Episode 137: Maria Failla of Bloom and Grow Radio
Maria Failla of houseplant podcast Bloom & Grow Radio.
Transcript
Episode 137
[music]
Jane: Hello and welcome to On The Ledge, it's your host Jane Perrone, and this week I've got a special treat for you. There aren't that many other houseplant podcasts out there, but one of the most famous is Bloom and Grow Radio hosted by Maria Failla. After months, if not years, in the planning, we finally managed to sort out an interview exchange. So, today on On The Ledge, you get to hear me ask Maria all those things you wanted to know about why she started a podcast about house plants, what her mum thinks about it and just how many houseplants you can pack into a one-bedroom New York apartment. Next Tuesday, you'll be able to tune into Bloom & Grow Radio to hear me answering questions from Maria. If you're a Patreon subscriber to either podcast, then that means you'll also get access to an extra episode, where we talk about the mechanics of making our podcasts. Also in this episode, I will be answering a question about a Cissus discolor and we'll be hearing from this week's sponsor Briiv an air purifier with a difference.
[music]
Jane: Thank you to SproutAndAbout who left a review for the podcast on Apple Podcasts with the heading 'Plant-tastic'. Maybe I should have used that for my podcast name! It's too late now! SproutAndAbout wrote: "All I could ever ask in a plant podcast and more, Jane is so enjoyable to listen to and the content is relatable to all houseplant growers, new and experienced. I tell all my friends, whether they're interested or not, about what I've learned after a day of binging episodes. You feed my soul, Jane." I do have to say I feel slightly sorry for your friends, SproutAndAbout, who have to listen to you pining about how much you love On The Ledge even if they're not interested in plants! Well I hope you make a few converts anyway and thank you very, very much for leaving a review. It warms my cockles, as they say here in the UK!
If you can't contribute financially to the show, leaving a review is a fantastic way of having a bit of an influence on the podcasting world. I appreciate sometimes, particularly Apple Podcasts, it's a bit of an effort to do, but if you can manage it, you get a big gold star from me. Thank you also to Joyce who became a Ledge-end this week, by pledging $5 a month on Patreon - thank you so much, Joyce. You got in touch about how On The Ledge has helped you writing your book manuscript and that was joyous to hear, so thank you Joyce, you brought me some joy!
If you haven't heard Maria Failla's podcast, Bloom & Grow Radio, you're missing out on the most perky theme music and the wonderful enthusiasm of this crazy plant lady. Maria started her podcast a few months after mine, in 2017, which is obviously the key year for new podcasts of the houseplant variety. Both of us have found ourselves completely addicted to podcasting about Philodendrons and Ficus, it only felt right that we caught up and had a chat about where this all began and how we're coping with the current, curious conditions that we're living in. As is often the case with On The Ledge interviews it started off on a highly unprofessional note on my part.
Jane: Welcome to the rather, what's the word, welcome to the... welcome to the rather chaotic world of On The Ledge podcast, Maria! It's great to have you on the show - it's been a long time coming!
Maria: Oh man!
Jane: Finally, the pandemic has brought us together virtually by the power of Zoom!
Maria: Absolutely! I want to say thanks, Jane: long-time listener, first-time caller!
Jane: It's really strange isn't it? This is what's great, I'm probably like you, a lot of my interviews are done over the computer, so for me it's not too much of a problem this pandemic, because we can both continue doing stuff and now more than ever we need our plants, don't we?
Maria: Oh man, absolutely, I've never been more thankful! Especially because I'm in Long Island City, in New York City. I'm lucky enough to not be on the proper island but I'm in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment with my fiancé, we have the tiniest balcony that we can't really sit on. I grow food on it but we have very limited outdoor space and I have never been more thankful for my houseplants, my 150 house plants, because I think if I was in a sterile apartment with nothing living, I would be fully losing my mind right now!
Jane: It is a really, really important aspect of taking care of yourself at this time, to be thinking about your plants, so thank goodness for plants! I'm curious to know where the journey of Bloom & Grow Radio began? From listening to your show I know that you're not a weirdo like me, you weren't into plants when you were a toddler. So where did this obsession spring from and what was the spark for it?
