Episode 155: your listener questions

Transcript

Episode 155

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Jane: Hello and welcome to the podcast that makes your houseplants happy and, possibly, you happy as well! I'm your host Jane Perrone, distilling four decades of houseplant growing into a few minutes of audio. Isn't that clever? In this week's show, I am going to be answering your questions. I don't know, maybe not your questions, but questions that have been sent in by listeners and we'll be covering some really interesting ground.

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Jane: Thank you to all of you who have been in touch about last week's episode on the price of rare plants. I had some really interesting responses and great to see that most of you were fully on board with what I had to say. Emma, from Australia, got in touch to say: "It's so nice to hear more about plants in a sensible way; less hype about houseplants." As anyone who listens to the show knows, I do get quite excited about houseplants, but I also do like to bring things down to earth as much as possible. Yes, On The Ledge keeping it real since February 2017!

Anyway, Emma goes on to say: "I really related to what you said about people spending ridiculous amounts of money on plants they only knew they needed a day ago, when they saw someone else had it. It's easy to have those feelings - a form of plant envy - but once you've really questioned yourself about why you have these feelings, it's easier to step back and say 'Hang on a minute! I don't have the greenhouse conditions needed to grow that giant Anthurium so that's a waste of my money and will only lead to plant disappointment!" Yes, Emma, plant disappointment is what we're trying to avoid around here, so yes, be passionate about plants, yes, get really excited about plants, but do not allow yourself to drift into practices that are not good for you as a person. I heard from one listener who has a friend who was waking up every hour one night recently, to check a plant website because they've been doing these ghost drops because plants are rare and therefore they're trying to put them out at times when it's not going to cause their website to crash. I screwed my eyes up tight and felt sorry for that person that's ruining their good night's sleep for the sake of plants. To me, that's a bit of a worry, but we all have our own personal boundaries, so you just need to keep examining yours and make sure that you are staying physically and mentally aware of houseplants and how they're affecting your life.

I also heard from a listener on Instagram who said: "Great to see someone high-profile calling BS and offering a different approach to being a plant lover. It doesn't need to be an extension of conspicuous consumption." We will be talking more about these issues as the podcast goes forward. I'm sure it's not going to be the last time this comes up and it's an ongoing thread through the podcast. That's why I've done episodes on plant swaps and talked about plant swaps. That's why I run the houseplant sow along every year because there are other routes through this houseplant hobby than dropping loads of money on it. Thanks to Matthew, from New York, who is a Patreon, and he got in touch to tell me about something good that happened to him. A friend had hacked off a piece of their struggling Monstera and Matthew didn't have much hope but decided to try to salvage it by potting it into a nursery pot of potting mix and then forgot to add root hormone and let it go hoping for the best. "Well, ah!" says Matthew, "I'm so thrilled and it even just got a new leaf. I couldn't have done it without you." That's lovely to hear, Matthew, and it looks like it's doing really well, so props to you, I'm really impressed! The fact it's got a nice big fat root coming out of the bottom is extra good.

Thanks to PiratesAndSwallows, in New Zealand, for writing a review for On The Ledge. This was the "first ever podcast" they listened to! That is cool. Wow, can you imagine your first podcast experience is On The Ledge? I think my podcast experience was, in a massive cliche, probably 'Serial', or possibly 'The Archers'. American listeners may not have any idea what that is, I think it's been going for about 50 years - BBC Radio 4 soap that is also available as a podcast. I think that might have been my first listen, anyway - very different from the shores of On The Ledge! It's great to hear that I've managed to convert PiratesAndSwallows into listening to podcasts and they are hooked. Brilliant!

Thanks, also, to the 230 people who send me money every month, or now, increasingly, every year, as many of you have swapped over to an annual membership. Carrie and XiuXing have become Crazy Plant People this week, Coleen has become a Ledge-end and Mary has bought me a coffee. Decaf Americano with milk? No, she's gone to ko-fi.com and made a donation on a one-off basis and those kind of donations are fantastic too. They help to keep On The Ledge going.

