Tillandsias on display at Walton Hall in Warrington for the RHS Tillandsia plant trials. Photograph: Jane Perrone

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TRANSCRIPT

[0:00] Music.

[0:16] Hello and welcome to On The Ledge podcast episode 288. I am your host Jane Perrone and if you've ever looked at your plant and just thought "I wish you could tell me what's wrong"! then this is the podcast for you. In this week's show I'm talking to Don Billington about all things Tillandsia? What are they? Where do they come from? And how do you grow these fascinating air plants. And in an extended Q&A, I'm discussing the pineapple plant. How do you get Ananas to grow successfully in your home? And can you indeed get it to fruit? We shall see. [ 1:07] Welcome back to On The Ledge - if you are a new listener, then what is this all about? Well, it's my podcast where I talk about plants with cool planty people and help you understand plants better - specifically the ones that grow in your house. And in this week's episode I am following up on something I've been doing for a while now, the RHS plant trials of air plants, aka Tillandsia. I am one of a group of people who have been asked by the RHS to assess a group of Tillandsia species and cultivars to see which ones deserve an RHS AGM - award of garden merit. So that involves going to Walton Hall in Warrington every so often to meet up with Don Billington of Every Picture Tells a Story, a bromeliad grower, and looking at the Tillandsias that he's been growing on the RHS's behalf to see which ones are thriving, which ones would make a good plant for the average grower.

[2:14] So when I went up last week, I caught up with Don and asked him to chat with me about Tillandsias to find out more about these fascinating bromeliads. And if you've never heard of the RHS plant trials, go back and listen to On the Ledge episode 272, where you can find out what they are all about. I'll put the link in the show notes just in case you want to go back and check that out. But now let's enjoy my chat with Don Billington about the wonders of air plants.

[2:47] Music.

[2:54] Don Billington Hi I'm Don Billington and at this moment in time I'm actually chairing the RHS trials on Tillandsias at Walton Park in Warrington.

[3:03] Jane Perrone We are here for these trials it's very exciting to see lots of Tillandsias growing and getting a chance to compare and contrast this amazing genus of plants but for those of us who maybe haven't grown Tillandsias before, what are they, where do they grow in the wild and why do they make such good plants?

[3:22] Don Billington Well Tillandsias are predominantly what we call air plants, and what I mean by that is they grow in the air or another word for them is 'epiphyte' which basically just means 'plant on'. The type that we grow quite a lot of here is [Tillandsia] usneoides - everyone calls it Spanish moss, I don't know why because it's not Spanish and it's not a moss, but people like to grow that one. It has no root system at all and thing what's coming in with the Tillandisa as well they are the good air plants and what they do is they actually clean the air as well so if you've got them at home they will clean the air for you. They are very easy to grow at home because they need minimal water and if you want to go for some of the bigger ones you can you can set them up in displays on bits of bark or even place them on a little bit of slate I certainly don't use any glue to stick them onto stuff we use like fishing twine and things like that and if you leave them alone on the surface they'll eventually stick themselves on.

Jane Perrone Now I see these being sold and I think sometimes people think that they can just stick them on the shelf and just never do anything with them they do need water so how do you provide that water and how do you tell when they need watering?

Don Billington The thing with them is that we generally tell people when they when they first get them if they start watering every say eight to ten days with a very very fine spray. If you're really interested and look at your plants the plant will start telling you when it needs water and they do that themselves in certain cases they might just curl up or or something like that. One plant called streptophylla. Another one called 'Curly Slim', the leaves curl a little bit tighter. So that means they're getting drier.

[4:56] Jane Perrone Okay, so that's your signal, it's time. So some people I've seen, some people were soaking them in a basin of water. Is that a good idea or is it better just to do the misting?

Don Billington No, it is a good idea, but it's you knowing your plants. Some of them you can sort of put in for a minute or two, let them soak up and the grate take them out. Others might need that little bit longer to get the water into the leaves. And again, when you do do that, always turn the plants upside down and shake out the excess water that come into them. The way they actually work is a lot of the well all the Tillandsias have scales called trichomes and what the plant does it takes in air, light and moisture and then converts that into a nutrient and that's where it gets its feed from.

Jane Perrone Right so they're not relying on uh as you say they're not in soil so they're not drawing nutrients up from the soil they're taking out of the air which makes them a really fascinating group of plants and where are these growing in the wild. Where where might we be seeing these in the wild?