Maria: I am actually, what I like to call a 'plant killer turned plant lady'. I think I just got missed by a gene because I come from a heritage of Italian farmers. I grew up going to our family farm in Italy as a kid. I was around crops, my great aunt had this insane garden on our property in Italy. My mom is an amazing gardener. My Italian grandparents, who lived in Queens in New York, had basically two plots of land next to each other, one plot for their house and a separate plot the same size that they didn't put a house on and only had their garden. I grew up grabbing tomatoes in the garden but I think I had some plant blindness as a kid, I just took it for granted.
I remember my grandma at the front of her house -- remember, in the 70s and 60s, that thick glass? What's it called? It's a thick, translucent glass pane at the front of your house, but she basically had a little greenhouse in the front of her house - apparently she had an enormous Monstera which I have no memory of, but my mom has told me she had an insane Monstera. She had a ton of geraniums, when I smell geranium leaves I always think of her. But I grew up in the suburbs of New York, never really had houseplants, went to college and then I lived as an adult in different apartments in New York City and famously would bring plants home and kill them. I just had no idea, I just missed the green thumb gene in my family and after 18 or 20 dead plants in my wake, I decided that I'm going to stick to cut flowers and I'm a plant killer and I think a lot of people experience that - they bring home a succulent and they kill it and they just decide plants aren't for them.
When I moved in with my boyfriend, my now fiancé, most of the stuff in our apartment was his stuff. We had this tiny little balcony and it was southern-facing and I didn't even understand the amazing southern-facing, unobstructed windows that we have. I didn't understand the gold mine yet. So, I decided to try plants one more time and I started with herbs outdoors, I say herbs were my gateway drug plant and with the help of my mom, who is an amazing gardener, she helped me set up a little herb garden and she helped me care for it. I had all these weird assumptions that I could only water the plants at night and I was doing all of these weird things, but she talked me through it and the herbs started to thrive and so I decided: "Okay, I'm a new 'plant lady' now. I'm actually interested in learning and figuring out how to care for these things, I'm going to try houseplants one more time!" So I started with a few houseplants, I think I got a couple of Jades and a money tree and a few other things, and those plants didn't die because I actually decided to Google them and try and understand their care and try and understand what my southern light meant and figured out where to put them. As those plants started thriving I was like: "Okay, I'll bring in a few more," and then I had ten house plants and some herbs and then the ten house plants were doing well, so then I had 20 and then all of a sudden I had 30 and I think we all know this story, that all of a sudden, I like to say, I went from 0 to 60, literally and figuratively.
My heart just exploded! Learning to care for these things really changed my life and I found them being a really big part of my mindfulness practice because as a millennial who is attached to her phone, I used to wake up in the morning and open my phone and immediately scroll Instagram. All of a sudden I found myself leaving my phone and sitting perched on my tiny little balcony just smelling my herbs and enjoying the basil and cutting the chives and scrambling them into our eggs and I just felt like plant care was a way for me to connect with myself and slow down in this crazy city that I lived in.
I was so obsessed with the experience that I went through going from plant killer to plant lady, I decided that I wanted to record it in a podcast and decided that the podcast would help me further my knowledge because the whole idea was that I would interview different experts in horticulture on different aspects of plant care, so I personally would benefit from it. But then also I wanted to help other people like me pull themselves out of plant killer-dom and pull them into plant person-dom, I guess. I thought it would be ten episodes because I'm a professional actress and I was working on Broadway and I started the podcast right after a Broadway contract ended and I thought that another Broadway contract would come faster than it did. So I thought it would be ten episodes and I think I'm releasing my 90th episode next week and it's been a really wild ride. The whole thing with Bloom and Grow, I'm learning alongside my listeners is what I like to say, with different experts and different areas of houseplant care. Now that I've been at it for three years, it's interesting because I have learned a lot and I am starting to be able to give my own advice from three years of caring for plants, so it's been a real journey.
Jane: Total aside to ask you, first - both of us have got Italian heritage! Is it really loud when your family gets together? Whenever my family get together, not that it's happening at the minute, but it's really loud. Is it an Italian thing? My husband just thinks we're all super-loud with super-loud voices talking over each other.
Maria: Yes, when my grandparents were alive, our dinners were pretty loud, but I do have to say my fiancé is Irish-American and getting together, his family trumps my Italian-American family any day of the week with how loud they are! Yes definitely, we're loud and we love and we're enthusiastic, 100%!
Jane: Awesome! And what does your mum think about your podcast, as somebody who is into gardening herself? Is she happy that you've turned over a new leaf?
