Episode 154: the price of rare plants
How much would you pay for a rare aroid? As prices soar, it’s putting these rarities out of the price range of many growers.
Transcript
Episode 154
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Jane: This week's On The Ledge is supported by Hoppy, the home management website where you can save money on your household bills and find tradespeople for all those jobs around the home. Why not see how much time and money you can save today at Hoppy.co.uk?
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Jane: I'm Jane Perrone and this is On The Ledge and this episode is served rare and a little bit salty. In this week's show I will be giving you my very personal opinions about houseplant prices, rare houseplants and what it all means for us houseplant growers. I'll also be bringing you a new listener in Meet the Listener and I'm answering a question about marks on a Moon Cactus.
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Jane: Thank you to all the fine people who have been leaving reviews for On The Ledge; JamieJ527, ClayXO43 from the US, Parkan8 from the UK and bathtubwitch from Ireland and I particularly liked aggressivescritches from the US, who likes to brush their cats while listening. Shoutouts to new Patreons, Shaun, who became a Crazy Plant Person, Louise, Alison, Steve, Erica, Mosie, and Mel, who all became Ledge-Ends, and Stephanie who became an On The Ledge Superfan. Thanks to all of you and for all of you who are already subscribers via Patreon who have decided to switch your membership to annual. I'm glad that you have been able to do that. I've sent through instructions to everyone who is currently paying monthly on how to switch. If you run into any problems, do give me a shout because I know these things can often involve a lot of confusion and ticking different boxes, so do get in touch if you're having problems switching from monthly to annual, or any other issues with your Patreon membership, I'll be happy to help. If you don't know what on earth I'm talking about, then you can find out more about Patreon in the show notes for every episode. Scroll down the page and you'll find all the info that you need.
A reminder that we have a Q&A special coming up very shortly, so do drop your questions to me - <ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com data-preserve-html-node="true"> - and I will endeavour to fit as many of your questions into that episode as poss. People do fire lots of plant questions at me on social media and I do try and answer as many of them as I possibly can, but I don't always get to everybody. If you really want your question to be answered, then do drop a line to <ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com data-preserve-html-node="true"> and I will do my damnedest to get to you in the upcoming Q&A special.
Do remember, also, that people who are members of the Houseplant Fans of On The Ledge Facebook group can also share any plant problems in that group and there is a whole array of people with expertise who can help you out. If you want a quick answer and you don't want to wait for me to get back to you, then do join Houseplant Fans of On The Ledge. There are just three questions to answer. You have to identify your favourite episode - tricky, I know! Do you want to know what my favourite episode of On The Ledge is? I haven't actually prepared an answer to this question. I think I would probably say that the 100th episode was very important to me and I loved going to James Wong's flat, so those two James Wong episodes would be up there. I also love the Lithops episode which, funnily enough, I'm entering in the Radio Broadcast and Podcast Category at the Garden Media Guild Awards. I won that category for my previous podcast, Sow, Grow, Repeat, back in 2016 but have not yet won it for On The Ledge, so maybe it's my year!? We shall see. That's the episode I'm entering for that competition, I know it's a tricky question but I'm not going to interrogate you about it but you do need to answer that question.
The other two questions for membership of Houseplant Fans of On The Ledge are your favourite houseplants - again, I know it's a very tricky question. What would I say? I think I would probably say, right now, I would say Hoya villosa, with its lovely undulating leaf edges and vein markings. Then the final question is asking you to obey the rules which are very, very straightforward and require you not to be an idiot really. So, do go and join that group if you're not already in there. It's a really supportive group, you can ask questions, ask for advice, share your plant beauties and it is a lovely place to be. There is no drama, it's a wonderful group thanks to you all being absolute stars and also to the hard work of my moderators Nathaniel, Amy and Kelly.
