Episode 184: The Houseplant Expert by Dr David Hessayon - the book that launched my houseplant obsession

Just some of my collection of Dr DG Hessayon’s ‘Expert’ series of books. Photograph: Jane Perrone.

Just some of my collection of Dr DG Hessayon’s ‘Expert’ series of books. Photograph: Jane Perrone.

Transcript

Episode 184

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Jane: If you want to hone some new skills this Spring, check out Learning With Experts, the global classroom community that brings people together, to learn from the best in the business. Their range of courses covers everything from food and drink, to photography and gardening, so why not become an accredited garden designer and learn with world-renowned experts including influential Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf and multi-award-winning British designer Tom Stuart-Smith, or take a course on herb gardening, natural beekeeping or growing veg? You can start whenever it suits and you get to meet other gardening enthusiasts in the sociable online classroom. Visit learningwithexperts.com/ontheledge now, for 10% off your first course. That's learningwithexperts.com/ontheledge Learning With Experts: online learning that's guaranteed to lift the spirits!

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Jane: Ready for your weekly dose of houseplant chat and info? Good, because it's On The Ledge! I'm your host, Jane Perrone, and today I am offering up a paean of praise for my houseplant hero, Dr David G Hessayon, author of the legendary tome that's been my companion for the last 40-odd years; The House Plant Expert! Plus I answer a question about transporting a very hairy cactus and we hear from young listener, Ashton.

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Jane: Can I have a whoop whoop because I have exciting news!? I may have screamed out loud last night when Legends of the Leaf, my houseplant book crowdfunder, reached its target! Thank you to all, more than 650 people, who have pledged to support the book! It's totally thrilling to know that the book is definitely going to happen! This means I need to go away and do some furious researching and writing so that I can get this book manuscript done. Then Unbound, the publisher, has to do their bit of editing, laying out, printing, so it's going to be a bit of a long road to publication. I know you're all impatient to see this book - so am I, trust me! - but we want to make it really good, so please hang in there if you've pledged. If you didn't manage to pledge, don't worry, there is still time. You can pre-order the book for the moment, until it gets to the point where it's going to be published and then pre-orders will close, so plenty of time right now, as I speak, May 2021, to get your pre-order in. Just go to janeperrone.com and you'll see a link where you can find out all the info. If you've pledged for a houseplant consultation, well, you should be getting a message from me in the next couple of weeks, inviting you to book your Zoom chat, so that'll be nice to speak to those of you who have booked that pledge!

Thank you to RinceRepeat, in the US, and GabFab, also in the US, for leaving lovely reviews of the show on Apple Podcasts and to Mary and Sandra for becoming Ledge-ends this week. If you want to find out how to support On The Ledge through Patreon, just check out the show notes where all the information can be found.

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Jane: In 1980, when I was six, a book was published that, more than 40 years later, is still a weekly, if not daily, reference source for me. You may not be surprised to know that book's about houseplants. On the cover there's a mixed planter containing an African Violet with blooms the colour of candy floss, a Bromeliad, some variegated English Ivy, a Bird's Nest Fern, what looks like a Euonymus and a tall variegated Fatshedera. Open the cover and inside there's an introduction that could have been written in 2021! Here's a short extract: "You don't need to read a book to learn about the beauty, variety and popularity of houseplants. Just look around you. Everywhere, you will find them. The impressive indoor gardens in public buildings, tiny pots on windowsills, scores of colourful varieties offered for sale in garden shops. The charm of houseplants may be universal but many millions of them die needlessly each year. Forget about green fingers, anyone can grow houseplants and make them look attractive. If everything dies as soon as you take it home, then you are making a serious, basic mistake and the answer is in these pages. If your plants look sickly and unattractive, then it's a matter of poor choice, incorrect upkeep, or lack of knowledge about houseplant display. Once again, the answers are here."

Keep turning the pages and you can soak up concise information about light, display options and how to choose a plant that's right for you, before you reach the meat of the book - succinct plant profiles arranged by type, foliage, flowering and pot plants and if I shut my eyes right now, I can visualise many of the illustrations and layouts of this book in my head, I've looked at them that often. And I can also bring to mind some of Hessayon's pithy phrases that he used to sum up different plants: Oncoleus, "The poor man's Croton," and on cacti: "There are scores of millions of cactus plants in the homes of this country, yet in most cases they are kept as semi-alive green ornaments which hardly alter throughout their stay." Not a single word of text is wasted.