Maria: Yes, I think she is so proud. It's been really sweet. We've bonded a lot about it because she is the reason why I was able to care for those first plants successfully. I was literally calling her every day, if not every other day, with a random question because when people start plant care, especially if they've labelled themselves as a plant killer, there's so much insecurity and there's so much worry that you're doing it wrong. I was connecting with my mom so much and she helped me set the herbs up and she helped me with the first tomato plant and she has a garden, so I would go and help her in the garden. So, I think we've grown a lot of closer from it and I think she sees the live tapings that I've done now and she sees different aspects of Bloom & Grow and she stands in awe of it. You know this more than anyone but it feels amazing to help people nurture something that you love to nurture. So, yes, I think she's proud and I think it's been a really fun way for us to bond. Even yesterday she was coaching me. I want to try growing sugar snap peas and bush beans for the first time on my balcony, in containers. I was just going to sow them and she was coaching me on how I should germinate them inside in a damp paper towel and get them to sprout before I plant them.
Jane: I can see a whole spin-off here: Mum's outdoor gardening tips! It could be a whole other little stream of your podcasts, as you expand!
Maria: Exactly! She's going to be featured on my YouTube channel. She's an edible landscaper, so our entire front yard is edible plants and we have hedges of tomato plants. She does all of the landscaping with lettuces and beans. What she does is unbelievable. Last year she had 300 sunflowers in her front yard, so I'm going to do a series on my YouTube channel, visiting Failla Farm. I think, once a month, we're going to do a Failla Farm update, just on the fun things that she is doing because she is so fun to learn from and she's so creative and she's also a real personality, so I think she'd do well on camera.
Jane: Your fiancé, I think he's probably more enthusiastic about plants than my husband is. How's that developed? I know, when you were away, travelling with work, he was looking after your plants. Tell me a bit about that relationship and how his plant knowledge has grown.
Maria: If people want to hear about how your family reacts they'll have to listen to your interview on my podcast. Billy, watching his development as a plant parent - and I call him my plant co-parent - has been interesting because when I first started, I think he really enjoyed growing the herbs because his main thing is he likes growing food. He likes growing the food and then making the pesto with the basil and seeing the cyclical nature of that. But when I went from 0 to 60 so quickly - I think within three months we had 60 plants - I think he got really freaked out. There was something wrong, the addictive side of my brain lit up and my obsessive tendencies definitely reared their heads, so he actually put me on a "plant pause". We had to have a conversation about how he felt that I was acting a little irrationally and I needed to take a minute and assess the plants that we had. That ended up being a hugely helpful few months for me because I just got to come up for air and put some shelving in so the plants were better placed in my apartment and get a better understanding for the plants that I had already brought home.
For the first two years I was the sole plant care provider. I was the one doing all of the plant chores. He certainly enjoyed the plants but he had no responsibility there. Then I left the apartment for a year, I went on tour with 'Cats', the musical, and he had 150 plants to take care of, with limited plant care knowledge because he just wasn't doing it. I feel like you can understand watering principles but you don't really get them until you're responsible for doing it. So, over that course of that year, it was kind of poetic in that I feel like he was where I was when I started Bloom and Grow and had to go through his own journey, but it's been very sweet. The plants obviously, within a year, had tremendous growth we had twoMonsteras put out their first fenestrated leaves, our fiddle leaf fig doubled in size because we finally found a great growlight to put it under. He feels like it's his, he's like: "I grew those fenestrated leaves," and I'm like: "Okay! No you didn't, but we'll say that you did! We'll give it to you."
When I came back from tour, I assumed all the responsibilities again and I think he was very happy to give them back to me. It's been nice, I think, that we've grown together because of it and learned to communicate a little bit better when we pass off watering duties or when we decide to install a green wall in our home. He is encouraging me to ask him, sometimes a new growlight will show up and I haven't talked to him about it, so he asks me to have a conversation with him before the growlight comes home, or before the new plant comes home. So I feel like, hopefully, it's setting up some good habits for us in our relationship moving forward.