I've also been absolutely loving the story that's come out on social media about a British law firm where a security guard got every single plant from every single office across 12 floors of the company and moved them all into the cafeteria for safe-keeping. I've tried to get in touch with the author of the post, no luck yet, but if you happen to know that person, I think they're called Wafflesrisa, I'd love to talk to them and to track down this wonderful security guard. I'm sure they were actually really happy all being grouped together rather than spread out around the offices, so it's a good story and I'm pleased that there's people everywhere who want to care for plants. Please do remember, if you have some kind of houseplant-related story that you want to share on On The Ledge, do get in touch, I'm always open to ideas for episodes and people to interview and so on. That's how some of the best episodes of the show come to happen, so please do get in touch. I am currently looking for somebody to interview about Croton, aka Codiaeum, aka Joseph's Coat, because I know a lot of you want an episode on this plant, but I just can't find an expert on these plants to talk to me. So, if you know of anybody who is really good on Crotons, please let me know.
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Jane: Now it's time to talk about rare plants. I don't want this to turn into a rant. I want it to be a reasoned argument, but I hope that this will give you pause for thought about what's happening in the houseplant world right now. I got really alarmed about plant prices when a plant that I've been lusting after suddenly went up in price. As many of you know through the podcast, I've been looking for a piece of Bantel's Sensation, a cultivar of Sansevieria, or more correctly Dracaena, as it's been moved to the Dracaena genus; the Snake Plant. I've been looking for a piece, or a plant, of this particular cultivar for a long time now. For some reason, while they're common in the US, they just aren't that common here in the UK. I haven't found a shop selling them. A couple of people found a shop in Poland selling them, but I still do not have one of these plants. I put an eBay search save out there, so that any time anyone put one of these plants on eBay I would know. A few months ago, the last cutting that I had been watching, the last pup that I'd been watching, I think it went for about £25 and I missed out at the time because I thought "That's a bit expensive!". Anyway, another pup came up from the same seller, I think, very recently, about two or three weeks ago and I was getting excited because the price was still quite low and I was watching the countdown and the price was still about £10 and I thought: "I'm in with a chance here!" How much did it go for? Do you want to guess how much it went for? It went for about £87, for a tiny stick of a Snake Plant!
Thanks to all the listeners, by the way, who have offered to send me a piece of their Bantel's Sensation from the US, very kind of you, but I don't think it's a good idea, given plant health and the spread of diseases to be importing individual plants from the US. Plus, I just don't think it's worth it for the air miles. Of course, there are other houseplants that are going for much, much more. The headline in the New York Post recently was "Some sucker in New Zealand spent $5,000 on a houseplant". There was a variegated Rhaphidophora tetrasperma with variegation that basically split the leaf in half between the regular colour and a sort of golden yellow and that plant went for NZ$8,150 on the site TradeMe. That's about USD$5,000. In other words, a lot of money. There is a track record for plants on this TradeMe site going for a lot. There was a Hoya compacta with the reverse variegation that went for NZ$6,500 perhaps a couple of months before. Of course, we all know about the variegated Monstera adansonii, with those little holey leaves marked with cream that have also gone for some really interestingly high prices recently. This has been building for a while now, this trend towards rare, or unicorn, house plants that cost a lot of money but I think lockdown has exacerbated this desire for plants, as lots of people who want to liven up their home office or have got into the houseplant thing during lockdown, are just desperate for these very, very rare plants.