The House Plant Expert by Dr D G Hessayon has been my constant companion over years of houseplant growing, joined by some of the other books in the series; The Indoor Plant Spotter, The House Plant Jotter and I upgraded from my original House Plant Expert circa 1980 to the gold plated House Plant Expert, an expanded edition. I've also got some of Dr Hessayon's other gardening books in the expert series, including The Tree and Shrub Expert and The Vegetable Expert.

The first edition of The House Plant Expert came out in 1961 and it's been through many, many iterations. You'll have to pop by your local second-hand bookstore, charity shop, thrift store, or online secondhand bookseller to find a copy of this book these days because they're not currently being printed, but these books have sold millions of copies around the world. On The Ledge listener, houseplant expert and former guest, James Wong, is a fellow Hessayon fan. Here he is explaining why he loves The House Plant Expert.

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James: So, you know some kids have a favourite teddy, or maybe a comfort blanket that they carry around with them? Well, for me, as a child with a case of early onset geekiness, it was my copy of The House Plant Expert! I literally carried it around everywhere I went, even on my first day of school! My grandma in Wales sent it to me, I remember, in a birthday parcel that was wrapped in brown paper. For me, living in tropical Singapore, The House Plant Expert wasn't just a guide to all the tropical plants that surrounded me, both in gardens and even in native rainforest, but, for me, it was a way to make my own make-believe worlds that I could escape into. I guess I saw it as a sort of interactive storybook, so you could see these magical, miniature worlds, like planted tanks and there's this one incredible branch that's set up, with Bromeliads all over it. Not only could I adventure through those by looking at the pictures, I could actually create them myself, so I was co-creating this fantasy land for myself, to witness the miracle of life in action. What I really love about it is how Dr H has really stripped away a lot of the extraneous flowery text in place of wonderfully clear imagery that really just communicates these really complex ideas in such an effective and inspirational way, it's just as inspirational to me 30 years on, at almost 40, as when I was looking at it as a kid under 10. To me, even today, it's still the best gardening book ever written and as someone who sometimes found that having the wrong face, or the wrong surname, can prove tricky in the world of horticulture, for Dr Hessayon to be able to have trailblazed this in the industry half a century ago, I mean now, that's even more impressive to me. #Hero

Jane: The Royal Horticultural Society librarian, Dr Brent Elliott, has said that The Expert series is the biggest innovation in gardening publications since the death of William Robinson in 1938, but who exactly was Dr David Hessayon and what was the secret to his huge success? I should say at this point that, unfortunately, I'm not going to be speaking to the man himself. Although he is still very much alive and in his nineties, Dr Hessayon retired in 2013 and doesn't give interviews any more, not even for On The Ledge! Fortunately, I managed to interview two expert horticulturists who have worked with him and know him well.

David Gerald Hessayon was born in 1928 and it seems that he started his gardening career young.

Peter: Well, I think from the age of five or six, as a young person, he worked, or potted I suppose is the right word, with his father, Jack, cultivating their own plot. His father was a Cypriot.

Jane: This is Peter Seabrook, the legendary octogenarian garden writer and horticulturist who worked with Dr David Hessayon and knows him well. Here's Peter Seabrook on the doc's training and early career.

Peter: Then the doc went on to study botany and chemistry at Leeds and then got a PhD at Manchester University in soil science. So, as a child, gardening alongside his father as many of us did of that era, and then of course with a really thorough education in science, he then worked on an American newspaper.

Jane: So why exactly are we still reading The House Plant Expert more than 60 years since the first edition came out? In a way, these books are anathema to modern book publishing - the layout and the style certainly show their age - and yet they are so popular. As a review in The Guardian once put it: "They are the gardening equivalent of the repair manual: belts and braces, as opposed to froth. The polar opposite of the glossy coffee table book."

Christine: The magic was that simplicity, that in a few lines you could gather all you actually needed to know. It was authoritative, it was a simple layout, the illustrations were beautiful, it was inexpensive, so actually available to a very wide range of people. There was nothing like it at the time and in fact there's been very few imitations of it since. It was clear, it was authoritative, it was comprehensive.