[music]
Jane: We'll be hearing more from Maria shortly but now it's time to hear from this week's sponsor. This week's On The Ledge is supported by Briiv, an air purifier with a difference. Briiv are on a mission to prove it's possible to create an energy efficient product that uses only biodegradable materials to filter the air and won't look out of place in your stylish home. Inspired by the rolling hills and green fields of Britain, Briiv clears the air in a standard 4m x 4m room in just 30 minutes, using a system of four filters, all biodegradable and natural, made of moss, coconut fibre, charcoal and sheep wool. Once those filters have reached the end of their life you can discard them or, ideally, compost them, safe in the knowledge they'll break down safely within three to four months. Briiv is designed to be simple and hassle-free to set up, with smart home integration. So pre-order your Briiv on Kickstarter now! Visit Briiv.co.uk to find out more. Briiv: fresh air that doesn't cost the earth.
Now back to my chat with Maria. I wanted to find out if she has any other passions in life that her listeners might not know about?
[music]
Maria: I think my number one passion has always been singing and performing but I think that's a pretty well-known aspect of my life just because I was on tour for the last year with my show.
Jane: This is not a forum for it, but my daughter is a massive 'Hamilton' fan. She is really getting into musicals and I've got no knowledge whatsoever of musicals at all. I've seen about three musicals in my life. My husband laughs because my favourite musicals are all from decades ago - West Side Story.
Maria: I love those.
Jane: My husband hates musicals. He is the world's worst person to talk about this but I've got so many musical-related questions about how it all works. I'm not going to cover them here because it's not that kind of show. I'd love all the dirt on the musicals world.
Maria: I'll give you some suggestions and give your daughter my email. I'll talk musicals with her!
Jane: I want to know the differences between the musical world and the houseplant world. I imagine the musical world is pretty cut-throat compared to the houseplant world? Is everyone nice in the world of musicals? You've got to be diplomatic.
Maria: I will say the houseplant world is filled with some of the kindest, most generous people I've ever met. If your hobby is caring for plants, caring for something else that doesn't understand you makes you a very special person and I feel like I've really experienced that from my community. I think in the performing world it's hard because it's our job, it's our primary job, so obviously there's competition just in the fact that it's our livings, but some of my closest friends are performers.
Performers are so creative and weird and fun and I'm so weird and I love doing weird, silly dances and I'm so emotional, I cry all the time because, as just an artist and a performer, my feelings are on the surface. Performers live larger-than-life lives, so it's fun to have a foot in that world where you can be really large and really big. I also feel being a professional performer has been very helpful with Bloom & Grow because I like to perform and I do feel like the podcast is a different venue / avenue for performing, especially now that I've started doing live tapings of my show - those are performances in front of an audience. So it's been very interesting to see how the two have informed each other and plants, everybody loves plants, so I found that I've actually made relationships with different people in the musical theatre world, like fancy musical theatre people, not from performing but from our mutual love of plants. So that's been very interesting, so it's cool to see the two feed each other in their own way.
Jane: When are we going to see Monstera the Musical? I think there's a cross-over right there!
Maria: Before I went on tour, one of my dreams is to develop a concert of botanically-inspired music and then do it at different botanical gardens across the country. So, anyone listening, if you want to help me! There's so much beautiful music, some classical, some musical theatre, some pop, but there's so much beautiful music inspired by gardening and by flowers and by trees. So I thought it would be a really cool concert programme to put together. Maybe now that I'm in quarantine and I have all this spare time I can start to develop it. I will say another hobby, my fiancé and I love to cook, that's a big reason why we like to grow food, but we just started watching The Great British Baking Show.
Jane: Is that's what it's called over there? The Great British Baking Show?
Maria: Yes, what's it called over there?
Jane: It's called the Great British Bake-Off here.
Maria: Oh, that's what I mean, Great British Bake-Off. I'm calling it the wrong thing!
Jane: It's all right! Sometimes shows do get different names! Are you watching the current, recent ones, or old ones? The presenters have changed.
Maria: We have Mary and Paul.
Jane: Do you have Mel and Sue, or do you have Sandy and Noel?
Maria: Mel and Sue, the girl with the brown short hair and the girl with the blonde hair, right? Yes, that's who we're watching.
Jane: It's a great show, it's a really great show, I love that show! Watching it with my husband is a bit annoying because, by trade, he is a chef, he's not a chef any more, but he will just be like: "Oh, God, they should be wearing a hair net, they've ruined that whatever." So that's tedious!
Maria: It's the perfect thing to watch right now.
Jane: It's very relaxing isn't it? It's a great show.
Maria: All the contestants are so nice, they all help each other. I love Mary and Paul's dynamic and Paul can be so cutting at points. I love Mary and Billy loves Paul. It's a lovely time to be watching it.
Jane: It's a very British show, isn't it?