I think we've really got to take the long view about this, in that plant crazes are really nothing new. My first thought is back to the Fern craze of the mid-1800s. I wasn't there! I'm not quite that old, although my children would probably beg to differ! So, in the mid-1800s, around the world, there was a Fern fever that really took hold of people,, and lots of women in particular were going out and botanising and looking for Ferns in the wild and buying Ferns from nurseries, such as the famous and now defunct Loddiges of London, with their huge glasshouses and these were really desirable things to own back then. The term pteridomania was coined by a certain Charles Kingsley. He wrote: "Your daughters, perhaps, have been seized with the prevailing 'pteridomania', and are collecting and buying ferns, with Ward's cases wherein to keep them (for which you have to pay), and wrangling over unpronounceable names of species (which seem different in each new Fern book that they buy), 'til the pteridomania seems to you somewhat of a bore." So, that might be familiar, that scenario of wrangling over the names and buying the special equipment, the Ward's cases, which is just the original name for a terrarium to put plants in. That is an illustration of the fact that this is not a new thing. Plant crazes have been around forever. Even Coleus, those cheap as chips plants that you can buy very, very easily and certainly not subject to a premium these days, were at one point something very new, exciting and expensive. If you check out Dr Catherine Horwood's book, Potted History, you'll find out that a dozen new Coleus hybrids sold at auction by the RHS in 1868 went for £390. Do you want to know how much £390 is worth today? About £30,000. As I say, it's not new. Equally, even further back in history, Tulip fever in the 1630s, same time. Citrus trees were also a massive status symbol, mainly because you needed an orangery to keep them in.
So, wild prices for plants are nothing new. The difference in 2020 though, is the speed that things are moving. While Fern mania took decades to reach its peak, now plant trends are catching on within a few days or weeks. You see a picture of a plant that you absolutely must have on Instagram, with a few taps on your phone, you can look up where you buy that plant. It's worth saying that rare does not necessarily mean expensive. I have some plants that would probably be considered rare, I've got a couple of Strawberry saxifrage cultivars that I think you can probably only get in a couple of nurseries in the UK at most and certainly you'd struggle to get hold of in most parts of the world, but they cost me £7 each from a nursery called Growild, in the UK. So, how come I can pick up a rare Saxifrage for a few quid when rare Aroids are going for hundreds of pounds? There are a few different factors here. First, how much plant material is available? If you're chosen unicorn plant happens to be a variegated one, one that's just a spore that's come about through chance and been latched on to by a canny plant breeder or grower and then subject, perhaps, to tissue cultivation or traditional propagation methods, it can take a long time to bulk up enough plants to get the price low. Propagation can also be a factor here, it depends on how easy the plant is to propagate. With a lot of these rare Aroidswith chimera variegation, it's pretty unstable. You can chop a plant down to a node and try to get that to root as a new plant and there's no guarantee that the new leaves that you produce will be as variegated or even variegated at all. There's quite a lot of risk for the person owning that plant. Speed is another matter, how fast does the plant grow? If it takes a long time to get plants up to a decent selling size, then again, that's why you end up with plants being sold very tiny sizes, or the old wet stick where it's just a node and a stem and you're expected to trust that the plant's going to grow. The other thing is demand, of course. There just isn't the same demand for a rare Saxifraga stolonifera as there is for a rare cultivar of a Monstera.
This subject has been playing on my mind a bit recently because, as you know from listening to the show, I have three Thai Constellation Monsteras and I've been humming and hawing about what to do with these plants because I can't keep all three of them. I definitely need to sell one of them because two are really quite large now and I just don't have room to keep them long term. The other day, I just thought I'd randomly go on to eBay and just see what prices the size of plant I have was going for. I was quite shocked. I'm just going to check again, to check what the price is now, hold on for a bit of clicking while I check this. Let's have a look, I've got a rooted seedling about the size of the plant I originally bought for £15. Each is currently going for £66 with two days left to go. There's a bigger one which looks much more like my plant, not as big, that's on a Buy It Now. It's got six leaves - I'd say my plant has got about eight to ten leaves - and that's going for £320. Wowsers. I've been in a dilemma about what to do with this plant because on the one hand I can't keep it, but I just do not want to buy into this plant price mania over this plant and it just feels wrong to auction it off. All the money I'm going to raise is going to go to charity, the World Land Trust. I'd be worried that somebody is going to see this plant as a cash cow, cut it up and make more money out of it. Unfortunately, a lot of this plant madness does bring out the worst in some people. Somebody sent me a picture of an eBay sale of something claiming to be variegated Monstera adansonii and it wasn't. It was just some kind of variegated Epipremnum that they'd literally cut holes in the leaves and it was priced for a ridiculous amount of money and some poor person was probably going to buy that thinking they'd got a genuine plant. So caveat emptor, buyer beware as they say.
