to see these plants!
Callum: Before we go in, I want to point out something which isn't really houseplant related, but it's a super-interesting plant.
Jane: Cool, always. Oh, wow.
Callum: Amorphophallus rivieri. It smells of rotting meat. It's got a carrion fly which is its pollinator.
Jane: It's got a few flies on there right now. I've got a terrible sense of smell, so I can't even smell it.
Callum: It's best first thing in the morning.
Jane: I can't get anything off that but then I can't smell anything.
Callum: As soon as the sun comes on it in the morning, that's when it's most pungent.
Jane: It's a good six foot tall, maybe taller. It's a very impressive plant. Those flies look like they're having a ball up there.
Callum: Sorry to distract.
Jane: No, that's fantastic. Like always, one is attracted to a plant and then you've just got to go and check it out.
Callum: Exactly, so welcome to the Monstera Mansion as we've colloquially named it.
Jane: What better mansion is there than that?
Callum: This has been a really, really fun project here. On the left hand side, we've got our study room, where we've got cacti playing chess, we've got Monstera controlling the cacti pieces. This cacti board you could quite easily replicate. It would be a quite easy one to copy or get inspiration from.
Jane: Yes, since I put this on Instagram a few days ago I've had so many people saying: "I'm so doing that! That's amazing!" and you're right, you've got the little Euphorbia obesa as the pawns and then you've got some taller cacti for the king and the queen. It looks awesome. As you say, you could do that at home without too much work. Either side, you've got the wonderful - I'm glad it's roped off because I can imagine a few people leaning over and trying to get cuttings of these! - variegated Monsteras. They look like they've survived okay so far without too much...
Callum: They're disguised into the chair somewhat, so they've got a certain amount of rooting medium around them. They've got quite a lot around.
Jane: They haven't been denuded by people taking cuttings too much, so far?
Callum: Not that we could see as of yet, no.
Jane: This is such a desirable plant, isn't it?
Callum: It is. It's one of those which is becoming quite an iconic... especially these variegated styles, no leaf is the exact same, they're all slightly different and they're becoming very sought after.
Jane: They are indeed. The prices for these guys are ridiculous, although I think it's starting to come down, as nurseries start to produce them and have more propagations coming through. I keep telling people: "Hang on, because the prices are coming down." I also want to talk about this wonderful cabinet of delights that we've got here. This is a really good idea too because you can go into a junk shop and pick up a cabinet like this.
Callum: That's very much what we did.
Jane: Is that how you did it?
Callum: We went to charity shops, old second-hand furniture shops and we've really planted things up and let our imaginations really run wild. So here, one of the potted plants in here, for me, is the Alocasia Stingray. As you can see, well you can't see, but the leaves look like little stingrays, it's a really nice little cultivar and the leaves in optimum prime can get quite big, so we quite like that one.
Jane: I love the way it's coming out of the pigeon holes in the desk, that is awesome.
Callum: It's fun, isn't it?
Jane: It's really fun. I guess you could do something like this at home, have it planted up for a few months and then ring the changes. It's just bringing a bit of fun to houseplants which I think is awesome.
Callum: It's a creative way of displaying them.
Jane: It really is.
Callum: It's really worked with quite a lot.
Jane: Have you had a good reaction from people coming to visit? Have people been oohing and ahhing?
Callum: Yes, I think people are really, really enjoying it. I come out into the display area and find people saying: "Oh, isn't that a good idea!" looking at the huge fern, or looking at the clock. It's like people coming 'round talking to other people and sharing the ideas and making sure that nobody misses anything. It's one of those displays where you really have to go round a couple of times and see it from loads of different angles to get proper appreciation of the display.
Jane: There's loads of attention to detail here as well, which I love. There's a sign there about the aerial roots of the Epipremnum, which is like a tapestry-style framed picture - that's so cool. That's a really nice touch to make it really feel like it is a house. I want to go and look at this clock though. Again, you could get a clock from a junk shop and make this yourself at home quite easily and we've got a couple of Epipremnum Scindapsus.
Callum: And an Epipremnum, so we've got Epipremnum aureum. Marble Queen is the cultivar that it has been variegated from. I can't quite remember what the scindapsus cultivar is.