Don Billington Well they were indigenous to what we call the the New World, so they actually started off in the southern states of North America down the central islands in the Central America and into South America as well.

Jane Perrone And if somebody was getting into these plants what are the kind of key species for beginners that you would recommend obviously this is what we're trying to find out from the trial but I'm asking for a preview. In your opinion Don, which ones would you be recommending?

Don Billington What we have now we're here with the trials we've got 47 different species or cultivars of Tillandsia, and what we're now trying trying to do is identify them. The reason there's only 47 is because that's the ones that are commercially available. So I mean we've got plants here like the [Tillandsia] xerographica now which is protected by CITES - we're not going to be testing that or trialing that because you can't get it now you know and you shouldn't be getting it because it's protected because it's endangered- it's an endangered species.

Jane Perrone And presumably I'd imagine is this a plant where we're seeing developments in tissue culture starting to happen because of the dangers of taking them out of the the wild and plants being tissue cultured and grown from seed?

[6:54] Don Billington It's a difficult question now, because it's more like a case of how, if they are doing that. I do know that there's mass production getting done in Holland with certain plants. Some of the techniques I'm not really too sure of. I mean, we do ours by offsets or by getting younger plants in and things like that.

Jane Perrone Now, are these plants - they do flower, they do have these flowers that vary in size and drama. Are they one of these plants where the plant flowers and then it dies?

Don Billington Yes, they're all monocarpic: so basically what monocarpic basically just means it only flowers the once. They start to flower then that's when you'll see the offsets or pups coming from the sides and they'll sort of grow on. We have a guideline of don't take the pups off or the offsets off until it's at least one third the size of the parents. But when you are dealing with Tillandsias there are little techniques in taking them off - you just wouldn't pop them out, in some some cases you take the lower leaves off where the pups are and sort of tease it away from the side. So you wouldn't want to sort of take away the meristem parts of it .

Jane Perrone Got you - and this is the the little tips that you need to know how to succeed with these plants - likewise when are we putting these with our cacti and succulents in the sunniest spot or are we just drawing them away just a little bit you know what they like good?

Don Billington So the problem with growing these in the UK is you're going to be growing them indoors so if you put it by a window the magnifying effect of the sun through the glass is not good for them I mentioned xerography before that lives in full sun in in Guatemala and places like that in the uk you will need to protect them from the sun so they like good light but not direct yeah another uh can you tell just by looking at a plant how much sun it's adapted to is it the hairier ones that might be a little bit more sun tolerant but you know there's just been so it's like more work done on them and they actually sort of now they are suggesting and I don't disagree with this that the actual scales on the plants now are also used to deflect the Sun but in its natural habitats certainly with the in the UK that with the Sun through the glass it's not going to do it that much and will scorch them and will try them out it's like when I said earlier on about when you watered me.

[9:08] If you're overwatered, the chances of bringing one back are really slim. If it's underwatered and very, very dry, you can always just either spray it or dunk it and try to revive it again.

Jane Perrone So it sounds like a plant that you can display in lots of really interesting ways. And I guess this is probably the key, trying to do something that looks interesting. How do you like to see these plants displayed?

[9:31] Don Billington If you'd ever visit Walton Hall Park in Warrington, if you come into the main atrium, you'd see the display that we have. We have a very big display opposite to the side of the trials of how they sort of live and we tie them on branches we sort of get them up in the air the most of those xeric ones - I mean drought-loving ones - go higher because I know they're not going to need as much water.

Jane Perrone Yes and this is a joy I guess for people who - sometimes people don't want to have big clumps of soil in their home, this is a good plant to choose because you don't need any soil for them to grow well.

Don Billington If you put it in soil it's going to rot.

Jane Perrone Right and presumably do you need - I mean I think I've seen special sprays that you can buy is that is that's not worth the money or is it is are they a good investment if you've got a lot of Tillandsias?

Don Billington What we're actually doing now as part of the trial is there are a couple of items on the market that we're going to trial alongside the the actual plant trial itself and we've got two two pieces of bark with the same amount of plants on and the same type of plants and we're going to use two different types of feeds we've i personally been grown these for many many years but we've been based here now for three or four years and in all that time we haven't fed one plant so the ones that are on display have not been fed. But we will be trialing a couple of feeds that are on the market and then hopefully by the end of the trials that we're doing that will be part of the report that we're doing.