So, I've decided I'm not having it. I'm not having it! I'm not going to let this plant be part of this silly crazy price trend. So here's what I'm going to do. I've decided I'm going to propagate one of my plants like crazy. It's a bit tricky because it's got very short spaces between the nodes, but I'm going to try air layering it so that I can get probably about four or five cuttings from it. I'm going to give those cuttings away. Yes. I'm going to pick some people in the UK who've been very generous and kind to me and I'm going to say "Do you want a cutting?" because, hey, why not!? Enjoy! Let's not make this a financial transaction, let's make this a transaction of fellowship and houseplanty loveliness. I'm getting all warm and fuzzy here. I would honestly feel so wrong to auction off this plant. So, that's what I'm going to do. It'll be an interesting experiment to see how the air layering works. I suspect it'll work really well because this plant's got really big juicy aerial roots already. I just think that the more we can spread this plant without money changing hands, the more it will come down in price and everyone will be able to get their hands on some of it. I think that, for me, is the important thing. That's what I'm going to do with my Monstera Thai Constellation.
I read a really interesting piece in Greenhouse Magazine recently, about the trend towards rare houseplants and this is a piece that is addressed to people who are breeding and selling these houseplants. There was a quote in there from Dr Bridget Behe, who is a professor of horticultural marketing at Michigan State University. This is the bottom line here, this is what's actually happening, don't be mistaken, she says: "Don't be afraid to put what you would consider to be an extraordinary high price on that and see what happens, but the only way you'll know is to try it." She goes on to say: "Pick a number that you think is obscenely high, not thousands of dollars but you need to test the waters, even the mark ups of three, five or ten, 50x the price, these rules don't really apply when you've got something novel and unique." I guess capitalism is going to capitalize. That's what we can all say about this. You don't have to fall for this story.
Here's a few things I'd like you to consider when you're looking at a plant that you desperately want but has a silly, silly price tag on it. What I'd like you to do, if you are lusting after an expensive houseplant, I want you to ask yourself the following questions: What is my motivation for wanting this plant - this plant in particular, not a cool-looking plant, but this particular plant that costs X amount of dollars, pounds or whatever, that's going to take a big chunk out of your monthly budget? If, when you really think about it, your desire is based on wanting to have something that no one else can have, I would take a long hard look at your motivations and think whether that's a good motivation for buying a plant. If your motivation, likewise, is: "Okay, I'm doing this speculate-to-accumulate type model, where I'm going to buy this plant and I'm going to chop it up and sell it," then, again, I would say is that a particularly great way of approaching and collecting plants?
Second, I want you to look at that plant and forget all the hype surrounding it. So, forget anything I've said about plants that I love, anyone else, any other YouTubers or Instagrammers that you love, forget everything that they've told you about how you need to feel about this plant. Ask yourself, "What does this plant offer that my existing plants, or maybe a plant of the same genus that I can buy for a tenth or a twentieth of the price, what does this plant offer me that those plants don't?" Then I'd ask yourself "Do I have the skills?" It might be grow lights, it might be heat mats, it might be a terrarium set up to really take care of this plant in the long term, bearing in mind that some of these very rare plants have unstable variegation that can be impacted by the conditions it's kept in. So, your wonderful variegated plant may not be variegated forever and may well revert. Once you've answered all those questions, then see how you feel about this plant. Do you still want it?
