Episode 266: the Chelsea flower show 2023
Botanical Recharge houseplant studio by The Botanical Boys. Photograph: Jane Perrone
Transcript
On The Ledge
Episode 266
Jane Perrone 0:15
Hello and welcome to On The Ledge podcast. I'm your host, Jane Perrone, and this is episode 266. In this week's show, I am going back to basics, telling you about the Chelsea Flower Show and I answer a question about three plant killers. And in Meet the Listener, we hear from Angela!
I've been going to the Chelsea Flower Show, gosh, I think the first year I went must have been 2009. So that's, gosh, how many is that? Fourteen years, I guess! I remember going heavily pregnant with my son, when I was literally about to give birth! Fortunately, I did not give birth in the showground, but, safe to say, I've been going to the Chelsea Flower Show a long time. But it occurred to me that, a lot of the time when I'm talking about the Chelsea Flower Show on this podcast, I haven't really done a very good job, in the past, of explaining much about what this show is and what it's all about, because I'm sure many of you only have a peripheral understanding of what the Chelsea Flower Show is! So, in this episode, I want to give you a bit of a potted guide - excuse the pun! - to the Chelsea Flower Show, tell you a little bit about my thoughts about this year's show, and also reflect on where houseplants currently sit and where they should be in the future when it comes to the world's best-known flower show. First up, a bit of history about the show. The Chelsea Flower Show happens in the very chi-chi neighbourhood of Chelsea, in London. It's on the site of the Chelsea Hospital, more formally known as the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the home of the Chelsea pensioners, who are veterans of the British Army, who are recognisable for their bright red coats that they wear, and every year it's held in the same place. It's been going for over 100 years and is the best-known flower show in the world and the flagship of the RHS shows. It's kind of unique as a flower show, in a way, because, unlike other flower shows, where you go and the main purpose for a lot of people is buying plants, at the Chelsea Flower Show - shock, horror! - you can't really buy plants! You might find a few small plants for sale in the Great Pavilion, which is the massive tent where all the nurseries display their plants, but on the whole, the only time you can buy plants at the Chelsea Flower Show, is right at the end of the last day, the Saturday, which is the sell-off and a bell goes an hour before the end of the show and everyone goes a little bit wild, sharpening their elbows to grab plants that are being sold off as displays start to be broken down. If you want to go to a British flower show and buy plants, pretty much any other flower show you can think of will have lots of plants for sale. If you like a show that's a bit more spread out, and you still want to go to a show in London that's iconic, I would suggest the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, which is on in July. It's much more spread out, there's much more space, even when it's super-busy you can walk away a little bit and find a nice spot under a tree where you can have a picnic, and you can buy endless amounts of plants! Plus, there are the classic show gardens and displays that you expect from Chelsea and I would argue of a very, very similar standard too. If you want to check out other RHS shows, I'll put a link to the RHS website. There are lots of other shows run by other organisations and it's definitely worth having a look at those. Some of them are focused on selling and buying plants, like the rare plant fairs which happen across the UK throughout the warmer months. Again, I'll put a link to that in the show notes, if you're interested in that. And it's also worth saying, subscribe to my newsletter, The Plant Ledger, for weekly drops of forthcoming houseplanty events into your inbox! You can subscribe to The Plant Ledger at janeperrone.com/ledger that's 'l e d g e r'. But back to Chelsea! There are different categories of Chelsea, as I've kind of hinted at. You've got the show gardens, these are the flagship gardens that everybody wants to see, that are made by the top-level designers, and there's usually anything from about, I think, about eight to 20 of these show gardens. I'm slightly guessing at the numbers there, but it does vary every year. I think this year, there are 12. I think that I've seen as many as 15 in a year, and these gardens are where it's at in terms of the main focus of the show, in many ways. This year, there were some really beautiful show gardens. The cost is huge - a quarter of a million pounds is not unheard of, by any means - and this year, there were some really beautiful gardens on display. The winner of Best in Show, and a gold medal winner also, was designed by Harris Bugg Studio, made up of designers, Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg. I have to express a little bit of bias here because I have done writing work for Harris Bugg Studio before, so I'm probably a tiny bit biased, but I thought this garden was amazing. It's designed for the charity Horatio's Garden, which creates incredible therapeutic gardens in the grounds of spinal injuries units across the UK. And this was the eighth one, and the garden is going to go to a hospital in Sheffield after the show, to create the eighth Horatio's Garden. But it's not just the large show gardens to look at. There are other, smaller gardens on display, and over the years there have been other categories brought in for smaller gardens. There's been a balcony garden category, a container garden category, an artisan garden category, sanctuary gardens. It's changed over the years, but, basically, these are the slightly smaller gardens on display and showing off different aspects of horticulture. And most of these gardens are judged by a panel of RHS, judges and they can get anything from a gold medal down to a bronze medal or, indeed, no medal at all. Now, I have to say from the outset that I haven't