Jane Perrone Oh that's brilliant and it's lovely to see these plants growing in abundance - I think these are plants really that you have to grow quite a lot of to really kind of get a good display if you just got one lonely little plant sometimes it doesn't have the same impact.

Don Billington No it doesn't - a lot of the stuff what we grow here is in clumps, obviously some of the really bigger plants that we've got are single ones but if you think about it, some of them are smaller than a tangerine and some of the same plants that we've got here when they clump up are the size of a football. They're really good when they do clump up.

Jane Perrone And any with good scents do we get any scented flowers?

Don Billington Oh gosh yes, there's quite a few that have us have scents probably not going to give you the list of them now because no one can ever remember like but we're actually trialing plants that are specifically with scent.

Jane Perrone And what's your absolute favourite? Have you got an absolute fave that you - gosh I know it's like a favourite child, I know ...

Don Billington It's the one that you're working with or if one comes into flower i'm just trying to think now which one do i do like. I like [Tillandsia] xerographica because i know it gets really big and it doesn't take that much looking after because it can go very dry.

Jane Perrone From the trial so far i love the um the tectorum which is the very very very silvery plant.

Don Billington The tectorum is actually terrestrial it grows on rocks it's not an it is an air plant but it doesn't grow on a branch or what i see okay and that's that's indigenous to the andes in in peru and Ecuador and there are different forms of it you know where but that is a lovely one that because it's one that gives you a great example of the trichomes and all the hairs on the leaves and stuff like that.

Jane Perrone Yes, the other one that's really catching my eye is the [Tillandisa] melanocrata, I think that's got beautiful colour with the maroon base to the leaves and those very stiff leaves and it's now they're now flowering as well - I think that's a good one, although it's so interesting with the trials, because everyone has a slightly different opinion. You can see whether something's growing well but everyone has a slightly different taste.

Don Billington When we said when the RHS asked me to sort of set up the trials, I kind of went to people you know of a you know really who knew the plants anyway but from different opinions that come in from - I mean some commercial, some you know we got journalists, we got guys that from Kew and places like that and the people on the committee all come from different angles and that all mix in mixes in and we will come up with a really good a good outcome.

Jane Perrone I'm sure we will and it'll be really interesting to see what makes that final cut and gets awarded the AGM and listeners can go back and listen to my previous interview about the plant trials to find out what these how these plant trials work it's a core work of the RHS so it's great to be involved and I think Tillandsias are on the up. Are you finding that more and more people are coming to them as as plants for indoors?

Don Billington Yes, they're getting more and more popular now. And, you know, the main thing what we do now, it's all about how to look after them.That's the information that we're giving out.

Jane Perrone Any other tips for care? We've talked about food.

Don Billington Absolutely do not overwater them and absolutely do not put them in a pot or a terrarium. You know, the actual Tillandsias need air, light and moisture to survive. You put it in a glass bottle, it's not getting the air.

Jane Perrone Yeah, absolutely. Yes, it's a bit tragic when you see those. you think 'please take it out of the glass the globe'! Well thank you so much Don, and we'll be back here in a few months for the next round of of looking at the plants but it's fascinating just to hear uh more about Tillandsia so thank you very much.

Don Billington Thank you.

[14:22] Music.

[14:31] Jane Perrone Thanks so much to Don. And you may be wondering, well, which Tillandsias are going to be getting an AGM? Right now, I can't tell you because this process is a long one. It lasts three years. So over three years, these Tillandsias will be grown and assessed. So it gives the plants a chance to really show their true colours and we can really see how they're performing. So obviously, there are some that are standing out as being better than others. And every time we meet we vote on whether a plant should be moved a little bit closer to getting an AGM but it'll be a final assessment at the end of the trial that chooses those AGMs and then releases that information to the world via the Royal Horticultural Society and the joy of having about a dozen people assessing these plants is that you've got everyone from people like me who love houseplants but aren't Tillandsia specialists to specialist Tillandsia growers who really know their stuff. So it's a mixed bag of people doing the assessment and that adds to the accuracy because of course some plants are going to be ones that the real enthusiasts will love but maybe the general public won't get so excited about.

[15:47] I'll keep you up to date with what's going on with the AGMs but if you want to find out more go and check out the show notes and And I will put links in there to more information about other AGM trials that are going on at the moment and where you can find out more. Q&A coming up shortly. But first, a soup son, possibly even just a crouton of housekeeping for you today.