Jane: That's horticulturist Christine Walkden, who worked with the doc at Pan Britannica Industries. It's important to remember that not only was Dr Hessayon an excellent writer, he was also a skilled marketer of the products sold by PBI, which included Baby Bio in its iconic bulbous bottle, the plant food of choice for those of us growing houseplants in the 70s and 80s. He also brokered a lucrative deal with Thomas Rochford, the famous British houseplant nursery, now, unfortunately, long gone. Here's Peter Seabrook to explain more.

Peter: Dave did a deal, so that on the back of every houseplant label that the Rochford's produced, and they produced millions every year, there would be the advice to choose to feed the plant with Baby Bio.

Jane: Don't assume that Dr Hessayon was courting publicity for himself. Until I saw him speak at the Garden Media Guild Awards in 2013, just as he retired, I'd never even seen a picture of the man that I considered my houseplant hero.

Peter: He didn't appear on television or sound radio, his view was that his books did the talking and they certainly did. Wherever you travel, wherever you went with the English language especially, you would find the doc's books.

Jane: On that one occasion where I was in the room with Dr David Hessayon, admittedly with several hundred other people, I didn't pluck up the courage to go and speak to him, so I don't know myself what he was like as a person but, as Christine Walkden tells me, those who worked with the doc had to live up to his high expectations.

Christine: He expected the same amount of excellence. He didn't suffer fools gladly, he was a hard boss to work for, but you learned a lot by watching doc in practice and if you could get through the, sometimes, fear that he would create because of his exacting standards, you could learn an awful lot from him. I have very few qualms about his ability to communicate on paper and verbally, he was, and still is, of course, a phenomenal wordsmith. He could take very complex information and simplify it and that's the skill that we seldom see.

Jane: After the break, we'll be hearing some listeners' reflections on the power of The House Plant Expert and answering that cactus question after this.

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Jane: This week's show is supported by Green Chef, the number one meal kit for eating well. Green Chef makes cooking easy, with hand-picked ingredients delivered right to your door, so you can get on with life while Green Chef does the meal planning and grocery shopping for you. Go to GreenChef.com/90ledge and use code 90Ledge to get $90 off, including free shipping. I've been checking out Green Chef's plant-based menus at greenchef.com and there are so many delicious options to try. From smoky romesco cauliflower to black bean and corn quesadillas, yum! Whatever diet you're following, whether that's keto, paleo, gluten-free, pescatarian, vegan or vegetarian, Green Chef has delicious recipes for you. So go to greenchef.com/90ledge and use code 90Ledge to get $90 off including free shipping now. Green Chef: the number one meal kit for eating well.

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Jane: I'll be back to continue our love letter to Dr David Hessayon shortly, but now it's time for Question of the Week, which comes from Zosia and it's about an Old Man Cactus. Zosia decided to inherit a 30-year-old, five-foot-tall Old-Man-of-the-Andes, Oreocereus celsianus, cactus from her grandmother and is concerned about the sheer practicalities of moving and transplanting this spiky beast! Zosia's mother has dubbed the cactus Arnold and Zosia thinks this is embarrassing. Yes, I'm not going to get into that cactus and plant-naming thing. It's totally up to you! But I can step in on the question of how to transport this 5-foot cactus safely.

I think the main thing that you're going to have to do is make sure - I know you're worried about being spiked -- but actually, what you do need to be worrying about more than that, is the whole thing snapping which would, obviously, be a dire outcome. This particular species, it's called Old-Man-of-the-Andes because it looks delightfully covered in wispy grey hairs, but behind that fluffy stuff is some quite intense spikes, so you still need to be very careful with it and don't be lured into a full sense of security by the fact that it looks so cute - possibly less cute when it's 5foot tall, but anyway!

You need to make sure that you wrap it very carefully. I would suggest very, very carefully laying it on its side onto a pre-prepared bed which consists of a layer of corrugated cardboard, a big sheet of that at least long enough to encapsulate the whole of the main 5-foot stem and on top of that, sheets of bubble wrap. Then once you've got it laid down very carefully, you can then either roll the cactus or the bubble wrap cardboard combo, whichever is the easiest to move, and gradually roll it up in that. You could also put some bamboo canes either inside or outside the cardboard to support the structure because the main thing you're trying to do, is avoid yourself being dreadfully prickled and also making sure that the structure stays intact during the move. If you can keep it on its side as you move it, I think that's the safest thing to do, the danger of having it standing upright is the likelihood that it's just going to topple over. This species can get up to about 12 foot tall indoors, so you know this should have quite a bit more growth to do, Zosia, so you really want to take good care of it.