always agreed with the judging results of Chelsea! Sometimes a beautiful garden that I absolutely love doesn't do very well. I'm not an RHS judge and I don't have a copy of the original brief for the garden, so I'm just giving my own personal reaction and my own personal responses. And that's the wonderful thing about gardens; one garden can be an absolute dream for one person and leave someone else completely cold. And now we come to the houseplant studios. These have been introduced in the last few years to Chelsea, not surprisingly, I guess, given the huge burst of interest in houseplants. That's not to say that houseplants haven't featured in the show before, inside the huge tent that is the Great Pavilion. There are many nurseries displaying their wares and this has included many houseplants, or what I would call houseplants. And if you've listened to the show in previous years, you'll know this includes people like Dibleys Nursery, who specialise in Begonia and gesneriads, like Streptocarpus, and also many great cactus nurseries, like Ottershaw Cacti, who you've heard on the show in previous years. But, houseplants haven't really been displayed in the same way as outdoor plants, in terms of a design garden, and that's where these houseplant studios come in. Each exhibitor gets a garden building - I think it's Malvern garden buildings who sponsored this category - so each exhibitor gets one of these wooden garden buildings to use in any way they want, to display plants, and these categories are being judged in the same way as all the others. It's been really interesting to see how this has actually manifested itself and the displays that have been put on. So, obviously, I've been really excited to see houseplants getting this extra profile, but I was a bit disappointed this year by the entries. Overall, I felt like there wasn't an evolution of design and I was hoping to see exhibitors taking something to the next level, to really show off houseplants, or bring us a story, or tell us a story that really caught me on fire and I'm afraid I didn't really find that to be the case this year. The Best in Show for the houseplant studios category went to Geb and Green, with their 'Steam, Clean, Plant, Repeat' display. If you remember, you'll have heard Geb and Green in Episode 254 of the this very podcast, talking about their peat-free houseplants. So, yeah, a great message. They won a gold medal and they also got the Best In Show out of the five houseplants studios. I love the message. If you know my podcast well, you know that I'm a huge fan of peat-free. The idea was that the studio was set in a laundry room, but this also reflects the way that Geb and Green use a huge washing machine-type structure to clean and then reuse their peat-free substrates, recycling it many times to use on houseplants. So I love the concept, but I found the execution not that inspiring. I'm not sure we've got past the idea of putting some plants in a wooden building, in pots, at its very base. And so, yeah, I was a little bit disappointed. And as a fan of RuPaul's Drag Race, I found myself thinking of the episode of RuPaul's Drag Race UK Series 2, where Joe Black comes out wearing an outfit that RuPaul is very critical of and I think Michelle Visage says, "Oh, you could have bought that in Primark!" and then Joe Black sort of stage-whispers, "H&M", and then that prompts RuPaul into this huge rant about "If you're going to buy H&M, you're going to have to glitter the beep out of it!" and "I want more! I want more!" basically is her catchphrase, and I kind of felt myself channelling a bit of RuPaul when I was thinking about my reaction to the houseplants studios this year. I want more! I felt like nothing really knocked my socks off, nothing incredibly wowed me, or made me think that, yeah, made me think about plants in a whole new way. Maybe it's just because, you know, I'm in a privileged position. I fully admit that I go to Chelsea every single year, I see the same plants and ideas being repeated over and over again. I do see some new ideas, but for these houseplant studios, I didn't see anything that really challenged me, and I think that's what Chelsea is all about. It is about the absolute top level of horticulture, both in ideas and design, and I just didn't see much of that kind of absolute top-flight, horticulture going on in those houseplants studios this year. I'm wondering if one of the issues is the setting itself, the confines of a wooden structure? Is that stifling creativity when it comes to a houseplant display? I don't know. And I'm not saying I could do any better myself! I realise, you know, Chelsea is a really tough gig, it's incredibly tough, but I think if it's the absolute cream of the crop of horticultural excellence, then that's what we need to be seeing in the houseplant field as well. Funnily enough, my favourite of the houseplant studios was the one that won the lowest level of medal of the five entries, which was a silver medal for The Botanical Boys and their Botanical Recharge houseplants studio. That just shows you my previous point is correct about not necessarily agreeing with the judges! And The Botanical Boys run workshops on things like terrariums, and do interiors, and they have a new store at Coal Drops Yard, in Kings Cross, in London, so I really liked what they did. And for me, this was the houseplant studio that came the closest to achieving what I want out of houseplants, or Chelsea, which is something that doesn't just look like something that I could create in my home. I want something that takes things to the next level and this display, for me, was the only one of the houseplant studios that came anywhere close to doing that. Let's find out more.
Can you just tell me who you are?
Tiernan Hughes 14:10
So my name is Tiernan Hughes. I am a sales representative for The Botanical Boys here at Chelsea Flower Show and I also built the sculptures that you can see outside our exhibit.
Oh, very nice! So this is all very stylish! Can you tell me, can you paint a picture for listeners, of what we're actually seeing here?