Maria: It's so British.
Jane: I don't know if you could make that anywhere else in the world. You're right, it's great lockdown viewing.
Maria: It's funny you say that because we were saying have they ever tried to replicate this in the States? They replicated The Office, so why would they not replicate this? We were like, it would never work because the personalities and the British feeling of it and everything that they make, we don't see that stuff in the States. So what would they be baking? It would be very different, so I think it's just perfect for what it is. It's delightful to watch.
Jane: The other thing I wanted to ask you about was other houseplant podcasts. I'm kind of surprised - there are a few others out there now - but I'm surprised, we both started in 2017, there aren't that many other houseplant podcasts out there. Do you think it's because we've done such a good job that nobody else has done any!? I say that tongue in cheek!
Maria: I think we've just done such a good job that we've just nailed it, Jane! I love that you and I are the OG houseplant nerds in the podcasting space. You are the OG OG, I am the number two and I'm happy to be the number two! We had a year or two where there really wasn't anyone else showing up and then I feel like in the last year there has been more shows popping up because there's a lot of gardening shows but there's not a lot of specific houseplant shows and now there are a few more. I don't know why, I think it is a very specific niche that we have honed in on.
Jane: A story about that - I was once on a podcast group on Facebook, I don't spend my whole life on Facebook but I was on some kind of podcast Facebook group and something came up about something and somebody else mentioned, in a comment, mentioned my podcast and some male podcasters then said: "Oh my gosh, how does a podcast about houseplants work? Surely that's way too niche and nobody is going to listen?" and he said it in quite a snarky way which immediately got my back up. Then I thought I'm going to have a look at his podcasts.
Maria: Great, how many listeners do you have, buddy?
Jane: I'm going to guess it's three guys in a room shooting the breeze. Weirdly enough, and I've never seen this anywhere else, on his podcast website it actually had his viewing stats clearly visible on the page and I looked at his stats and I actually then wrote a comment saying: "I've just checked your page and I get about 10 times more listeners than you!"
Maria: Yes, Jane!
Jane: I just thought I've got to slap this guy down because he is dissing the houseplant world.
Maria: You clapped back - I love that!
Jane: I just thought how rude to think that a subject, a niche such as houseplants, just because you're not interested ... There's a chameleon podcast, that's another thing I love, there is a podcast all about chameleons, I need to go and listen to it immediately. Nothing is too niche, I really truly believe that for the world of podcasts.
Maria: I listen to a lot of business podcasts and a lot of entrepreneur podcasts and Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income, he always says: "The riches are in the niches, baby." You've got to niche down and then you can really serve your audience and connect. I totally agree with you. It's interesting when I tell my friends in musical theatre, or I'm very close with all of my friends from growing up and none of them are performers, or podcasters, or plant people, and it's so funny when I meet someone and I tell them that I have a podcast about houseplants and watching them register how insane that sounds and then choose how they want to respond. Whether it's them not being able to filter their response and being like: "What? How does that work?" or "That is so interesting" and then you can tell by their questions that they're trying to see how successful you are and if you actually have listeners or not. It is very interesting to read the doubt there. Then you find the people in the houseplants space who say: "Oh my god, I'm so happy this exists!" That's why I created the show and I'm sure that's why you created your show, was that there were no other podcasts out there about houseplants and I like to listen to podcasts, so I made one because I wanted one.
Jane: It's nice to have other podcasts that you don't have to make. I'm sure you find this as well. It's a wonderful thing to make a podcast and it is a lot of fun, but there's slog in there! There's a lot of slog in there, so it's really nice to be able to see Maria's put out an episode, or Plant Daddy have put out another episode that I can just listen to it and sit back and relax, which is great!
Maria: Jane, can I just marvel at - number one - your audio production of your show and the way that you incorporate music.
Jane: Really?
Maria: Yes, because I also want to say I've listened to your show for three years, I'm a huge fan of your show, I recommend episodes of your show to my listeners when I don't have an episode. I love tuning in and what you do with audio is something that I've never even necessarily been interested in. You're so good at the production aspect of the music and the different segments that you do. That's a thing too, our shows are so different and I feel like sometimes when people see me recommending your show or if I mention you and people are like: "Oh my God, aren't you guys competitors? I feel guilty that I listened to both of your shows!" and I'm like "No!". So we're squashing that thought! Everyone can listen to both of our shows, everyone can promote and support both of our shows, that's a beautiful thing. We are not rivals, we've happily been in touch with each other for three years, so it's all good!