Whether you take it out of its pot before you transport it, I think is a moot point, I suspect it'll probably be jammed in its pot and you'll have trouble getting it out, you may have to cut off the plastic pot to remove the root ball. So probably leave it in its pot unless it's kind of coming out automatically as you lean it down. The pressure point is going to be where the stem joins the soil most likely or at the top where the growth is thinner, so take your time, plan and prepare and make sure you have plenty of pairs of hands and add to the security by wearing some thick gloves, leather gloves possibly, to make sure that you don't get an injury.

The other thing I'd always say if you're dealing with a big, venerable plant like this is, if you can, if it's got more than one stem, then do have a security policy of taking off a couple of those smaller younger stems to propagate so that if something dire does happen to your plant, for example, if one winter it gets over watered or something like that, you have a baby plant coming on to replace it because that is the danger with these big original plants that have been around for years, something goes wrong and you lose it. So, maybe when you're moving it, that's the time to take off a couple of younger stems and propagate them. Either you might find that you can separate one off from the main root ball, or you need to cut off a stem, then you can let that callous over and stick it in some gritty compost. This time of year, in Spring, is an ideal time to do this and it should root nicely.

As the common name suggests, this cactus comes from South America, mountainous areas of places like Argentina and Bolivia and those white hairs do serve a purpose. It just helps to bounce back the sunlight in very high light conditions, so really you can throw as much sunlight as you can at this plant and it will absolutely love it. That may be a problem when it gets taller than your windows in terms of getting enough light to it and, in that sense, it might be worth investing in an overhead grow light for this plant if you are going to keep it indoors in the winter. It will absolutely love that extra light. I hope that helps, Zosia, and Arnold thrives for many years to come! If you've got a question for On The Ledge drop me a line: ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com

I'm so grateful to my guests Peter Seabrook and Christine Walkden for providing an insight into the life and times of Dr David Hessayon. I've already put the full interview with Peter Seabrook onto my Patreon feed, for Patreon subscribers at the Ledge-end and SuperFan level and I will be doing the same with Christine Walkden's interview in the next couple of days, so you can hear more about their relationship with the doc and their own horticultural careers.

Now it's time to hear from some of you about the impact of Dr Hessayon's House Plant Expert on your lives! Some of you were a little too shy to put yourselves on tape so the quotes that came in on email are delivered by my lovely assistant, Kelly Westlake.

Ben: Hi Jane! This is Ben from London. I just wanted to give him a shout out for cutting through all the jargon and waffle that is now increasingly common on the internet. When you Google, say, "What is wrong with my Calathea zebrina?" all you get is six paragraphs of someone's life story about why they love this plant and then at the end of it they haven't answered your question, whereas Dr Hessayon gets straight to the point! He's got his special problems for each plant, with clear solutions and you just know what to do. So thanks for the podcast, I really like it, and also a big shout out to David Hessayon!

Listener: I came to Canada in the very early 1990s, from the UK. As a child and teenager I grew up around plants and gardening and remember looking at these books often. At university, I always had houseplants, killed many and helped some thrive and then I came to Canada. Please don't tell my mom, but I came to Canada with The House Plant Expert and The Indoor Plant Spotter by Dr Hessayon! I love them and wouldn't be without them.

Cynthia: Hi! My name is Cynthia Booth. I'm calling from Jamaica, Vermont, and I've had the Dr Hessayon houseplant book since the nineties and it's falling apart and it is the greatest book! I have notes in it, the pages are falling out, I've given it as a gift many times and it really is the greatest! I was so excited when I heard you say that too.

Listener: The House Plant Expert was the first plant book I ever purchased which I bought when I was around 17 or so. I still have that copy and I also have the gold edition and his book on identifying houseplants. I just love these books because they're so informative, they're fun to read and they sparked my lifelong love of houseplants. I occasionally just browse the pages and revel in all the plants that are out there.