Jane: No, I don't recognise that one. It's not the usual one, is it?
Callum: No, it's more of an unusual one. I didn't bring my list with me.
Jane: Don't worry, it's fine. Plant names come and go out of my brain too. You've got a little side table with the same effect, lots of plants pouring out of there. How long did this take to put together?
Callum: The whole display, we started building... it took two weeks for us to build the entire display. Everything, including all of the features and all of the background, that took two weeks to build and paint. Then we moved in with the plants and started planting it up and the whole process was a two or two-and-a-half week process.
Jane: Let's wander on and see what else we've got to see.
Callum: I'll point out a couple of bits as we're walking through. So here we have the Epipremnums all climbing up the stairs and the Aeschynanthus clambering over and the Begonias scrambling over as well.
Jane: That's nice, that Begonia. I don't know which one that is, the classic white begonia flowers. That's rather lovely, actually.
Callum: That's a species of begonia called Begonia solananthera.
Jane: Okay, I've got a lot of serious Begonia fans on my podcast who will be excited about that one. This ball of air plants, that's awesome. What's the frame that's on?
Callum: I'll let you into a little secret. That's two hanging baskets wired together.
Jane: That old trick, yes. I've heard that one before.
Callum: The air plants are just wired on the Tillandsia - that's actually a Tillandsia harrisii - which is more of a tropical Tillandsia and we use this one quite a lot in a lot of our displays. It's just a really great plant.
Jane: If you wanted to invest in that many Tillandsia you could recreate that at home, or you could do something a little bit less full or large and make something similar.
Callum: Yes, certainly. You can always mount these things in a variety of situations.
Jane: Whose shoes have you used? You've got a couple of slingbacks here, or court shoes, with plants.
Callum: The red ones were donated from one of our directors and the black ones from one of our managers as well. So there's some actual RHS provenance behind them, so to speak!
Jane: That's awesome. That is awesome.
Callum: One of my favourite little features is the staghorn above the fire and it's a staghorn fern. It looks like a mounted stag's head above the fire which we're not obviously encouraging, but it's a fern and it's quite a clever little play.
Jane: Yes, that's really, really nice and you've got the wonderful string of hearts coming down all around, which is such a popular plant and is so easy to grow and that looks awesome too. I'm glad to see you've got some, I never know whether say to Clive-ias or Cliv-ias.
Callum: I would say Cliv-ia.
Jane: So would I and I keep getting corrected by Americans, but I've got a Clivia specialist coming on the podcast soon to talk about those, so I'm getting into those actually, unexpectedly. I'm getting back into these retro delights, so that's great to see. I love this chair, a wooden chair with the classic diva plant, Alocasia Polly in there, I think that is, and some Parlour Palms as well. Again, you could do that at home. I presume that's just got some landscape fabric stapled in there?
Callum: Yes, it's got a membrane underneath and it's fundamentally how you treat every other potted plant in a way, so that's just a fun little idea. The whole idea behind the study area was that it's a shady area, there's not a lot of natural light available, so we've got quite a lot of shade lovers in this area. So the plan of the house, we really designed it to have areas that had shade, sun and we designed the plants to fit that context as well. So for instance, in the bathroom, which is a humid environment, we've got more humid-loving plants, for example.
Jane: Which is really the key to success, isn't it? Matching your environment to the right plants because otherwise that's when plant death is imminent when you fail to do that, as we all know, as we've all experienced. It's getting busy in here now, it's obviously really, really popular coming up to half-term, I guess. Next week, you'll be dealing with lots of hordes of people coming round with kids. That's exciting!
Callum: Yes, which is great. It's a different way for kids to interact with plants. A lot of the time they'll see them, like we've been talking about, just in pots. It makes it more of an immersive experience, having it all around you, and you can almost touch some of the plants in places, and you can really see colours. You can see textures and forms all together. For us, it's a really good way of getting all sorts of people in to plants, not necessarily just kids, but all sorts of people, ranging from kids, to young adults, to people who might not have grown plants in their entire lives.