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Jane: Well, let's crack on and answer the first question which comes from Carrie. Carrie bought what she calls a Scandens Micans plant from babyplants.com, a company in the Netherlands which I know is very popular for selling these very small, young plants. If you go on the website, you can see you can buy Alocasia Zebrina in a 4cm diameter pot for about £4.50 and no wonder they are proving very popular for growers in Europe and the UK. She writes: "It arrived absolutely sodden and looking a bit limp, so I took it out of the pot to remove as much potting media as possible and repot it. On doing this I discovered it's not actually one plant but six stems tied together with an elastic band. There are some roots but it's a bit difficult to tell where they're coming from without separating the whole thing, which I'm not keen on doing. Is this normal practice to sell a plant like this?" First of all, a word about the name of this plant. They are selling this plant as Philodendron scandens micans. I think Aroid taxonomy is a bit of a minefield, but I think this is what I would call Philodendron hederaceum micans. It's a trailing Philodendron with these beautiful bronze velvety leaves, which is rather adorable and lovely.

It was sold as a medium-sized plant with a diameter of 12cm and height of 5cm, so not a tiny, tiny baby plant. This is supposed to be a slightly bigger one. I contacted Baby Plants direct to ask about this issue and this was their reply: "We don't grow this plant ourself, so we've asked the grower. The plant is grown from cuttings. They put them together with a support band to grow and make new roots. This plant is grown and sold in a p12 nursery pot. That's quite a big pot for the plant, so that is why they use more cuttings to fill the pot." So that is the deal. We've got this plant, sold as a medium plant, but in fact it is a bunch of cuttings. The first thing to say about this is the practice among nurseries of packing a pot with young plants, or indeed cuttings, to make it look more full is very, very, very widespread. I saw someone the other day with a Parlour Palm, Chamaedorea elegans, on Twitter. I think this might have been in Houseplant Hour actually. They were wondering what to do because some of the leaves were looking crispy and looking at the pot, you could just see there were so many young seedlings shoved in this pot together that they were just outcompeting one another.

So the question is, 'Is it fair to describe this plant as a medium plant when it's made up of cuttings?' Well, it's a really widespread practice that is very, very common. I can see how lots of people, new to the hobby, would be very confused about this and wouldn't really understand. The same happens with Swiss Cheese Plants, lots of baby seedlings in a pot and as a result, it looks like you've got a more mature plant than you have. Of course, with these kind of plants you can tell by looking at the foliage just how mature the plant is. The elastic band is an interesting one. This is certainly not unheard of. I've come across many people who have taken their plants out of pots and discovered that there's an elastic band in there. Is it how I want to receive a medium Philodendron plant? Probably not, I have to say. I don't really want there to be an elastic band hidden round the plant because, although I'm probably going to spot it, because I usually do look at the root ball, lots of people are not going to spot that. As the roots grow, and the stems grow it's probably going to start restricting the plant's growth and ideally those cuttings shouldn't be all shoved in exactly the same spot in the pot, so yes, that is something that concerns me. As I say, it's a fairly widespread practice.

What I would say, Carrie, if you're unhappy with this and you're unhappy with the description, and if anyone else out there is in the same boat, do go back to the supplier and say: "This is not acceptable. I'm not happy with this" because the only way that things are going to change is if suppliers realise that customers are not happy with this way of doing things. I think it's about trying to get our message across to suppliers that they need to look again at the way they are packaging and potting their plants so that they will survive in the long term. It's not very sustainable to have a plant that is hobbled from the beginning and likely to die because it's been either shoved in a pot with loads of its fellow cuttings or young plants, or because it's got a band around it that could be restricting growth and causing problems.

In the interest of balance, I should say that I've also heard lots of good reports about babyplants.com and I do like the way that they offer a chance for you to start off with a really small specimen of a plant which you can then bring on, as opposed to buying a really big specimen which then might struggle a bit more to adapt to your situation. I'd love to know what you guys think about this. I know that some of you work in the nursery trade and perhaps you've got some thoughts on this matter too? And what to do with this particular plant, Carrie, assuming you're not going to send it back? What I would do is what you've done already. Take it out of the pot, have a good look, clip away that elastic band and remove it as soon as possible and then repot in a nice, airy houseplant mix that would be good for Aroids, just making sure that you give each of the cuttings some space because if the cuttings are all tightly packed together, they're unlikely to grow well. So, spread them out across the pot and hopefully your plant will begin to thrive. There's nothing to say that plant won't thrive brilliantly, but that kind of intervention might make the difference between it thriving and struggling.