Of course! So our business has two focuses. One is terrariums. Our business was started in teaching people how to build terrariums and our weekly workshops, but our co-owner, Ben, is from South Africa, and so he goes around the continent and he picks up all manner of art and memorabilia and brings it back and we share it with people here in the UK. So what we're looking at here, is our concept of a traveller's work desk, where he carries books from Africa, you know, memorabilia from his explorations, and also the plants that he has broought back safely, in the Victorian-style terrariums that we bring here.
Jane Perrone 15:04
It's really nice in here! What I like about this, is you haven't just shoved a load of plants in pots and put them on a shelf, and I'm particularly loving the Kalenchoe at the back there, one of my favourite Kalenchoe species. I can't . . . I've forgotten the epithet now! I'm just digging into . . . if I can actually see . . . It's the Felt Bush, yeah? That is a really beautiful, large specimen. And I love that pot too, although I imagine repotting that's gonna be a bit of a nightmare! Hopefully it'll be there for a while.
Tiernan Hughes 15:38
Well, this is a gorgeous specimen for the Kalenchoe. It's an extremely healthy sample. It's doing extremely well. They're very, very sensitive plants, you know: too much damage to the leaves is a very common problem, but we've got a really healthy one here in the studio right now. And the pot that it's in is indostone. So these are hand-carved pots made from boulders from the side of a South African mountain. They are extremely heavy, I can tell you. As a six-foot man, I cannot lift this on my own! They are extremely heavy, but they are incredibly well-crafted because they are literally hand-carved out from a single piece of stone.
Jane Perrone 16:14
And I also like the fact that everything in here is actually labelled! I mean, as somebody who, like, houseplant IDs are my bread and butter. It's really annoying when plants don't have labels! So you've got these very stylish labels, but you actually know what everything is. That's important to me. I guess it's important to you too?
Tiernan Hughes 16:30
It's absolutely important. You know, we pride ourselves on our knowledge here at The Botanical Boys. You know, we offer, you know, free plant care advice to anybody who comes by our stores at Kings Cross, and we have a lot of specialist plants, a lot of tropical plants, we tend not to do typical sort of European plants, we do a lot more houseplants, which are a lot more tropical. There's a lot less knowledge about them here in the UK and so it's really important for us to be able to share the knowledge and the care and the information with our with our customers.
Jane Perrone 16:30
A little vessel here with something inside. Is this some kind of substrate we've got here?
Tiernan Hughes 17:03
Kind of! So these are our ingredients for what we use to make our terrariums with. So we have multiple layers in the terrariums. We have clay pellets in one pot. These form drainage at the bottom of the terrarium and also clay keeps the water alkaline as opposed to acidic. And then we've got a bowl full of charcoal here. So we put charcoal on top of the clay pellets. That keeps the water clean. It filters out bacteria and fungus and then we've got a special mix of our own substrate here. This is a mixture of worm castings, coco coir, lava stones and sphagnum moss. This helps keep the substrate relatively moist, but it's filled with a little bit of drainage, which is sort of ideal. You want that kind of balance in a terrarium. But it also is not too nutritious either because too much nutrition in a terrarium can cause all kinds of fungi and mould, and things like that, to grow as it's a closed system. Too much nutrition can kind of just really damage them.
Jane Perrone 18:00
That's a really good point. Something that I think, often, is overlooked. So that's really useful to have. And I think,these terrariums, what I love about them is a lot of them are really quite large. And I think this is often a mistake": people think a small terrarium is going to be easier. Not always the case!
Tiernan Hughes 18:18
In my experience, smaller terrariumsactually require more care. So the large terrarium we've got on the desk here is full of moss. So moss acts as a really good water store - pure water store - inside the terrarium. So this big one on the desk probably won't need watering for another three to five years, whereas a smaller one which has less of the substrate and the moss in it, that is going to filter through its water cycle a lot more quickly and so you'll probably expect to water that more like once or twice a year. So smaller terrariums actually require a little bit more care in general. So having the bigger ones, for those low maintenance people out there, is really useful.
Jane Perrone 18:57
Let's just go outside and have a look at these sculptures you were telling me about? These are rather cool-looking. Is this made out of corten steel, or something?
Tiernan Hughes 19:07
Yes! So we've got a corten steel base, and then we've got a mild steel frame running up the side, which has all been CNC bent. Then we've got wood-turned lids with lamps in them and each of the parts of the steel frame has a little mister inside. The idea of these sculptures is to replicate a terrarium in sort of a human scale. So the mister is supposed to represent condensation and sort of the water cycle that you would find inside of a terrarium. And then the lights on the top represent a small amount of light that a terrarium needs to survive. And then we've got plants that require the same kind of conditions as terrarium plants need, so those that like more moisture, more humidity, to kind of replicate the sort of plants that we will put in our terrariums in the store.
Jane Perrone 19:54
Fantastic. Well, it looks really great. And what is good, as far as I'm concerned, about this display, is it doesn't look like anything else I've seen in the houseplant studios. It's unique, so congratulations and I hope you enjoy the rest of the show!