Jane: I hear from a lot of people who had plants in the past and then gave them up in the '80s and '90s and rediscovering things that they used to love. Moving into the bedroom area now, I'm overawed by this awesome wall, which includes a massive area of spider plants, I know that's not the most sexy plant in here but I just love that spider plant effect.
Callum: It's great when it's left to do its own thing and left to sprawl over an area.
Jane: The real star of the show is this four poster bed covered in bronze, covered in bromeliads with the lovely pineapples as finials ,which is great because actually it's a real pineapple as opposed to a wooden pineapple, which is very clever, I don't know who came up with that.
Callum: That one was me.
Jane: Well done!
Callum: Not blowing my own trumpet or anything.
Jane: No, that is absolutely awesome! It just looks so colourful and bright. I don't want to go and lie on it because that would ruin the plants but it does give that sense and reminds me of a really colourful quilt.
Callum: That was the effect we were going for, a bright, vibrant, tropical effect. I might also draw your eye to that little Vriesea there, that splendide bromeliad here, Vriesea glutinosa, originally from Trinidad. Absolutely awesome flower spike, it's about a metre high, bright red and it's doing its hair in the mirror.
Jane: That is amazing, that is lovely, that is really nice. We're moving on. I guess we're coming to the kitchen now?
Callum: Yes, in the kitchen we've got all sorts of crazy things going on. We've filled it with carnivorous plants, plants which are insect eating plants, so we've got Pinguiculas, we've got Nepenthes, we've even got some Sarracenias in there as well. It's all mounted with a fine layer of moss, so it's the natural environment a lot of these plants would really like as well.
Jane: Completely, and they're becoming so popular, the Nepenthes now, so much more easy to get your hands on and in the kitchen really is the perfect place to put them, isn't it? Because you're in a high humidity environment and they'd be very happy there. This looks really sunny, I bet this took some time to put together, it's all about the attention to detail here.
Callum: Yes, very much so. The whole ethos behind the whole display is that we really want it to look like it's always been there, so to speak. So, finessing those details was so crucial to that for us, we found.
Jane: There's an old copper frying pan with some Sarracenias in it. Again, you could do that at home and grow them quite happily and they don't really need any drainage as long as you keep them nice and moist. That would be a lovely display that you could easily recreate at home.
Callum: One of my favourite features in this area is these little Aeonium saucers. They look like they're on the draining board, like plates. I know they're not carnivorous, but they look great and it's a really cool effect.
Jane: Yes, they're really cool plants. They're really, really cool. Let's move on through the crowds. This is the dining area. I love the fact that you've got the ZZ plant coming out of this dining chair because this is how I picture this plant as a real bruiser. It is a hugely vigorous plant, having it bursting through that chair is really effective.
Callum: It's like, woompf! For me, there's plants here, they're all sitting round the table having a bit of a tea party, one of them might have had a glass too much wine and fallen off his chair and a bottle of champagne exploding mid-flow. What I love most about this area is our little baby cactus in the cactus chair.
Jane: I was just going to say, that is so cool. I guess that's some kind of Opuntia?
Callum: He's an Opuntia, yes.
Jane: I just think that it looks so cool. It's kind of like he's having a tantrum in his high-chair and he's being contained by the bars, which is brilliant. The champagne bottle with the Curio rowleyanus coming out of it, again, that's amazing, if that was you I salute you, that is really, really clever.
Callum: That was actually one of my colleagues.
Jane: It's very, very clever and you've got snake plants coming out of another chair, Dracaenas. It's just very cleverly done. I now want to rip open all of my dining chairs and fill them with plants, which is great. I'm sure my family would be very keen on that idea!
Callum: Wear a dust mask if you're going to do it at home. Some of these older chairs are full of all sorts of strange fibres, so I'd wear a mask, just in case, just at home, I would.
Jane: That's very good advice. You could just take one tiny element of this, like the Spanish moss coming down off the light fitting, that would be one small part of this that you could bring to your own home. Is there anything else here that you wanted to point out that would be quite nicely transferable?
Callum: For me, I quite like this little drinks cabinet here. So we've got an exploding globe filled with old, empty drink bottles, but you could quite easily replicate that in your home environment and just have the two working together quite nicely as well.