Jane: Exactly, that's so true and it's absolutely fine. And it's absolutely fine to love Bloom & Grow and not like On The Ledge. There's different strands going on, different things, and both of our shows have evolved over time. The music thing is really interesting. Actually I just find stuff that I really love, that I'm allowed to use on the show, because it's all Creative Commons commercially-licensed stuff that I use, so I just try and find stuff that I like. Every track that I use is just something that I've totally fallen in love with, I have to say, but yes it is fun and I make a lot of work for myself, Maria! Why!?
Maria: I don't understand how you produce the sheer amount of content, the fact that you do weekly episodes and then two extra for your Patreons! Your writing and your Instagram - you do so much! And to have all of those extra elements, whereas my show is much more intro, conversation, outro. There are some exceptions, not to say that's worse or better, but I when I listen to your show, I certainly marvel at all of the different elements going on.
Jane: That's just me trying to make life hard for myself. Also, as a journalist, there's always a temptation to think you are the BBC. That's the thing. I listen to lots of podcasts which are made by teams of people and I have to remember, when you're listening to those, and you're like: "I want to be like this American Life!" they're made by massive teams of people in amazing studios. So I say to people who are starting out in podcasting, remember it's just you and that you've got to tailor your expectations accordingly. Things have got easier for me since I've got somebody who works a few hours a week for me and she is brilliant at sorting out various things for me and that's made a life easier and that's funded by my Patreon supporters, so it's good. I always want to do more and that's my heaven and hell. I always want to try something else different and add some other element to the show. Why, why am I doing this to myself!? A lot of that stuff is what I love about it and I'm sure you're the same - you have an idea and you don't have to run it past anyone else, you just do it.
Maria: It's the best.
Jane: I'm sure when you're working on your main job, you're constantly tailoring what you're doing to the directors, what they're telling you. You're not giving necessarily the performance that you want to give, you are doing what they want you to do.
Maria: Yes, that's the fun part of entrepreneurship, I think, that you learn as you develop the podcast too. I remember, early on, when I was still editing, I taught myself how to edit on YouTube, so it would take me ten hours to edit one podcast sometimes. When I was first starting off, I would get to my release date and I'd still be editing and I would be crying at 11 o'clock at night thinking: "Oh my God, I have to release this tomorrow or else the world is going to fall in!" and then I could just stop and say: "Actually, it's my show, so if I wanted to take an extra day, I'm allowed to do that!" and that's a liberating thing.
Jane: We are going to get into this for Patreon subscribers. We're going to put out a special Patreon episode, where we're going to go into this stuff in a bit more depth. Perhaps for somebody who wants to delve into the mechanics of this stuff and a bit more detail about how we put our shows together, that will be coming out in a while on both of our Patreon feeds, so that'll be really interesting. I do know there are listeners to my show who have gone on to make their own podcasts, or work somehow in the production of other podcasts, so that will be a really interesting conversation. It's not as easy as we make it look!
Maria: No, it's not, but our listeners keep us going. I always say that, every day. I do feel like it's magical! Every week that I'm having a tough week and getting the podcast together, scheduling guests or getting a sponsor, or whatever comes up, and then I get an email from a listener saying something so sweet and poetic, saying that the show has helped. Then I'm like: "Okay, I'm doing it!". The listener base is what keeps us trucking through. Thank you listeners!
Jane: True. Where are you going next? Anything in particular you're aiming for? Pandemic projects that you've got going?
Maria: My quarantine baby, that I'm calling it, is I have had the idea for a plant parent personality test for over a year. It's been on my to do list every month and I was never able to get it done until the pandemic, then all of a sudden I had this time.
Jame: I love a personality test! Is this like the ones you get in magazines, where you have multiple choice? Sounds awesome.
Maria: Yes, it takes two minutes to complete. It's an online quiz. I'm sure this happens to you too, so many people ask: "What's the best starter plant? What's the easiest plant?" I don't think the answer is the same for everyone. I think if you want to care and water your plant and nurture your plant on a daily basis, versus if you travel and you're home every two weeks because of your job, the plants that I would recommend would be very different. I've had this little idea in my brain. Also - three years - I've got to know my community and my listeners pretty well. I've seen these archetypes of personalities that show up, learning how people approach their plant care from an emotional and a practical standpoint. I built out these personality archetypes and created this quiz, so you take the quiz and then you get your results and with your results you get recommended plants, recommended plant projects and recommended episodes of my show to listen to that are tailored for you. If maybe one of your listeners who hasn't listened to me yet, that could be a great place for them to start. You could take the quiz and then figure out where in my 90 episodes might be a good start to start listening.