Listener: The reason I love The House Plant Expert is not only is it a book that contains really, really good information about how to look after different types of plants, but it reminds me of my childhood. I'm a child of the late 70s / early 80s and the illustrations in the book just take me right back to how my mum's house and my grandmother's house used to look and everybody had a bottle garden and dish gardens and mixed planting displays which we just don't seem to do anymore. I definitely think we need to take a leaf out of Dr Hessayon and we need to have more fun with plants!

Person: Hi Jane, after discovering your amazing podcast and binge-listening to so many of the back episodes, I felt like I had to get my hands on this amazing book. As I was sitting by the fire perusing the very 1970s pages, I discovered an illustration of the wonderful Begonia that our family enjoys. My wife's great grandfather was an avid gardener and kept this plant in the 1960s. He passed cuttings on to all of his many daughters, who passed, in turn, to their large families and, in turn, to ours. So many of my wife's cousins and second cousins grow this plant, but other than knowing it was a Begonia we all affectionately referred to it as the Henry Plant. There it was, clear on the page with a very detailed description and a perfect illustration, and I knew then that it was the Begonia lucerna! I was able to send the information to all of our family and everybody was excited to actually learn the cultivar name! Thanks, Dr Hessayon!

Michael Perry (Mr Plant Geek): Hello On The Ledge podcast! it's Michael Perry here, Mr Plant Geek! I'm about to introduce my good friend Ellen-Mary to the world of Dr Hessayon books because, apparently, she's got to this age and never, ever seen one. This is what I grew up on, Ellen, so I'm going to show you one.

Ellen: With these being quite old, do you think the information is all completely as it is now, or has anything changed?

Michael Perry: There's not that much that changes with plant care, to be honest, is there, and some of it can be subjective anyway, can't it? So I'd say, generally, I think they're timeless, really, and I think a new generation is starting to turn to these and is finding them approachable.

Ellen: To me, I think when you read a gardening book, you get way more information and understanding than when you read, like, pockets of information online anyway.

Michael Perry: Definitely.

Ellen: So I think these books are actually really, really cool!

Jane: Thanks to everyone who got in touch to tell me how much they love The House Plant Expert and you may have recognised Michael Perry and Ellen-Mary from The Plant-Based Podcast at the end there! Thanks to you all! Now it's time for Meet the Listener and this week we're hearing from a young listener called Ashton.

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Ashton: Hi I'm Ashton! I'm 10 years old and I live in Queensland, Australia. I've been listening to On The Ledge for about a year now and it was the first podcast I ever listened to.

Jane: Question one. You've been selected to travel to Mars as part of the first human colony on the Red Planet. There's only room for one houseplant from your collection on board, which plant do you choose?

Ashton: I'd take our big Burgundy Fig because I think it would provide lots of oxygen because of its size and it's my favourite plant that we have. It's got big leaves and I love it.

Jane: Question two. What is your favourite episode of On The Ledge?

Ashton: Episode 180 - Indonesian House Plant Culture because it talks about plants that I could grow in my climate.

Jane: Question three. Which Latin name do you say to impress people?

Ashton: Acer palmatum Dissectum because it sounds like a Harry Potter spell!

Jane: Question four. Crassulacean acid metabolism, or guttation?

Ashton: Guttation because it's really cool to look at, unlike CAM, which you can't see and it only happens at night time, when you're sleeping. You can only see guttation on our Neon Pothos; we can clearly see the droplets on the end of its leaves.

Jane: Question five. Would you rather spend £200 on a variegated Monstera, or £200 on 20 interesting cacti?

Ashton: I would spend my £200 on a variegated Monstera because they look amazing and they are very expensive and rare here. I would probably put it up high, as I think it's toxic to dogs and I have two little dogs. I've had lots of cacti and they all died of mealy bugs.

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Jane: Thank you, Ashton, and if you'd like to feature on Meet the Listener, do drop a line to OnTheLedgepodcast@gmail.com We're mixing up the questions soon, so if you've got a suggestion for the questions we should be asking, let me know that too!

Oh, and I also wanted to mention a lovely email I got from a chap called Gennaro, who's an arborist who got in touch about my reference to shaking Fiddle Leaf Figs in the recent episode with Matt Candeias of In Defense of Plants. Gennaro points out that shaking your indoor tree, or woody plant, will promote auxin production which is responsible for girth in woody plants. Auxin is a plant hormone. This applies to any woody plant, not just Fiddle Leaf Fig. Gennaro pointed me in the direction of a study from nursery growers showing that a tree shaken gently for 40 seconds a day develops a shorter more sturdy tree and a tree that doesn't get shaken grows taller and needs more supportive staking.