Jane: That's awesome. There are so many things here that I absolutely love. It's a real treat what you've created here. How long is this in place for?
Callum: It's going to be open until 1st March.
Jane: So plenty of time to come and take a look.
Callum: Plenty of time. I really recommend coming. It's hard to describe without coming and seeing it.
Jane: There will be lots of photos in my show notes on my website, so people can look at the pictures as they're listening to us talk, so hopefully that'll give a really good sense. I think it's great to see a real iconic garden like Wisley really pushing the boundaries with what you can do with houseplants and showing how you can do something a bit different and lovely. Wonderful though it is to see house plants impeccably on staging, it's really nice to have a totally different approach where you can see something really, really different. Is there one plant in here that draws the most attention when you're seeing people look around? I'm wondering if it might be one of these really tall cacti or the string of pearls?
Callum: It's actually a Euphorbia.
Jane: Euphorbia, of course. I should get that right!
Callum: It's fine.
Jane: Let me just get the full name, Euphorbia ingens. That is a good-sized plant.
Callum: That one's a really quick grower as well.
Jane: Yes, you can get those up to quite a big size in not that much time.
Callum: We've actually got another one which is firmly planted in display beds. That one we've grown from a cutting and it's now about eight foot high and that's after about two years, three years. They're really fast growing Euphorbia. It's a really cool thing as well.
Jane: Do you take your work home with you? Do you have plants at home or is it enough here to have all the plants to look after?
Callum: I did a head count of my collection at home and I have 162 house plants, which is quite a significant number.
Jane: So you come home from work and you basically start tending to your own houseplants straight away?
Callum: I do them on a room-by-room basis. I do a room a day.
Jane: That's very, very wise. I forgot about the bath tub. I've seen pictures of this.
Callum: A Platycerium in the bath, taking a shower.
Jane: Yes, that is awesome, and again people often don't put plants in their bathroom but it's one of the best places to accommodate plants.
Callum: I totally agree.
Jane: Platyceriums on the wall absolutely loving the humidity would be great.
Callum: I'll quickly draw your attention to the shower head with the string of pearls.
Jane: Yes, that's a great effect, that plant is so handy for so many different effects.
Callum: It's also bomb-proof as well.
Jane: Yes, really easy to accommodate in different ways. Is that your bath mat in the front with the baby's tears?
Callum: Most of them are Pileas, we've got some ferns in there as well, we've got a whole range of interesting ferns which really like that high humidity, which is from the shower falling down and the waterfall, so they're getting constant moisture throughout the day.
Jane: Yes, it's really, really great. I don't know how on earth you installed that four foot bath there! I bet that was a fun day.
Callum: It involved lots of agonising with bricks and getting it level and a certain amount of swearing.
Jane: Those things are really heavy, they're really, really heavy those baths, but it looks amazing. How much day-to-day maintenance does this installation require?
Callum: Every morning, we come out, we'll check it, we'll check which plants need watering, which plants are getting tired, which plants need cleaning up. So we'll spend about an hour, at least three or four of us a day on it, so it is quite an intensive display but it's been great fun to do as well.
Jane: A really good challenge and I'm sure it's been keeping you very, very busy. It's fantastic, I'm going to say, once again, thank you very much, Callum.
Jane: And if you want to get along to Wisley to see the amazing exhibition, it's on until the 1st March. Be warned this weekend, 15/16 February 2020, it's going to be a bit stormy here in the UK and it's quite possible that Wisley will decide to shut its doors for safety reasons, so do check before travelling if you are planning to go in the next few days. All the details of the exhibition are on my website show notes JanePerrone.com along with lots of wonderful photos and do check out Callum's own Instagram which is @PlantsWithCallum.
Now, it's time to Meet the Listener:
Amy: Hello, planty people, my name is Amy and I am so excited to be a listener that you're meeting. I grew up in Ohio in the middle of nowhere in the United States but I am living in beautiful, chaotic, Mexico City for the last year and a half. I've been here teaching English and accumulating lots and lots of houseplants.
Jane: Question one - there's a fire and all your plants are about to burn. Which one do you grab as you escape?