Finally, just think about the sum that you're looking to spend on it and think about how many other plants ... what an incredible display you could make by buying other plants instead. You could have a whole wall full of incredible Epipremnums, or just do something crazy with Peace Lilies, or maybe you're just going to buy 50 Echeverias and make a really cool display in a huge trough. I don't know. Just think about what you could spend that money on. I'm not even asking you not to spend it on plants. I'm just asking you to think about what else you could do with that money. If all of us did that, it might take some of the heat out of this plant craze. Prices will come down. We saw it with Pilea peperomioides, the Chinese Money Plant. It started off, when I first started this show in 2017, that plant was going for at least $50, and now the plant has come down to a much, much more reasonable price. To some extent it's already happening with Thai Constellation. The price is coming down as more become available and that will happen. I know, obviously, lots of people are either A) never going to listen to this podcast, and/or B) are not going to listen to a word I say, so the plants are going to get sold. If you don't fall for this narrative, then the price is still going to fall at some point and you will be able to get your hands on this tremendously rare plant for a much better price. Your life isn't going to end because you don't have that plant. This is perhaps surprising for somebody who has spent three-and-a-half years telling you how amazing houseplants are, but I don't judge how amazing houseplants are on the basis of the price.
So bide your time, do your research. If you're one of the many people that's getting into Hoyas right now, you'll find that you can spend a lot of money on these rare Hoyas but, actually, if you start getting involved in the Hoya growing community, you'll find there are tons of extremely generous and kind people who are prepared to do swaps and you can build your collection much more slowly and sustainably that way. I guess, my major message is plant swaps are amazing, so let's just get into plant swaps. Save your money for other things that you might want to buy, because there is nothing more satisfying to me than getting a tiny cutting and nurturing it into a full plant. That way you learn loads about your plant. Sometimes it goes wrong, but often it doesn't and you end up with a beautiful plant but you've got to have patience. That's what seems to be lacking in a lot of people at the minute - they just don't have the patience to wait for the plant that they need to get to come down in price, or buy a smaller cutting.
I'd urge you, if you do have a rare plant, please, please think about sharing it with other people. Propagating is a great way to learn about your plant and also it means that there's more specimens, more plant material around, which is important when a lot of these plants are incredibly rare in the wild.
Oh, and one final thing: it is very possible for you to go and find a rare plant in your local garden centre or nursery. I know that there is a lot of joy to be had through hunting for that rarity and the thrill of the chase is part of the fun, but it doesn't have to be an expensive one. How can I do that?
If you check out Tyler Thrasher's Instagram, his stories, Tyler as you remember was on the show a few weeks ago, I'll put a link in the show notes, talking about many different things, including his delight of finding a variegated Monstera.You know what? He goes into the garden centre and looks at 50 Monstera they've got in there, and checks every leaf for a bit of variegation and that's how he ended up with a couple of interestingly variegated Monstera. So it doesn't have to cost you a fortune.
Those are some of my thoughts on the matter of rare plants, I'll post a couple of links to pieces I've written, one for the Financial Times and one for Green Rooms Market on this subject, which go into my views in more depth and I'd love to hear what you think. If you are someone who has spent a lot of money on a rare plant, I'd love to know why and what it means to you. If you totally disagree with every word I've said, also please get in touch. Either way, I hope it's given you all food for thought. Now it's time for Meet the Listener!
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Basma: Hi Jane, my name is Basma Hamdy. I'm an Egyptian expat living in Qatar. I'm a university design professor and I have over 170 plants in my home. Qatar is located on the Eastern Coast of the Arabian Peninsula and has a dry desert climate. We basically have two seasons here; super-hot summers or mild winters. Our growing season starts in October and our outdoor plants actually go dormant in May. It's the opposite to a lot of countries which is really interesting.
Jane: Question one. There's a fire and all your plants are about to burn. Which one do you grab as you escape?
Basma: If there was a fire in my home, I would probably grab my variegated Monstera. It's an Albo borsigiana. It's huge and I found it by complete coincidence at a local store for a little less than £100. It's such a rare plant here and, honestly, we don't get these kind of rare plants in Qatar, so that would be my plant to grab.
Jane: Question two. What is your favourite episode of On The Ledge?