Do check out the show notes at janeperrone.com for pictures of The Botanical Boys houseplant studio, and I've put the details of all of the other houseplant studios in there, for you to take a look at and you can make up your own mind. And I'd love to know your thoughts, whether you were at the show, watched it on TV, or looked at it on social media. What did you think of the houseplant displays at Chelsea this year? The Q&A is coming up next, but it's now time for a soupcon of housekeeping. This is a really boring one, but it is an important announcement. If you ordered a copy of my houseplant book, Legends of the Leaf from Amazon and you selected the paperback option, then you need to do something because you're not going to get a copy of the paperback because there is no paperback edition! It's just a hardback, as it stands, andnd as far as I know, there isn't going to be a paperback edition. The reason why this confusion has happened is because originally the book was planned to be a paperback and then a decision was made to change it to a paperback by the publisher. So when it originally went onto Amazon, there was a paperback and a hardback option listed and so people bought the paperback, not surprisingly, it's a little bit cheaper and some people prefer paperbacks. However, you will not have received anything in the mail because there is no paperback edition! As I've already said, I was kind of hoping that they would just send out the hardback edition to people who have ordered the paperback, but apparently not. I know this because I experimented in the interests of you guys, by buying a paperback, just to see what would actually happen! And in the end, I had to ask for a refund. It wasn't an automatic refund, I had to ask for one. And so if you've ordered the paperback from Amazon, and from amazon.co.uk, you're going to need to message Amazon and ask them for a refund, and then you can re-order the book, either from Amazon or elsewhere. If you check out legendsoftheleafbook.com I do have an extensive list of where you can buy the book around the world. And there are many other options other than Amazon. If you're in the UK, I do have a few signed copies, which I am prepared to sell direct. If you want one of those and want a particular dedication in that book, then drop me a line and I can sort that out for you. Limited supplies, so get in there as quick as you can on that one. But yes, I'm sorry about the disappointment and the annoyance of having to cancel your order, having pre-ordered, but there we go. It's outside my control. Amazon is a better month and this is the way, sometimes, it goes. So yes, if you've got any questions about ordering the book, do let me know. Drop an email to ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com and I will try to help. Other than that, the book is going tremendously well. They've had an amazing response and some lovely reviews. Please do go and leave a review on Goodreads, or Amazon, or anywhere else you can leave a review, if you can. I truly appreciate it. Also, on the Patreon front, I have two new Patreon subscribers to big up this week: that's Erica and Michael, who became Ledge-Ends. And if you're teetering on the brink of becoming a patron but something's holding you back, here's what you can do: I am offering a free seven day trial for Patreon, so if you fancy dipping your toe into Patreon and seeing what it's all about, then you can do that free for seven days, and then make a decision whether to continue with a paid subscription. So check out Patreon to find out more. It's patreon.com/ontheledge to unlock extra content, more than 100 episodes of my bonus podcast and An Extra Leaf, the first 50 episodes ever of the show, and ad-free editions of all the new podcasts. And of course, the much-loved December mail-out where you get a personal delivery from me. Now it's time for Question of the Week and this one came in the form of an email from Christine, entitled "My three plant killers". I mean, that's about as serious as it gets, isn't it!? And this message from Christine really is a cry for help that I think we can all relate to. Christine is in zone 5 B. I'm not exactly sure where that puts her in the world, but probably somewhere in North America I would suggest and she is growing everything from cilantro - that'shat's coriander for us Brits - to spinach and goji berries. But here's the rub: Christine writes, "Everything gets killed by aphids, spider mites, and these little white flies all the time. I'm only one person but every single day I have to get up and manually remove the aphids from the leaves. I spray once a week with a miticide/insecticide called 'Safers End All' and they just keep coming back. Is this normal? Combating problems with nutrient-balancing, bugs, disease, in addition to general caregiving is a lot of work and having put so much work into something and watching it slowly die is disheartening and I don't want to give up, but sometimes I wonder if I will ever see anything become a sustained success. Please help me! I don't know who else to turn to." Well, you've come to the right place, Christine, because I can offer you some advice here. Pests can be a real trial, as you have experienced. And it's totally normal for pests to just keep on keeping on, to keep on reproducing at such a rate that even if you spray and remove very regularly, they'll come back. Aphids have this incredible life cycle where babies are having babies! I'llI'll link in the show notes to a picture of their life cycle, which just shows you how quickly they can reproduce. Plus aphids can fly in from outside, they can come in on produce, they can come in on cut flowers, so it's a problem. Even if you get rid of every single tiny baby and adult on a plant, you might be reinfected from the outside very fast. Spider mites, similarly, are problematic. The little white flies, I suspect, are whitefly. Again, similar story, they have these incredible life cycles. They're reproducing really fast, especially at this time of year. And the trouble with pests, is that most of us hope and ask for a kind of a silver bullet solution to fix these problems once and for all. We just