[16:11] I am going to be at the Malvern Spring Show, which takes place over, I think it's four days, the 9th to the 12th of May. So Malvern is in the UK, in the county of Worcestershire, and I'm going to be at the Malvern Spring Show. I have to say I've never been before, so it's quite exciting, but it's extra exciting because they've got a whole new house plant area and there's going to be talks and all sorts at this special event organized by the lovely Green Rooms Market and i'm going to be there on the Saturday and the Sunday - that's the 11th and the 12th of May. I'm going to be doing a talk, recording a live podcast and also doing a house plant q and a with some other houseplant experts. It's going to be enormous amounts of fun, so if you are are anywhere close to Malvern, then please do book yourself some tickets. I'll put links in the show notes to find out more about that. Cannot wait for that. And a nice response to the episode about fungus gnats, the resurfaced episode from my archive. [17:23] I had a lovely email from Dutch listener Koen, who reminded me that in that episode, I didn't mention the other biological control for fungus gnats which are called Stratiolelaps scimitus. What a great name. Also often sold as Hypoaspis mites. So these are predatory soil mites and they go around eating the eggs and the larvae of the fungus gnat. They also handily will control thrips and root mealy bugs and they're good if you've got just a small population of fungus gnats because they can survive quite a long time without eating anything so they just kind of go into a sort of a, semi-hibernation state until food turns up. And the other thing about hypoaspis mites is they're good for houseplants that don't want to be sopping wet all the time so things like cacti and succulents where for the nematodes you have to keep the soil really moist right because in order for those nematodes to move through the soil they use water so so you need the soil to be moist you know not not sopping wet, but definitely moist for the fungus gnat larvae to be eaten by the nematodes. Hypoaspis mites are good for soil that cannot be allowed to be kept that dry.

[18:44] And so you may be saying, well, you know, fungus gnats only like really moist soil. Well, not true. They can live perfectly well in drier soil. They just don't proliferate quite as much. So if you've got fungus gnats in a cactus and succulent collection, these are definitely worth look. And they're a little bit easier to apply than the nematodes, because rather than having to do a very careful dilution in water and lots of stirring and watering on, these just come in a little bit of substrate and you can just scatter that on the surface of the soil and the hypoaspis mites go to work. They are probably not going to completely destroy uh the whole of your fungus gnat problem but they will keep it under control and as i say have that bonus of controlling thrips and the the dreaded, well, dreaded by me anyway, root mealybug. So thank you to Koen for pointing that out. And please do get in touch when you notice things in the episode that I've forgotten, because I'm only human and it's great to have your input. So yeah, do keep them coming, as it were. And thank you very much to Koen for getting in touch. Koen also said that in professional horticulture in where he works - he's Dutch, obviously huge industry there of professional horticulture - finding that thrips is on the rise in tropical house plants in on the professional scene and asking if i've seen that mirrored among hobby growers and I would say definitely yes. I'm sure you can tell me whether you agree, but I think thrips are on the rise. Ithink it's a combination of two things - one that people are growing the kind of plants that thrips love more, so things like aroids that they really do find particularly tasty - people are growing those in greater and greater numbers, so thrips are turning up. Whether that means the overall thrips population (mustn't say thrip if you remember my thrips episode you can't say 'thrip', the singular and the plural are both 'thrips' - so thrips are definitely on the rise. Whether the overall population is growing or whether we're just seeing them on plants I don't know, but I'd love to know what you're finding with thrips in your houseplant collections. I have to say touch wood - I'm touching my head now because you know wooden head - I think that I've mainly avoided thrips. I've had them a couple of times, but they haven't been too much of a problem. Why am I saying that - I'm just bound to have the world's worst infestation of thrips now. But oh well, we shall see. Anyway, there you go. Hyposaspis mites are definitely worth a try if you have fungus gnats and maybe the nematodes aren't right for you.

[21:31] As previously billed, it's now time for the Q&A. Now, this turned into a bit of a bumper one because there was so much to say.