Basma: My favourite episode of On The Ledge is episode 42, where you interview Mohamed Osman from @Behind_The_Seeds. I honestly discovered his account a few weeks ago by coincidence and even though I listen to your show all the time, I hadn't actually listened to that episode! He had a link to it in his profile and I immediately clicked on it and it was like these two worlds collided: the On The Ledge world, that I'm such a fan of, but also that he's a fellow Egyptian and we don't really get that many bloggers or people who are so obsessed with houseplants here in the region.
Jane: Question three. Which Latin name do you say to impress people?
Basma: I would probably say Rhaphidophora tetrasperma to impress people. I think a lot of people tend to call it a mini Monstera, or a Monstera minima. I've even seen labels on the plant with 'Monstera minima' on it. It's always good to tell people "That's not a Monstera!"
Jane: Question four. Crassulacean acid metabolism or guttation?
Basma: I would have to go with guttation. I discovered guttation by accident; a drop fell on my arm and I was so fascinated. I think I might have learned about the process listening to one of your episodes and I was completely blown away that plants could do that. It's also beautiful to water your plants and then the next day, or after a few hours, you see the water droplets forming and it's just this feeling that you're taking care of your plants and your plants are kind of telling you that they're okay.
Jane: Question five. Would you rather spend £200 on a variegated Monstera, or £200 on 20 interesting cacti?
Basma: I would probably spend £200 on a variegated Monstera. I love cacti. I think they're fascinating. I have a big collection of them, but there's something about variegated plants. I think it has something to do with their unpredictability. You never know what the next leaf is going to look like and when the next leaf has a little bit of variegation, or even a lot of variegation, you're pleasantly surprised, it's almost like a gift your plant is giving you every time it produces a new leaf. I would definitely go with the variegated Monstera.
Jane: Thank you to Basma and great to know that I've got at least one listener in Qatar! Now, it's time for Question of the Week, which comes from Claire. She had a question about her cactus. She was worried about some hard cream markings on the stem, wondering if it was a pest. Looking at the photo of her cactus, it is in fact what's commonly known as a Moon Cactus. In other words, one cactus grafted onto another. You'll often see them in the garden centres and big box DIY stores; a very brightly coloured globe shaped cactus on top of another stem that's plain green. These are incredibly popular and as you'll know if you listened to my episode a couple of years ago, about my visit to a Dutch nursery, they are sold in their millions.
What are the two plants involved? Well, the bottom section, the green bit, where these cream marks have shown up on Claire's plant, is actually a hylocereus, which is the genus that covers the night-blooming cacti. It's impossible to say exactly which one it is because there are many, many hybrids, but this plant is very, very commonly used as grafting stock for these Moon Cacti. Then the top bit, that's a cactus that comes from South America, Gymnocalycium mihanovichii. The particular cultivars that are used for the Moon Cacti are ones that don't really have any chlorophyll in them, so you end up with these bright red, orange, or yellow, or pink colours, which make a very dramatic combination. Without the attachment to the hylocereus, the cactus wouldn't survive because it wouldn't have any way of photosynthesising, so this is a really vital graft for the plant. This does tend to be quite a short-lived houseplant because, ultimately, the graft will fail.
The marks that Claire's seeing, I think that is just a bit of damage that was done to the bottom, the hylocereus, either when it was being grafted or when it was being produced. It's just physical damage that has scarred over into these brown bumps. If you've got something, a pest like scale, you should be able to just poke it with your fingernail and it will move, whereas with these physical scars they won't be affected if you push them with your fingernails, so that's how to tell the difference between a pest and physical damage, which is very, very common for cacti, particularly if they've been bashed around a little bit while they're in the garden centre.