don't want to keep on dealing with them and I can totally understand your feelings about that. But unfortunately, there really isn't any silver bullet solution. I mean, it sounds like you're doing all the right things you are regularly tackling this problem and you are removing the pests manually and also using an insecticide. Just make sure you follow the directions on the insecticide to the letter. It sounds as if you've got quite a lot of young plants at the moment and they tend to be the most vulnerable. You're also growing a lot of things that traditionally would be ideally grown outside, so things like coriander, lettuce, spinach, and goji berries. Really, those are outdoor plants. It's fine to start them off in your house because you probably need to keep them that little bit warmer than your outside environment is currently offering right now, in May, in zone 5 B, however, in the long term, something like a goji berry is not going to hack it indoors. The reason being that the light levels are just not high enough. Goji bushes develop into a huge, and I mean huge, plant given the chance. People hedge them because they are so unruly. I have one in my garden. It's produced hardly any berries. I mean literally, like, one tiny berry, but it is rampant and I kind of regret planting it. I need to think of it more of a hedge than as a shrub. I need to cut it back harder than I do. If you've never come across goji berries, the Latin name is Lycium chinense and goji berries have been given lots of amazing health claims over the years and they're good berries. They contain lots of antioxidants. They are good for you. But there are other things you could be growing to. Interestingly, in China, the leaves of the goji berry are also eaten. So if you don't get any goji berry out of your plant, then you could always eat the leaves. As always with leaves, you want the young tender growth, not the old leathery ones. But what I'm trying to say with this talk of outdoor plants versus indoor plants, is this is always going to be a struggle with the things you're trying to grow. If possible, you want to make those plants the strongest they can be because strong, healthy plants will be able to fight off pests most successfully. Young, weak plants are just very, very susceptible to this kind of damage. So if you can make sure they're getting maximum light, that will really help them to do well. And ultimately, all of these young plants, maybe with the exception of the coriander, you could probably grow that indoors, and maybe some lettuce, but most of these things will be better off outside, if you can get them outside. I know that your growing season, you say, is quite short in zone 5 B, but once it does warm up, get those plants outside, they will romp away with the extra light, and you'll find that you have less of a problem. And oftentimes plants will grow past pests like this when they do have the right conditions to grow in. To give you an example, I have an elder tree in my garden, it's the purple-leaved variety, I think it's called Black Beauty, and it always gets blackfly at this time of year, those black aphids, it's always covered in them. But you know what? It keeps growing and it's absolutely fine. I sort of wash them off, if I can, but generally speaking, I don't get round to it, and birds and other insects make a fairly good job of tackling them, but the plant just grows past the problem because it's generally happy. So that's what I'm sort of trying to hint at, Christine, with your plants. Get them outside as soon as you can, as soon as it's warm enough, and it should improve your chances of success, provided, of course, that you don't then find out that they're going to get munched by something like a slug or snail because, of course, our pest problems are multitudinous! But I think it's a mindset issue. Generally, with pests in the home, we've got to be on alert at all times. They will come back. There's no magic solution other than chucking your plant away and getting a new one. I've recently thrown in the towel with my Raphidophora tetrasperma. It was covered in scale, it was causing scale on other plants, so I literally just cut it up and I've got wet sticks now, which are being treated for scale. And I'm going to start again, because life is just too short to keep removing that scale! So you need to know when to throw in the towel and when to keep battling. And just remember Christine, you are not alone! Everybody listening to this show, if they have more than one houseplant and have been growing for a while, will have experienced this story. So I hope that's given you some comfort to know a little bit more about your plant killers. The only other thing to say, and, again, a common theme on this podcast, if you can figure out exactly what you've got, that does help, so the little white flies, are they definitely whitefly? You know, a hand lens! I say it all the time, but get a hand lens, have a look, check it is spider mites, check it is whitefly. Look up what these creatures look like, identify them correctly and then it will help you to give the right treatment. Spider mites and aphids tend to locate themselves differently. Aphids will always be on fresh new growth. So for example, this week, I discovered a load of aphids on my orchid cactus, on the actual flowers. They love the flower buds, a great source of sap, presumably. So I had to take that plant outside and sprayed off flowers, growth points, those are the places that aphids will be found. Spider mites, on the other hand, the backs of leaves, what we call the axial part of the leaf, the underside part of the leaf, that is where spider mites love to dwell, and we're looking for, kind of, white, grainy stuff that might be gathering there, which is the shed skins of the spider mites, and also their eggs, but get your hand lens, get your eye in, have a look and you should be able to spot them easily. So that's the deal, Christine, I hope that is helpful in some way shape or form and keeps your plants going a bit longer. And I wish you success with all the things you're trying to grow this year. And as always, if you've got a question for me, then drop me a line!