[21:41] But let's start with the question. It comes from Emma and concerns a pineapple plant that Emma was given by a friend and she's desperate to save it. The leaves are starting to go brown and Emma doesn't know what to do. Now pineapples I think are becoming increasingly popular as houseplants: I keep seeing them on sale in garden centres and other places that sell plants, but I want to address do Do they make good houseplants, and how can you grow one? And also a hack for getting a free pineapple. So let's start with Emma's plant - Ananas comosus is the pineapple that we see in our supermarkets, and this is often also the pineapple that we see for sale as a houseplant. Like the air plants, the Tillandsia is a member of the bromeliad family, but if you've ever seen pictures of pineapple farms you'll know that these are not grown as epiphytes like the Tillandsias - so they're not grown in trees, they are grown usually as massive monocultures actually in places like Costa Rica which I think has about almost half the world's pineapple production. So it's a terrestrial plant but it's like it is now because it has been cultivated and moluded by humans over thousands of years going back to the indigenous peoples of South America. This is the wild origins of this plant are in South America but it's so far back and it's been so changed over history that we don't really quite know what the original looked like the current pineapple we enjoy. Well the spiny leaves have been kind of made smooth the fruit is obviously much more fleshy than it would have been originally and it's usually seedless because it has been bred that way and the plant is reproduced via offsets via the little baby plants that come off the the bottom of the rosette when the plant has flowered and fruited because this is a monocarpic plant. So a plant that after it's flowered and fruited will die, but like the agaves and various other plant groups it will easily produce these offsets which can then go on to make new plants. So that's the first thing that Emma needs to know - it could just be that her pineapple has flowered and fruited and is getting towards the end of its life and may very very slowly start to decline and reach the end of its life. I suspect though that Emma might currently be hastening its decline by giving it too much water. In fact she says as much in her message that she thinks she's giving it too much water bearing in mind that this is a very fleshy plant and in winter time when temperatures are lower this plant is not going to be needing a whole lot of water. Better that the substrate remains quite dry and you only water if the plant starts looking a little bit just starting to get a little bit limp rather than keeping the soil moist all the time which really is a recipe for root rot.

So this is a monocarpic plant and usually when you buy it it will have a pineapple already on it, so it's already at the later stages of its existence as a plant because it's flowered and and fruited and the next stage is for offsets to turn up and for that main plant to die. A side note about pineapples as a fruit, it's actually a type of fruit called a sirosis, which is basically multiple fruits in one that are kind of fleshy. And that basically means it's a composite fruit. It's more than one fruit all kind of like jammed together to make a single fruit. And if you cut up a pineapple, you'll kind of see what I mean by that, because you can see the structure inside is in sections, and that's the individual fruits.

[25:48] One other thing to say about pineapple fruits, there's only one per plant, so it's not like you're going to see a plant that's got a dozen pineapples on a single plant. It's one fruit per plant, or as I've already said, one composite fruit. And if you're looking to buy a pineapple plant here in the UK, the price seems to vary, but you're looking at somewhere around the 15 to 40 pound mark, I would say, depending on the size of plant you get. It's also worth pointing out that I've seen on a lot of the sales of the pineapple plants available in certainly in the UK, they often say don't eat the fruit of the pineapple plant that you've bought. So I guess that's possibly because they're just not being these ones are not being bred specifically for eating they're being bred as a decorative thing, so I guess they probably just are not that tasty so best probably to follow that advice. If you do have one of these houseplant pineapples and don't eat the fruit. So yes, you buy the pineapple it's already got a fruit on it that means that the plant is already moving its way towards death. I mean, without wishing to get too morbid, aren't we all, but you know it's going to come a bit sooner for the pineapple because it is naturally programmed in its genes to die after flowering and fruiting. So you've got to look for those offshoots Emma, and that will keep the plant going but in the meantime the plant could last quite a long time before it actually dies back completely. So I would ease back on the watering make sure it's in good light. It can take an awful lot of light and won't want to be stuck in a dark corner . These plants have quite minor root systems - I think that's probably due to its genetic heritage probably way back in history it was an epiphytic plant at one time but it's become terrestrial, but the root system is not that big and strong or deep, so that's another reason to be really careful with the watering, because those roots would be quite easy to rot there's not that much.

[27:59] Of them now if you're wondering if there are varieties of pineapple out there indeed there are as I said, breeding has been going on for millennia of this particular fruit so you will find that there are various varieties on sale. Probably the best known is the red pineapple which used to be a separate species, bracteatus, but now bracteatus is considered a variety of comosus. Don't you just love those taxonomists? Anyway, it's a red pineapple, as the name suggests. It's smaller. I think it probably is still edible. But again, wouldn't recommend that you eat your pineapples from a bought plant. And you'll find there's a few different cultivars of comosus out there as well. There's one called 'Corona', one called 'Amigo'. I don't think there's that much difference between them. I might be being terribly unfair to these different varieties, but on the whole, they're fairly similar. Bracteatus, though, does come in a variegated form, which is rather attractive if you like variegation. So do look around and see if there's a pineapple to suit you.