Is there anything Claire can do to prolong the life of her Moon Cactus? Well, try to treat it like any other cactus. I would say it could do with, if it's in a greenhouse situation in the height of summer, it may need a bit of extra shading, because the cactus on top, the Gymnocalycium will be affected by blasts of direct sun. Why doesn't this last forever? Well, the hylocereus, is quite a considerably sized cactus and that little stretch of stem, it just won't last that long in that form, so then that will die back and you'll lose the cactus on top. If you wanted to try to keep that Moon Cactus going a bit longer, you could remove it from the hylocereus and graft it onto another columnar cactus which would work perfectly well. I'll put some instructions in the show notes on how to do that, but basically you slice off the top of the columnar cactus, pop your baby on the top, maybe making a clean cut at the bottom of the ball of the Moon Cactus, stick it on, and then hold it in place, usually with some bands or something like that or some string, and over time they should bind together. That way you can keep your Moon Cactus going a bit longer. I do hope that helps Claire, if you've got a question for On The Ledge then do drop me a line, ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com and all your horticultural horrors will be resolved, quick-smart, if I have anything to do with it!
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Jane: That's all for On The Ledge episode 154. I hope it's stimulated your brain cells appropriately and I'll be back next Friday for another dose of podcasting, Perrone-style. See you then. Bye!
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Jane: The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll by The Joy Drops, Chiefs by Jahzzar and After the Flames by Josh Woodward. The advertising music is Whistling Rufus by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. Visit janeperrone.com for details.
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Prices for so-called unicorn plants have gone sky high as the houseplant trend continues to explode, but this week I am asking: is any plant really worth that much? Plus I answer a listener question about marks on a moon cactus and we hear from listener Basma.
One of my Monstera ‘Thai Constellation’ plants throwing out a new leaf. Photograph: Jane Perrone.
Check out the notes below as you listen…
Want to learn more about the fern fever of the mid 1800s? Check out the book Fern Fever by Sarah Whittingham.
The Dr Catherine Horwood book I mention that talks about the sale of expensive coleus is called Potted History: well worth a read to put the current plant craze into historical content. (There’s a new edition coming out in October 2020).
The snake plant (now in the genus Dracaena) that I didn’t buy is Sansevieria ‘Bantel’s Sensation’.
Want to read the Greenhouse Magazine piece I quote from? Here it is in full.
Here’s a link to the New York Post article that I mention about the latest plant rarity to sell for thousands in New Zealand: if you prefer a less shouty headline, here’s the Guardian’s take.
Check out former guest of the show Tyler Thrasher’s Instagram for his hunt for hidden Monstera rarities.
Want to read more from me on the price of rare plants? Check out this piece I wrote for the Financial Times and this blogpost for Green Rooms Market.
Questions to ask yourself if you’re thinking of buying a pricey, rare plant…
What is my motivation for wanting this particular plant?
Forgetting all the hype surrounding the plant, and really looking at it for its intrinsic qualities - what does this plant offer that my existing plants - or a plant of the same genus I could buy for a fraction of the price - cannot?
Do I really have the knowledge, skills and equipment to help this plant thrive?
What other plants could I buy for the same price?
LEGENDS OF THE LEAF
Clare’s moon cactus.
Question of the week
Clare got in touch about her moon cactus, which has some cream marks on the lower section. I reassured her that they are just scars caused by physical damage to the surface of the cactus. Cacti can suffer from scale insects, but you can distinguish them from physical damage as they are usually round or oval, and they will move when you push them with your fingernail.
Moon cacti are unfortunately usually shortlived, because they are grafted: the green base is Hylocereus, the night blooming cactus, and the ball on top is a cultivar of the South American cactus Gymnocalycium mihanovichii which lacks chlorophyll, so the plant’s colour is red, pink, orange or yellow. The graft usually fails after a couple of years: if you want to regraft the Gymnocalcium on another columnar cactus, this can often work… there are instructions on how to do that here.
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.
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CREDITS
This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, Chiefs by Jahzzar and After The Flames by Josh Woodward. Ad music is Whistling Rufus by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra.
Logo design by Jacqueline Colley.