Now, back to the Chelsea Flower Show and I want to take you inside the great pavilion. And this is often an underrated part of the show because inside this giant, white tent are many fabulous nursery displays, but there's also floristry, if that happens to be your thing, and many educational exhibits and a few show gardens as well. There's the All About Plants show gardens inside the tent, including the Choose Love garden, which I particularly liked, and this garden was inspired by the migration routes that refugees take across Europe and contain some wonderful herbs and also a fabulous superadobe wall made from earth, so I'll put that in the show notes for you to take a look at. It was one of my favourites. But the thing I wanted to bring you audio from, was a display investigating and celebrating the Florida Ghost Orchid and this was a collaboration between various different people, including Grow Tropical, the UK-based plant seller who you've probably heard on On The Ledge before, via Jacob James of Grow Tropical, who talked to us about terrariums, working with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, in the US, Fairchild Botanical Garden, Chicago and Naples' Botanic Gardens, and also Glasgow Botanic Gardens. So the idea of this garden was taking a look at orchid conservation around the world, using the Florida Ghost Orchid as an example of an exemplar. Now, you may be aware of this orchid because it has been featured in popular culture before. There was the book The Orchid Thief and also the movie adaptation. The Latin name is Dendrophylax lindenii and it's a leafless epiphyte, so, epiphyte, it grows attached to other plants. And yeah, it's got no leaves! It is able to use its roots to photosynthesise, and the leaves are just basically scales. You can't see anything that I would describe as a leaf, and, as the name suggests, they grow in southern Florida in very hard to negotiate terrain. Here's Julianne McGuinness, of the Smithsonian Institute's North American Orchid Conservation Centre, explaining why the Florida Ghost Orchid is the centrepiece of this display.
Julianne McGuinness 36:39
The Ghost Orchid, the Florida Ghost Orchid, is sort of the poster child for orchid conservation in the US because, in many ways, it's a success story. We've been able to extract the mycorrhizal fungi that it needs from the roots, and really learn how to cultivate the ghost orchid so that it can be reintroduced into the wild because it has been under such pressure and such threats in its native habitat, from everything from poaching, to habitat loss, and storms and hurricanes and such, so it really is very special that it's been propagated in several botanic gardens now and can now be introduced in some places where it was declining, and that's very exciting. And more is beginning to be understood about its pollinators and, you know, its full habitat needs, with the fungi and the pollinators and so on.
Jane Perrone 37:44
We seem to be struggling to, I mean, maybe we're not, maybe this is changing, but, you know, it's not an easy job going out into the field to research this, right?
Oh no! In fact, earlier, several of my colleagues here had their snake boots on. They had to battle alligators and poisonous snakes, and, as you can imagine, from this little, this, sort of, our exhibit evokes the panther refuge in South Florida, the Corkscrew Swamp or the Fakahatchee Strand, many of the preserved areas where the ghost orchid and other types of Florida orchids thrive. So this very much looks like the type of terrain that they have to navigate, to study the ghost orchid.
And I wanted to find out more. There were plenty of people on the stand to chat to you and I managed to grab Johanna Hutchins of Chicago Botanic Garden and Tony Ruiz who is a student at Illinois College to find out a bit more about the fascinating story of the Florida Ghost Orchid.
I was just saying this is the kind of stand that I love at Chelsea! I'm learning something new, I'm seeing something I've never seen before. The Florida Ghost Orchid, it says on the thing it's enigmatic. Why is this an enigmatic and fascinating plant that we need to know about? Who's going to start with that one?
Tony Ruiz 39:07
That's a very hard question, but it's I think due to its rarity and only occurring in South Florida and also in western Cuba. It's in such a difficult area to get through the swamps, very hard to traverse, it's, like, 90 degrees, 100% humidity, you're battling snakes, waist-high water, alligators, all just to look for this leafless epiphyte that's absolutely gorgeous, and I think that adds a lot to what it is.
Johanna Hutchins 39:36
When a lot of people think of orchids, they think of, like, lush, bright flowers, a lot of green foliage, and since this is a leafless orchid, it just looks very different. And in most instances, if it's not in flower and you don't know what you're looking for, you're probably not gonna find it.
Jane Perrone 39:55
Yeah.
Johanna Hutchins 39:56
It's got that, like, air of mystery around it. Right.
Jane Perrone 40:01
Right. And why is this orchid so rare? Is it habitat destruction? Is it poaching? What's,why is this orchid not more commonly around?
Johanna Hutchins 40:12
It's definitely a combination of everything. They grow in very specific environments.
Tony Ruiz 40:20
They, like she said, it grows in incredibly specific environments. And then, obviously, climate change is having a huge impact on its environments, like more severe storms, that always takes orchids off the trees, it's very detrimental to their populations. Poaching has been a significant issue. We've had researchers here that have encountered poachers multiple times. It's just a combination of basically everything that you see as regular factors that hurt orchids.
Jane Perrone 40:47
Right, right. And is this, sort of, it sounds horrific, I'm not gonna lie. I lived in Louisiana for two years, so I know about the heat, but I've not been wading, like, chest-high in, like, water and stuff. That sounds quite a task. Is it? Is it one of those things where it's is proving hard to recruit people who want to go and study this, or is there enough of a pool? I mean, you're, you guys are all looking quite young. You must, there must be enough interest here to get you doing this dangerous work?