[29:12] Now if you happen to have a pineapple fruit that you bought from the supermarket sitting around at home it is possible to grow a pineapple plant from your fruit. So yes you might have remembered this from your childhood if you're maybe anywhere near as old as me cutting the top off a pineapple and growing it on as a plant.

[29:31] So yes you abso-blinkin-lutely can do this. The only thing I would say is personally, I wouldn't go out and buy a pineapple specifically for this reason. Why? Well unfortunately like so many fruits this is grown as a monoculture as I said and in the areas where it's grown it has effects on not only the local wildlife but also the local people it's not the most most ethically produced fruit out there. I'll put a link in the show notes to a website article about the environmental impacts of pineapples in Costa Rica which is quite shocking, so I try not to buy pineapples because as I say, there's a lot of damage that's being done to the wonderful country of Costa Rica by this particular plant. That said if you happen to have one if you've already got one there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't go ahead and try to grow it on. Will you get fruit from your plant? Probably not, unless you live in a tropical or subtropical climate when you've got a good chance. But generally speaking if they're going to be indoors, it'll take at least two years to fruit and you're going to need lots of light and heat for that to happen. But it's still a fun plant and a beautiful plant and if you can get one for free if you you already have a pineapple sitting there, why the heck not?

[30:59] I mean, this is a core memory for me of my childhood in the 70s and 80s, along with growing the tops of carrots on a saucer, a saucer of water and mustard and cress on, you know, damp tissue paper. That's a core memory for me. And, you know, that might be something that you've never even heard of, but it's something that happened a lot in the past. What do you need to do? Well, obviously eat the flesh first and then you'll be left with the coma - now that's just a word for the modified leaves, the bracts, tuft of bracts at the top of the pineapple plant and there's different ways of doing this some people just cut a line about the top sort of half a inch to one to two centimetres of the fruit and the top - the bracts - and then just let that dry out for a couple of days and and remove any stray flesh. The other thing you can do is just literally take that coma, grab hold of it, the bracts, and just twist, and you'll twist off the leaves and also a kind of nub at the bottom there, and that's where the roots are gonna come from.

[32:10] If you do that, you can then remove some of the lower bracts and either pop it in soil or some gritty compost to grow on. I think it's probably easier starting off in water, to be honest, and then switching to a gritty compost once you've got some roots formed. It's also worth saying this works best on a pineapple that is ripe, but not overripe. How do you tell a ripe pineapple? Well, you smell its bottom. If you lift up a pineapple and smell the underneath it should smell lovely and sweet and that's a sign that it's ripe. In terms of those leafy bracts, you're looking for a nice set that are not looking dead, damaged, diseased - you want something that looks nice and fresh. And hopefully that will then grow on into a new plant and as you know if you've listened to the the show since the beginning this is also possible to do with lots of other tropical fruits like mangoes, avocados, if you have those stones lying around you can grow those on and make houseplants for free. It's tremendously fun, but just don't expect you know a massive harvest, unless as I say, you're lucky enough to live in a tropical or subtropical place. Pineapples in England you you know lots of of fascinating sociological and historical things can be can be learned from.

[33:38] The history of the pineapple and those books are a really great place to start to learn about that and if you've ever been to the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall in the UK, you might have or seen it on the TV, I think there have been documentaries about it - they had pineapple pits there which were which were the status symbols of the past where you know you could only have pineapples if you had a huge amount of money to heat a greenhouse sufficiently to have these pineapples growing. So the pineapple pits of Heligan are worth a look if you've never heard of those before you know in victorian times they did produce pineapples for the big house the the posh fancy residents of that house and it happened in the US as well pineapples were prized.

[34:26] The history of pineapples is truly fascinating. There's a couple of books I'd recommend on the subject if you want to find out more. There's one called Pineapple, A Global History by Kaori O'Connor and also The Pineapple King of Fruits by Francesca Beauman. Both I think you're probably going to have to buy second hand because they came out a few years ago, but I'll put links to those in the show notes. If you're a fan of the BBC show Ghosts, you'll know that pineapples were a great novelty so Emma going back to your question I would say keep a close eye on your plant stop watering it check the roots just take it out the pot and have a look and check there are still roots if there are still roots then you should be able to just ease off on the watering and it may well die back but you might find that you get some pups or offsets or suckers coming coming out at the bottom, which you can then allow to root and pot up to make a new plant. And if you have a lovely pineapple and want to tell me about how you look after it, do drop me a line as ever. The email inbox is open and waiting for you. It's on theledgepodcast@gmail.com and it's also the address for your questions.