I wasn't in any doubt that shaking the tree would have an effect, but I just didn't believe that that short a length of time on a daily basis would work, but it appears that there is some evidence to support this and Gennaro does actually reference the fourth edition of Arboriculture by Harris, Clark and Matheny for his source, which is great! Gennaro also points out growing stakeless trees is an industry goal, for it avoids many of the problems that come with stakes and maintenance, or lack of, which is a really good point too. We had a bit of back and forth between Gennaro and I and he pointed out that he hasn't been able to find any further studies on this particular matter. So Gennaro suggests the following, "Get two young woody plants of the same species and make a study. Place them next to each other, no stakes or ties, shake one, leave the other one alone, rinse and repeat and then measure regularly and that way we can find out if this really works."

If anyone has an insight into any more studies on this matter, please let me know because I'm not sure I have the determination to keep up this kind of serious scientific research. Gennaro concludes: "Maybe we can bust the myth, or create the International Society of Tree Shakers?" Well, I'm sure there are listeners out there who are determined enough and meticulous enough to undertake this study, or perhaps you can point us in the direction of some scientists who've done this research? I think it's a fascinating one and, as I say, I guess my main question is, is 40 seconds a day going to be enough? I just can't believe that would be true because surely, in nature, you'd have to have breezes happening through the course of the day to shake the tree and cause that auxin response, but I don't know! I've got no evidence either way. So let me know if you can fill us in. Gennaro and I, the International Society of Tree Shakers, founding members, we'd love to hear from you!

That is your lot for this week's show. I do hope you and your plants have a fantastic week. Bye!

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Jane: The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll by The Joy Drops, The Road We Used To Travel When We Were Kids by Komiku, the tracks Endeavour and Chiefs both by Jahzzar and Time To Move And Motivate by The Insider. The ad music was provided by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra with the tracks Whistling Rufus and Dill Pickles. Visit the show notes at janeperrone.com for details.

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Dr David Hessayon’s book The Houseplant Expert has inspired indoor gardeners for decades, including me! I talk to two fellow horticulturists who knew him well, and reflect on his legacy. Plus I answer a question about moving a 5ft cactus, and we hear from a ten-year-old houseplant fan in Meet The Listener.

This week’s guests

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More on Dr David G Hessayon

  • Hessayon wrote his first houseplant book in 1961 - it was titled Be Your Own Houseplant Expert. The book has been through many editions since. In my opinion, the absolute best edition is the one titled The Gold plated Houseplant Expert, which has a red cover (see the picture at the top of the page to look at some of my collection of Hessayon books).

  • Hessayon’s books introduced generations of people to the delights of growing plants, but that wasn’t his only goal: he used his books to promote products made by Pan Britannica Industries, the firm he worked for, including the iconic houseplant feed Baby Bio.

  • in 2005 he was reported to have made £26 million from his gardening books, which covered everything from bulbs to trees and shrubs.

  • Hessayon retired from writing in 2013, in a speech at the GMG awards. I’d totally forgotten about this photo - but my colleague (and On The Ledge guest) Alys Fowler won an award and she wasn’t able to be there, so I went to receive it on her behalf and was mistaken for Alys!

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Zosia got in touch for advice on how to move a 5ft tall old man of the Andes cactus, Oreocereus celsianus. I recommended laying it carefully on its side wrapping it in layers of bubble wrap and corrugated cardboard, supported with bamboo canes to prevent snapping.
I also suggest taking cuttings of venerable plants such as this as an insurance policy - if a cactus has multiple stems you can sometimes remove one of them and pot up separately, or slice off a stem, let it callus over for a few days, then pot into gritty compost.

Want to ask me a question? Email ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. The more information you can include, the better - pictures of your plant, details of your location and how long you have had the plant are always useful to help solve your issue!



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CREDITS

This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, The Road We Use To Travel When We Were Kids by Komiku, Chiefs and Endeavour by Jahzzar, and Time to Move and Motivate by The Insider. The ad music was Dill Pickles and Whistling Rufus, both by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra. All tracks licensed under Creative Commons.