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Jane: Now a question that I don't know the answer to. I guess that's not really the point of this Q&A is it!? I wanted to put this out there for some botanists to come back to me and answer. This question comes from Plantatrine on Instagram. Plantatrine writes: "I see a lot of people advocate for watering plants from the bottom. I pour in water on a saucer and let the plant and soil soak up what it needs from below. This is apparently good because the plant soaks up only what it needs and some say quite a few plants don't like getting water on their leaves, which is just so strange to me because water does come from above in nature. No one runs around and only waters it from below, so any views?" This is a good question, Plantatrine. I was being slightly facetious when I said that I couldn't answer it. I do have a few theories for you. There isn't one overarching answer but I think there are a number of answers.

One answer is, yes, rain does come from above, but a lot of houseplants that we grow come from climates where they might not actually be exposed to that much rain. What do I mean by that? Well, of course, the cacti and the succulents that we grow might experience quite long periods of drought. What they will get is dew forming on their above ground parts in the early mornings after a cold night. The theory is that a lot of cacti and succulents actually harvest this dew, the cacti in particular. The dew will condense on the spines and will run down towards the areoles to be used by the plant. There's still a lot of research going on in this area and some cacti seem much more effective doing this than others, but it's really interesting to see how they've evolved to harness whatever moisture they've got in the environment. Then you might come to a plant like the African Violet. This is a hybrid that's been bred over and over, but the original plants that grow in a very small area of Tanzania, in the mountains of the Udzungwa National Park, they're actually very rare in the wild now. They tend to grow on damp rock faces near a water source. Often they're over-hanging, so they're not going to get any water on their leaves and the water is going to come from a water source below surface, water trickling through the crack in the rock.

It's also worth bearing in mind that application of a watering can to the surface of a houseplant pot is quite different to rain falling from the sky in terms of the way it's going to land on the leaves and soak into the soil and also bearing in mind that, generally, plants in the wild are rooted into the ground and they might have a naturally limited space because they're an epiphyte and they're tucked into a tree branch, or there are lithophytes and they're tucked into a piece of rock, but inevitably, they're just going to grow in a different way than when grown in a container in our homes. I'm thinking here of Peperomias. If you listen back to the Peperomia episodes with Sally Williams, she explains how she waters her plants very, very rarely because they take in so much moisture from the air.

Plantatrine also raises the issue of plants not liking water on their leaves and, yes, this is true to some extent. I have heard people say African Violets and other Gesneriads hate water on their leaves. I think there is a difference between a plant being on a windowsill and having a big splash of water on its leaf and plants being watered by the rain naturally. I've found that my Gesneriads, African Violets and others that I've put outside for a bit have been absolutely fine. The water has dried off the leaves okay and there's probably a factor of we expect our houseplants to look absolutely perfect and we freak out if one leaf is a bit damaged, but obviously, in nature, plants are damaged all the time and they're able to cope with that, so nobody is really worried if a plant in the wild has a few spots on its leaves. Sort of some answers to the question, but I'd love to hear from any botanists who think they have got more to say on the subject. I think it's something that's really worth looking at. It really is worth interrogating your watering techniques and thinking about why you're doing things the way you're doing them because there's always room for experimentation. I'm sorry that's not a full and complete answer, Plantatrine, but hopefully that's whetted your appetite for more information on this theme. No, I am not sorry for the terrible pun.

Next up, it's a question is from HeyVincey who is a new fan of the show and a very new plant keeper. HeyVincey got in touch on Instagram to ask about a problem with a Monstera deliciosa that they've had for about four months. It's in a very bright, south east-facing window and the new growth is looking gorgeous and it really is, HeyVincey! So, what's the problem? The old leaves that came with the plant are rather unsightly, "They aren't crispy or soft," writes HeyVincey, "They're just very crinkled and weird, I don't want to keep them and I want to give this plant a moss pole, can I just remove them? Also, what causes these leaves?" Looking at the picture, yes, the new foliage looks amazing, HeyVincey, that's awesome, but what's happening with the distortion? Well, distorted leaves are often caused by sap sucking insects, things like aphids, whitefly and thrips, and it may well be that this plant had an infestation of those at some point during its production in the nursery and the damage was done before you even got the plant and it can result in this distorted growth. I would check the leaves that are distorted very closely though, just to check that there's nothing still going on there because sometimes these pests can lurk and you just can't spot them. As I always say, a hand lens or a magnifying lens will help you to see things close up.