Jane: That sounds amazing! Where could we find that?
Maria: It's super fun. I'll show you the link so we can have it in the show notes, but it's BloomandGrowradio.com/personality and it's just super fun and silly and everybody gets a painting of a plant that is associated with their personality and it's really fun. So that was one of my quarantine babies. When I was on the road with 'Cats', I was able to do these live tapings across the countries in the cities that I was in and it was so fun to connect with the listeners and I was planning on doing live events in New York City this year, which I don't think are going to happen anymore, so we are pivoting, we are figuring that out. I'm just going to keep making more podcast episodes and I have a YouTube channel where I do a lot of videos in my apartment with different experiments and stuff that I'm doing. I also do video accompaniments to the different episode topics that I do, so I'll just keep making content and creating more Patreon levels and figuring out when the world gets to wake up again and socialise in real life.
Jane: Won't that be exciting? It's going to make going to a plant shop just seem even more exciting than normal, isn't it?
Maria: Yes, I've been very thankful for this pause. I feel like I've got a lot done and I keep joking that it's the best premarital counselling I could have ever asked for, for me and Billy, especially after the year that I've had with travelling, it's been nice to just be in one place for a minute, but I'm going to be so excited to hug my plant friends in real life when this comes out, when we can see each other again and, hopefully, create some live experiences for people.
Jane: I'm tearing up here. That's a really great place to end. Thank you so much for joining me, it's been a really fun way of exchanging interviews and I think this interview is coming out before yours. My interview with you is coming out on Bloom & Grow ...
Maria: On Tuesday. This is the Friday this is coming out and then the following Tuesday, so head over to Bloom & Grow and subscribe so you don't miss Jane's interview because it was really good. We did it right before this and she gives a lot of really good, fun personal anecdotes.
Jane: I let loose, I cut loose on all kinds of issues. It's been really nice to speak to you and see you and see your lovely plant shelf in the background. We will chat again but thank you very much for joining me today.
Maria: Thank you, Jane. I'm such a fan and it only took a pandemic for us to connect!
[music]
Jane: Thanks to Maria and you can find Bloom & Grow Radio on your pod app of choice and at bloomandgrowradio.com and if you want links to Maria's YouTube, Instagram and that personality test, check out of the show notes for this episode. Now, let's get on with Question of the Week.
Jane: It comes from Janice who got in touch about her oh-so-trendy plant, Cissus discolor. Its common name is Begonia vine, although, you know the drill by now, it's not a Begonia, it's a Cissus. But I can see why it's got that common name because the leaves are Begonia-like in their gorgeous colouration. Janice's Cissus discolor has got rather tall and she's wondering what she can do about the fact that the bottom of the stem is a bit bare and the top is looking great. It's such a common problem with vining plants. She's noticed that the previous owner had twirled the long growth around the bottom of the stakes that the plant is growing on and she's wondering if she should keep doing this.
This is really, really common with plant sellers. They will wind the long growth around the stakes just to make sure that it looks as full and bushy as possible, which is not a bad tactic. In nature, obviously, these vining plants will be growing up some kind of support and they will try to do that naturally. The other thing that I always say with vining plants, is the more you cut it the more it will become bushy. So while you don't want to chop the plant out of existence if you can take a few judicious stem cuttings on the leggiest longest stems then your plant will respond by putting out side shoots and possibly some more shoots from the base which will mean that you end up with a fuller plant. It's always tempting to want the plant to get taller and taller or longer and longer as it trails but, in fact, the more you prune the more growth you get and this is the great time to prune. Cissus discolor is a good one to give a judicious prune to now.