[35:43] Music.

[35:49] Well, that's all for this week's show. I will be back in two weeks' time. I'm off on my travels later this week to carry out some interviews for the show. And I'm going to be talking to two cactus growers and somebody who specializes in anthuriums and a houseplant shop. So it's going to be a fun trip. And I'm sure you're going to love the resulting interviews. But for now, you and your plants have a great week. Bye!

[36:20] Music.

[36:34] The music you heard in this podcast was Roll Jordan Roll by The Joy Drops, The Road We Used To Travel When We Were Young by Komiku and Whistle by Benjamin Banger all tracks are licensed under creative commons visit the show notes for details.

[36:58] Music.

I talk air plants (aka Tillandsias) with expert grower Don Billington, and I take on a listener question about another bromeliad - a poorly pineapple.

Hear me talk at the Malvern Spring Show!

I am going to be at this show in Worcestershire on May 11 and 12 popping up for a talk and more as part of the new festival of houseplants organised by Green Rooms Market, Book your tickets now! Details here.

Check out these notes as you listen…

Tillandsia tectorum growing for the RHS Tillandsia trial. Photograph: Jane Perrone.

Spanish moss (centre) growing in the bromeliad display at Walton Hall. Photograph: Jane Perrone.

This week’s interview guest is Don Billingon, the owner of Every Picture Tells a Story, an air plant and bromeliad nursery based in Ormskirk - Don is also the chair of the current RHS AGM trials for Tillandsias.
This Tillandsia trial is happening at Walton Hall and Gardens in Warrington in the northwest of England.
What are RHS AGMSs? The Royal Horticultural Society (a British charity) awards AGMs - which stands for Award of Garden Merit - to plants that have proved successful for the average grower. You’ll know a plant has an AGM if it has a small trophy symbol or the initials AGM after the name. There’s more information about the plant trials on the RHS website. listen to On The Ledge episode 272 to find out more.
You can see a list of all the RHS’s current plant trials here. Many of the trials take place at the RHS flagship garden Wisley in Surrey, but some take place elsewhere.
Spanish moss is one of the most popular air plants on the market. Its scientific name is Tillandsia usneoides and it grows wild in the southern US states, central America and large parts of South America. The common name is rather inaccurate as this species is not a moss and it’s not from Spain!
47 species and cultivars in the trials
Tillandsias can be watered in a couple of different ways. Don prefers to spray plants every 8-10 days with a fine mist. Some airplants will show you they are in need of water by curling their leaves more tightly - such as Tillandsia streptophylla and ‘Curly Slim’
Tillandsia xerographica has been listed by CITES because it is getting rare in the wild
All monocarpic - offsets or pups created - remove when about one third the size of the parent.
Trichomes on the leaves used to deflect the sundry looking tillandsias are called xeric plants.
Don Billington is testing air plant sprays as part of the TIllandsia plant trial - but he has never used feeds on his own Tillandsias.
Tillandsias with scented flowers include
Tillandsia tectorum and Tillandsia melanocrater
Tillandsias near air light and moisture to survive - do not grow them in a terrarium!

Pineapples (*Ananas comosus*) have been bred for thousands of years, so are rather different from their ancient wild relatives.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Emma wanted to know what to do about her poorly pineapple. Ananas comosus is, like the Tillandsias, a member of the bromeliad family, but it doesn’t grow in trees like many of the air plants.

This cultivated plant’s wild origins are unfortunately a little obscure: we know it came from South America and was bred and developed over thousands of years to become the edible fruit we know today: much of that work was done by the indigenous people of South America.

Pineapples are monocarpic plants, which means that after they have flowered and fruited, they start to die. Pineapples are usually sold with the fruit already growing, so in many ways they are shortlived houseplants as they are reaching the end of their lifecycle. However they usually put out pups/offsets which will root and can make a new plant when potted up. Most sellers of pineapple plants as houseplants recommend that you do not eat the fruit they come with.

The two books on pineapples and their history I recommend are:

I also mention the pineapple pits at the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall in the UK - find out more about them 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!

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