Amy: So if there was a fire, this is a really tough question, I think, goodness, I would have to choose a little baby Echeveria that I got a few months ago from the botanical garden at UNAM which is the biggest university here in town. They have a programme where you can adopt plants that are endangered out in the wild. I have a Echeveria setosa var. minor. It's so cute and fuzzy. The idea is, maybe some day, if I take really good care of him and maybe propagate new babies, they might be planted again out in the wild. Either that, or a golden barrel cactus because it's the same and we named him Pecos Bill because 'pecos' means pokey things! Get it? Like the American legendary figure in literature, Pecos Bill! Pretty proud of that one! Got to give credit to my husband for that joke.
Jane: Question two - what is your favourite episode of On The Ledge?
Amy: My favourite episode of the podcast, it's tough to choose really, I was so excited when I found On The Ledge I listened to most of the catalogue in three days. I really enjoyed episode 103 about houseplants and sustainability. Specifically, it talked a lot about peat moss which is something that I knew nothing about, I'm not brave enough to try my hand at raising carnivorous plants but I just found it really fascinating and eye-opening, so, yes, 103 is my top.
Jane: Question three - which Latin name do you say to impress people?
Amy: I actually took a few years of Latin in high school. I don't know why the adults in my life let me study Latin instead of something more useful like, for example, Spanish! So I use a lot of Latin names when I'm describing my plants, but I think unsurprisingly I, like a lot of people, love to say Monstera Deliciosa because it sounds a like a spell from Harry Potter!
Jane: Question four - crassulacean acid metabolism, or guttation?
Amy: All of the metabolism processes of plants are just fascinating and magical to me, but guttation, I think, is the cooler of the two, just based on what I get to experience on a day-to-day, or I should say night-to-night, basis. It's really cute that my plants get night sweats! I didn't really understand what was happening for a few months earlier this year. I had to do a lot of Googling to figure out what was going on but it's really to fun to think of myself as an amateur, amateur, amateur biologist and I think it's really beautiful in the morning. I get great morning sun through an east-facing window and the dew drops are the water that accumulates from guttation that took place overnight and it can be really beautiful.
Jane: Question five - would you rather spend £200 on a variegated Monstera, or £200 on 20 interesting cacti?
Amy: Living in Mexico, £200 will get me a lot more than 20 interesting cacti, so definitely option B. I don't know, a variegated Monstera, of course, looks beautiful, but I think the more the merrier has been my philosophy towards houseplants.
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Jane: I love that philosophy! That is very nice to hear from you, Amy. If you want to put yourself forward for Meet the Listener, drop a line to
Now, it's time for Question of the Week. Andy got in touch to ask about how to control whitefly that has been hitting up his hibiscus tree which is growing indoors. Ah yes, whitefly. Latin name, Trialeurodes vaporariorum. That's impossible to say, but I like to call them glasshouse whitefly. They're these little, tiny, fluttery things that get on the backs of your plant leaves and leave this horrible sticky stuff which is called honeydew that then encourages mould. You sometimes get ants coming in to feed on the honeydew and it all gets very messy.
So what can you do about whitefly on hibiscus? Well, you can get some sticky traps, those yellow sticky traps, that you might also use for fungus gnats. They will be a good way of dealing with some of the problem but I also think that you need to hit your plant up with some kind of soap-based insecticidal spray and just keep going with that, putting the plant in the bath if you can and just spray regularly to get rid of those infestations. I have heard of people vacuuming plants with a brush attachment to remove whitefly. I haven't tried it myself, can't quite picture it, but if you've got a plant with reasonably sturdy leaves then that might be worth a go if you don't mind having a vacuum bag full of whitefly. Actually, it sounds pretty gross, but I don't know, perhaps that works for some people.
Make sure, generally also, that your plant is in good health because whitefly, unlike any other pest, will target plants that are stressed. So perhaps your hibiscus needs a bit of extra love, check the soil, make sure it's not root-bound and just keep applying that insecticidal soap spray until you don't see any more whitefly for a good period of time because the life cycle is such that they will be hatching out over a period of days and weeks and they reproduce really, really quickly. So numbers can get out of control very quickly and you may think that you've solved the problem and then hey presto, here they come and, of course, they can fly so they will move to other plants. So, definitely worth quarantining this one away from other plants if you possibly can.