If you've got a Cissus discolor and you're struggling generally with the health of this plant, you're not alone. This is a plant that many people do struggle to grow successfully. What does it need? Well, it needs moist air, that old sore. It needs to be in a really moist air environment. It will not be happy if your humidity is around 40%. It definitely needs something higher than that, so do what you've got to do to get the extra humidity. All the usual tricks like a pebble tray and grouping plants together will help. If you can make an old-fashioned moss stick by which I mean one where you've got some rolled up plastic netting filled with moss and a little pot at the top where you pour water in and that wets the moss and then goes through drips down wets the moss. That is a great way to grow this plant because you really are providing extra moisture to the plant that way. I'll try to find a link for instructions on how to make one of these. You'll see them pictured in Dr Hessayon's House Plant Expert, my favourite book of all time. There's pictures of one of those there and how to set them up. A moss pole will really, really help but one of those coir poles where it's just a bit of coir wrapped around a plastic tube won't really be so effective. A true moss pole is much better. I hope that helps, Janice, and if you've got a question for On The Ledge drop me a line ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com
[music]
Jane: That's all for this week's show. Thank you to my guest, Maria, and do tune into Bloom & Grow next Tuesday to hear me waffling on about On The Ledge and don't forget the words of Matt Lucas' song 'Thank You, Baked Potato'! Wash your hands and stay indoors! See you next week. Bye!
[music]
Jane: The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, An Instrument the Boy Called Happy Day Gokarna, by Samuel Corwin, and Whistle by Benjamin Banger. The ad music was Dill Pickles by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. See the show notes for details.
Subscribe to On The Ledge via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Player FM, Stitcher, Overcast, RadioPublic and YouTube.
I chat to fellow houseplant podcaster Maria Failla about life under lockdown in New York and how her podcast Bloom & Grow Radio began, plus I answer a question about the begonia vine, Cissus discolor.
About Maria Failla
When Bloom & Grow Radio put out its very first episode in November 2017, Maria had already begun her transformation from plant killer to crazy plant lady. Nearly 100 episodes later and her podcast allows listeners to follow along as she delves deeper into the world of houseplants to learn more about their needs.
I’ve been listening to Maria since she started podcasting, and it’s wonderful to be able to listen to a houseplant show I don’t have to make!
Want to find out more about Maria and her podcast? Visit bit.ly/BloomandGrowRadioPod. She’s also on YouTube and Instagram. Listen to episode 90 of Bloom & Grow Radio to hear me talking about On The Ledge, and Patreon subscribers of both shows will be able to hear a special extra episode in which we talk about the ‘behind the scenes’ aspects of producing our houseplant podcasts.
You can find the Bloom & Grow Radio plant personality test at bloomandgrowradio.com/personality.
Cissus discolor illustrated in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. Photograph: Biodiversity Heritage Library on Flickr.
Question of the week
Janice’s Cissus discolor (begonia vine) is looking leggy - a common problem with trailing/climbing plants: in other words, all the growth is at the top of the stakes, and the base of the stems is looking bare.
One solution is to wind the stems around some kind of support, but it also helps to prune your plant in spring to encourage bushier growth. Cut just the lankiest stem or stems just above a leaf node and remember, you can always have a go at rooting the cuttings too!
The begonia vine (not a begonia!) is hard to grow well, as it requires high humidity, so try the usual tips and tricks to increase humidity, such as sitting the plant on a gravel tray, grouping it with other plants and placing in a humid room such as a bathroom.
You could also try growing it on an old-school moss pole with a ‘dew pot’ at the top which you can fill with water to keep the moss below moist. There are pictures of what these look like in my fave book, Dr Hessayon’s Houseplant Expert, but I haven’t found any good instructions for making one online - if you know of one let me know!
Want to ask me a question? TEmail 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!
This week’s sponsor - Briiv
Briiv: pre-order yours now on Kickstarter.
Briiv is an air purifier with a difference. Briiv are on a mission to prove it’s possible to create an energy-efficient product that uses only biodegradable materials to filter the air and won’t look out of place in your stylish home.
Inspired by the rolling hills and green fields of Britain, Briiv clears the air in a standard 4m by 4m room in just 30 minutes, using a system of four filters, all biodegradable and natural - made of moss, coconut fibre, charcoal and sheep’s wool.
Unlike other air purifiers, once Briiv’s filters have reached the end of their life, you can discard them or ideally compost them safe in the knowledge they will break down safely within three to four months. Briiv is designed to be simple and hassle free to set up, with smart home integration.
Find out more and pre-order your Briiv on Kickstarter now.
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, An Instrument the Boy Called Happy Day, Gokarna by Samuel Corwin and Whistle by BenJamin Banger (@benjaminbanger on Insta; website benjaminbanger.com). Ad music is Dill Pickles by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra.
Logo design by Jacqueline Colley.