Tony Ruiz 41:18
I do believe there's quite a lot of work, but not a lot of people, actually, get to go out into the field like we do. We have a great relationship with the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, with Mark Danaher. He lets us come in, let me specifically come in, for the past few years. Adam Herdman behind you, he's gone multiple years before. Specifically Naples Orchid Society donates money to us, to be able to fund us to be able to do our research. It is quite a task for doctors, I think, to get students interested, but he talks all about it and talks very nicely of it, tells us we'll be walking with alligators, wading with snakes, all that stuff, but he does a really good job of recruiting everyone in, and everyone helps out to get us there.
Johanna Hutchins 42:00
The passion of people who have worked with this for so long, like Dr. Sadler and Dr. Payne, it's really contagious and I've seen how it's affected so many people that then have gone on to study, and a lot of them, and we're currently here, so it may be challenging environmental conditions, but the passion of people who really want to conserve this species and its environment, I think that kind of helps sell it and it speaks for itself.
Jane Perrone 42:32
And what don't we know about the ghost orchid, that you still need to find out? There's still, there must be loads more that you're just only on the tip of finding out what you need to learn about this orchid.
Tony Ruiz 42:44
There's been all kinds of research on it, but obviously there's always a lot more to do. Specifically, one of the other people here, Lyndon Johnson, has worked on the mycorrhizal fungi that that ghost orchid uses to germinate. I specifically have studied the nectar of the ghost orchid, to see its chemical composition, see what's in it, so what the pollinator will want. Dr. Haley Ray, she studies the fragrance of this ghost orchid, and its pollinators, to see why they like it, what they are coming for and all that good stuff.
Johanna Hutchins 43:16
There's always new things being discovered about it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was some time in the last five years that they finally got photographic evidence of the pollinator of the ghost orchid. Yeah. So it had always been hypothesised what it was, but there was no actual proof until relatively recently.
Jane Perrone 43:37
And what is the pollinator?
Tony Ruiz 43:39
The pollinator is the Giant Hawk Moth, or the Sphinx Moth because it has such a long nectar spur. They need it, with a long proboscis, to go into it.
Jane Perrone 43:48
And that sounds kind of basic, but that involves somebody sitting there for a long time watching, waiting and, you know, and then also is that insect actually pollinating, or is it just passing by? Like, is it actually pollinating the plant?
Speaker 1 44:06
There was one study that, so I think it got put in a famous magazine, and it had the Hawk Moth visiting it, but it didn't have any pollen on its head, but one of the people we knew actually got a picture of the Hawk Moth with the pollen on its head, so it basically proved that it was pollinating the ghost orchid.
Jane Perrone 44:24
So these are the pollen sacs we're talking about here. I know, I did some research into a Hoya species, and pollinator research. So that was kind of how I knew what you were talking about there, because it's really specific, isn't it? It's not just any old fly, or bee, that's going to come in with that shape of flower and the structure. It's quite unique. Oh, that's amazing!
Johanna Hutchins 44:46
I believe there were some that they had thought could be potential pollinators, but because of the anatomy of the moth, they wouldn't have actually come into contact, even though they had been seen visiting the flower. So there's quite a lot of work.
Jane Perrone 45:03
And what are you expecting people to be, I mean, obviously, today's a bit strange because it's press day, but once you've got members of the public coming along, I imagine this is going to be fascinating, but some people are going to maybe ask why bother with a tiny little thing? You can hardly see, what, why do we need to know this stuff!?
Johanna Hutchins 45:22
So the ghost orchid is sort of like a canary in the coal mine and orchids in general are really good environmental indicators. So if the orchids go from an area, you know, that other things will soon follow suit. And so that's why it's important to study the orchids and also to conserve them and protect their environments.
Jane Perrone 45:43
Do check out the show notes for some good Florida Ghost Orchid links and more information if you want to find out anything about the Chelsea Flower Show. But now it's time for Meet The Listener, and this week, we're meeting one of my Australian listeners.
Ange 46:07
Hi, Jane! I'm Ange and I'm joining you from Melbourne, Australia, where today is sunny but starting to be quite chilly, as we head into winter, though since many of your listeners probably live in some much colder places. I should maybe add the cold by Melbourne standards isn't really that cold. This is probably evidenced by the bird sounds that you can hear in the background!
Jane Perrone 46:28
When did you get into houseplants and why?
Ange 46:32
I think I've always liked plants. And while I don't really know why, I think it is, in part, that I just feel that plants, along with books, make a place feel like home. It started with a Parlour Palm called Frank, that I had when I was 10 or 11, when I first got my own bedroom! And then for the last 20 years or so, I've travelled a lot for work, and whenever I've been anywhere longer than a couple of weeks, it's been a plant, or sometimes several, that have made a place feel like home.
Jane Perrone 47:05
What's the latest addition to your houseplant collection?
Ange 47:08
I've actually been working hard not to buy new plants for the last year or so. But I have been propagating a lot so I guess it depends what you call addition. A few days ago, I moved a bunch of newly propagated plants into small pots and that included an Angel Wing Begonia, aew different kinds of philodendron including the Micans, which I really love because of its fuzzy leaves, and a chain of hearts.