I hope that helps, Andy, and if you've got a question for On The Ledge, drop me a line ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com
That wraps up this week's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it. I am taking a week off next week because, well, it's my birthday, so I'm going to have a week's break from the show. Don't worry, I'll be back the following week and I will be doing some interviews for upcoming shows in my week off, so I won't be sitting around doing nothing, fear not, but I will be back with the next episode two weeks' hence. So, as always, thank you for listening and do come back in a couple of weeks for the next episode of On The Ledge, not On The Shelf as it was called when I appeared on a BBC radio show called 'You and Yours' this week, talking about rare plants. If you want to listen to that then I will put a link in the show notes. You can hear me talking with Paul Holt of North One Garden Centre about rare plants. In the meantime, I hope you got some plants for Valentine's Day and if not, buy yourself a plant! Why not!? You deserve it! Bye!
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Jane: The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll and Enthusiast by Tours. Both licensed under Creative Commons. See the show notes at JanePerrone.com for details.
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RHS garden Wisley in Surrey in the UK has taken a new approach to displaying houseplants with its Giant Houseplant Takeover exhibition: I took a tour with horticulturist Callum Munro-Faure. Plus we meet listener Amy, and I answer a question about whitefly on a hibiscus. (Want to see listener Lauren’s venus eyetraps pic I mention at the start of the show? It’s here! And check out my interview on BBC Radio Four’s You and Yours here - I’m on at around the 27 minute mark…)
The Giant Houseplant Takeover is on until March 1 2020 - full details here, but please do check before you set off as Wisley may need to shut in the event of adverse weather conditions.
There are some workshops on different aspects of houseplants plus houseplant clinics taking place while the exhibition is on: check the list here. You’ll need to book in advance.
Check out Callum Munro-Faure’s Insta @plantswithcallum. He has 162 houseplants at home too!
Check out the gallery of images below as you listen: click on an image and it will expand into a larger size. All photos in the gallery below are credited to the RHS/Luke MacGregor.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
How do you get rid of whitefly on an indoor hibiscus? This question came from Andy. Yellow sticky traps will help control populations clinging to the back of leaves, but in the case of anything other than the most minor infestation, fatty acid-based insecticidal sprays used over a series of days is the best way. Quarantine affected plants and make sure they are in good health, as pests tend to target stressed plants. There’s more advice on glasshouse whitefly on the RHS website.
Want to ask me a question? Email ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. The more information you can include, the better - pictures of your plant, details of your location and how long you have had the plant are always useful to help solve your issue!
HOW TO SUPPORT ON THE LEDGE
Contributions from On The Ledge listeners help to pay for all the things that have made the show possible over the last few years: equipment, travel expenses, editing, admin support and transcription.
Want to make a one-off donation? You can do that through my ko-fi.com page, or via Paypal.
Want to make a regular donation? Join the On The Ledge community on Patreon! Whether you can only spare a dollar or a pound, or want to make a bigger commitment, there’s something for you: see all the tiers and sign up for Patreon here.
The Crazy Plant Person tier just gives you a warm fuzzy feeling of supporting the show you love.
The Ledge End tier gives you access to two extra episodes a month, known as An Extra Leaf, as well as ad-free versions of the main podcast on weeks where there’s a paid advertising spot, and access to occasional patron-only Zoom sessions.
My Superfan tier earns you a personal greeting from me in the mail including a limited edition postcard, as well as ad-free episodes.
If you like the idea of supporting On The Ledge on a regular basis but don't know what Patreon's all about, check out the FAQ here: if you still have questions, leave a comment or email me - ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. If you're already supporting others via Patreon, just click here to set up your rewards!
If you prefer to support the show in other ways, please do go and rate and review On The Ledge on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen. It's lovely to read your kind comments, and it really helps new listeners to find the show. You can also tweet or post about the show on social media - use #OnTheLedgePodcast so I’ll pick up on it!
CREDITS
This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops and Enthusiast by Tours.
Logo design by Jacqueline Colley.