The other thing that can cause distorted leaves are environmental conditions when the plant was in the nursery. It would suggest to me that if the newer leaves are okay, that the problem is not happening currently. Can you remove the leaves? Yes, of course you can, and Monstera deliciosa is incredibly tough and won't respond too badly. I would say that it's maybe worth thinking about staging the removal of those leaves doing one and then leaving it for a while, checking the plant is okay and then doing another. I would remove them really close to the base, as close to the base as you can possibly get without actually damaging the base, so you don't get ugly stem die back, that way you should be able to put a moss pole in with your Monstera and it should be absolutely fine. It's got about four, I can't see exactly, maybe four or five really nice big leaves coming, so the plant will cope. The only thing to bear in mind, is that it may slow down the growth for a bit. You get this reaction of it being slightly shocked by the leaf removal. On the other hand, sometimes pruning can promote new growth. I think your Monstera deliciosa will be absolutely fine, but yes, distorted growth is a big flag for a pest infestation, so do make sure you check your plant really, really carefully.

Other symptoms you might see are stickiness on the leaves which is caused by the honeydew, which is basically aphid poo secreted by the little beasts and if it's thrips you might see some stippling to the leaves as well, particularly on the under sides. Always check those under sides. I hope that helps, HeyVincey, and do let me know how your plant gets on.

Now, a question about a Hoya. It's Hoya curtisii that Delilah wants to ask about. Delilah is finding that the leaves are yellowing and dropping on her plant. She's had it for about three months and repotted into terracotta with well-draining soil. She waters it twice a week, when the top soil is dry. I love this Hoya but it's a bit of a... yes, I haven't had an easy time with my one either. It's a really gorgeous, small-leaved Hoya with these little teardrop-shaped leaves which are stippled with silver and once it gets to a reasonable size, it will start to trail. The problem with this plant is it's very slow from cuttings and I do have cuttings, so mine has really just started growing. I'm not sure how easy this plant is to get in other countries, but here in the UK I have seen some big plants of this going on sale at various specialist plant shops, so it is becoming more available. It's from Malaysia and that gives you a clue about something: this is a plant that does like a good amount of humidity if it's going to put on some serious growth.

My little cutting, it started to grow finally but it's been so slow. I'm hoping that it's putting on tons of root growth and that's why it has been so slow because I have found with some other Hoyas that they tend to do nothing on top and then suddenly go wild. This is plant where you want to give it good humidity and put it in a place where it's getting good humidity or if you're starting off with young cuttings, maybe stick it under a glass cloche. Like all Hoyas it does need sharp drainage and I think this is probably why, Delilah, your plant is dropping leaves. I think it's probably too wet around the roots. If you haven't repotted your plants since you bought it, I would definitely recommend having a look at the potting mix and considering repotting in something that is a bit more free-draining. You could use something like a cactus potting mix and then add some perlite, the mix this one is in at the moment is regular houseplant compost with a really generous handful of perlite and also some finely milled orchid bark. Let me put it back over here before I forget. 'Ding!' as the glass cloche goes down. I've got a squeaky chair, sorry about that.

You're watering twice a week which might be a bit too much for the plant. The top soil may be dry but have you checked the roots lower down by sticking your finger in or using a water meter? It's really worth checking that the plant really does need watering. I think those leaves are coming off because of water logging. Check the soil, ease back on the watering and hopefully your plant will recover. It might be worth taking some cuttings if you can of healthy stems, just as an insurance policy because you never know quite what's going to go wrong. The other tip for Hoya curtisii, is it likes a shallow and wide pot, as opposed to a narrow deep one. Looking at my pot, I've got it in exactly the wrong kind of pot. I need to change that. Shallow, wide pots are recommended for Hoya curtisii, so do address all of those and hopefully your plant will be able to recover and get on with its Hoya life before long, Delilah.

Okay, let's keep going, we've got a question from Olly who wants some tips on growing Black Pepper, the Latin name of which is Piper nigrum. Olly has bought some seeds and wanted to give it a go, but Olly can't find any tips on growing them as houseplants and asks is there a good reason for this? "I'm soaking the seeds but I have no real idea what I'm doing, please help me!" Well, I have to admit that this is not something I've ever come across as a houseplant, Olly. I think this is something I might have seen growing, say, at the Tropical Biome at the Eden Project, the huge dome shaped green houses in Cornwall here in the UK, which does house a lot of exotic plants that are growing for food. The cousin of this plant, the Ornamental Pepper, Piper crocatum, yes, that is grown indoors. It's not that popular, I think. Actually, it's gaining in popularity. It was one of those things that was in Dr Hessayon's The House Plant Expert, but not one that you ever really saw sold in garden centres, but I think it's starting to become more popular. I did find, on The Laidback Gardener's blog, information about growing this plant as a houseplant and Larry says it's not the easiest plant to grow and it's slow to produce its first berries, calculate at least four years, but it is doable. I think Logees do sell these plants in the US.

Basically, you're going to need to mimic the tropical climate in your house. So you're going to need to not let it go below about 60F/15C and make sure it's getting high humidity and loads of sun. Not that easy and you will need a trellis for it to grow up. A fun thing to start and see how it gets on and then perhaps you can pass it on to somebody who has got a big greenhouse. I think the main struggle is going to be getting enough light to those young seedlings. I think some kind of LED growlight would really help, especially in the winter, and it will need to be kept out of cold draughts. It's a tropical plant so it's going to need 20C and not a great temperature drop at night. It also won't like dry air coming from radiators or air vents in the winter when your heating is on. So, probably not the easiest thing to raise, but a fun thing to try. That's the joy of growing stuff from seed because you really can experiment and it's not going to break the bank.

I do think the ornamental members of this genus are becoming more popular again as houseplants, something you might grow under a cloche or in a terrarium. Probably the most popular species is Piper crocatum, grown for these beautifully silver-inscribed leaves and climbing habit. There's a few different ones you can grow, but at the moment it's still quite expensive to buy and not widely available, so one to look out for in those mixed trays in the garden centre, when you occasionally find the odd gem.

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Jane: That is all for this episode, I hope there were a few nuggets of information there that were of use. If you're not following me on Instagram, do check out @j.l.perrone where I do put out the odd video called #PerronesPlants about my plant collection. I'm gonna, gonna, gonna, get round to doing a video about my new plant shelves with lighting, so do go and check that out at @j.l.perrone I can't be @janeperrone because somebody else is @janeperrone, damn them! I'm not bitter at all!

In other news, please cross everything for me next week because I've got my final RHS exams, big sigh. I'll get through this. We'll get through this together. To anyone else taking RHS exams, good luck and god speed and in the meantime, have a fandabidozi week! Meet me back here in seven days' time for more plant conversations, chat, advice and fun. It's On The Ledge, I'm Jane Perrone.

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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 Sundown by Josh Woodward. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. See janeperrone.com for details.

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It’s time to answer some listener questions! Distorted Monstera leaves, watering techniques and black pepper plants all come under scrutiny in this Q&A special.

Check the notes below as you listen…

Delialah’s Hoya curtisii.

Piper crocatum. Photograph: Drew Avery on Flickr.

  • On the question about distorted Monstera leaves - check out this video on aphids from the RHS.

  • Intrigued by the rarity of African violets in the wild, as discussed in the question about watering? This is a great piece on the subject. If you haven’t listened to my Peperomia episodes with Sally Williams, you can find them here.

  • On Delialah’s question about Hoya curtisii - check out On The Ledge guest Doug Chamberlain’s page for more on this plant. (I discovered today that one of this plant’s common names is the ‘fung wax plant’.) My interview with Doug is here and he also appears in this episode answering another Hoya question.

  • On Ollie’s question about Piper nigrum - the post I mention from the Laidback Gardener is here. The ornamental pepper I mention, Piper crocatum (pictured right) seems to be out of stock everywhere right now, including Araflora. You can buy Piper nigrum seeds in a few places including Trade Winds Seed.

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Jane PerronePiper, Hoya, MonsteraComment