Jane Perrone 47:34
Complete the sentence, "I love my houseplants because . . . "
Ange 47:39
I love my houseplants because they just make me happy. I like the problem-solving aspect of working out how to make each one thrive. I love the calming effects of plant time, while I potter about, working out what each one needs. And, you know, they're just beautiful!
Jane Perrone 47:58
Who is your houseplant hero?
Ange 48:01
Well, that's you of course, Jane! And while I do mean that, even though that may have sounded tongue-in-cheek, the other thing I have loved is learning about the amazing array of women who have contributed to the plant world throughout history. So, women like Marianne North, Olive Pink and the Scott sisters, who were all amazing botanical artists, to botanists and horticulturists, like Gertrude Jekyll, Janaki Ammal and Fran Bodkin. The list just goes on and on. And every time you discover one amazing woman who's done amazing planty things, you find another five, or ten, or twenty to learn more about,
Jane Perrone 48:45
Name your 'plantagonist': the plant you simply cannot get along with!
Ange 48:51
My 'plantagonist', well, it's not original, but it's got to be the Calathea! It's just, uh, they're just too hard and life is too short for me to bother with them! Oh, and for some reason, the Watermelon Peperomia, which other people seem to find really easy and all of them just die while under my care!
Jane Perrone 49:14
Thank you, Ange!, I love the fact that you led with a weather prediction! Something that's always on my mind, for sure. And I'd love to hear from anyone who is brave enough to put themselves forward for Meet The Listener. It's really easy to take part. Just drop a line to ontheledge podcast@gmail.com and you might be hearing your voice on this podcast soon!
That is all for this week's show. I'll be back in two weeks. Remember, this is now a show that comes out every other week. So two weeks from now I'll be back with another episode. So enjoy your plants and keep you, and them, well-hydrated!
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; "Chiefs", by Jahzzar, and "Whistle", by Benjamin Banger. All tracks are licenced under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.
I offer up my thoughts on the Chelsea flower show and answer a question about houseplant pests. Plus we hear from listener Ange in Australia.
Want to listen to my podcasts from previous years at Chelsea? Find them here.
Terrarium sculptures outside the Botanical Recharge houseplant studio. Photograph: Jane Perrone.
Check out the show notes as you listen…
The best in show garden for Chelsea 2023 went to Horatio’s Garden designed by Harris Bugg Studio. Full disclosure: I have done some freelance writing work for this studio in the past. You can read a preview piece I wrote about this garden here.
You can see all the show gardens at Chelsea 2023 here.
If you can’t get to Chelsea but are in the UK, there are lots of other RHS shows to visit - here’s a list. There are lots of other non-RHS shows worth visiting including the Rare Plant Fair.
There are also lots of plant societies such as orchid societies and the British Cactus and Succulent Society who put on shows around the UK and beyond. Want to find out about houseplant related events happening around the UK? Subscribe to my weekly newsletter The Plant Ledger.
The Houseplant Studios at Chelsea are all set in wooden garden buildings supplied by Malvern Garden Buildings. Here’s a full list of the medals awarded by the RHS judges. Geb & Green (featured in On The Ledge episode 254).
I was a little disappointed with the houseplant studios this year. Chelsea is all about pushing the boundaries and showing off top flight plants and design - the very pinnacle of horticulture. I just didn’t feel like I saw as much of that as I’d like in the houseplant studios this year. (If you have no idea what I was talking about when I was comparing my feelings to Rupaul’s H&M rant in RuPaul’s Drag Race Uk season 2, watch this.)
My favourite of the five studios was The Botanical Boys’ Botanical Recharge - pictured at the top of the show notes. Its terrarium sculptures (pictured left) were by @trudy.installationsbydesign. The large succulent feltbush I forgot the scientific name for was Kalanchoe beharensis.
The Florida ghost orchid is an enigmatic orchid that provided the focus for a fascinating display about orchid conservation inside the Great Pavilion at Chelsea this year - this was a collaboration between J.P. Wright & Company of Florida and Uk houseplant nursery Grow Tropicals. You can read more about it in this Insta post.
Read about the pollination of the Florida ghost orchid in this paper.
Thanks to Julianne McGuinness of the Smithsonian’s North American Orchid Conservation Centre, Johanna Hutchins of Chicago Botanic Garden and Tony Ruiz from Illinois College for talking to me about this incredible orchid.
Larger terrariums are generally easier to care for than small ones, as I discussed in my interview on The Botanical Boys’ houseplant studio. Photograph: Jane Perrone.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Christine in zone 5B got in touch about problems with three pests- aphids, spider mites and what are probably whitefly - on her plants, which include coriander/cilantro and goji berries.
These three pests’ lifecycles are incredible (here’s the aphid life cycle for example) and they can reproduce very fast which is why Christine feels as if the infestation is neverending. Unfortunately there is no ‘silver bullet’ treatment for any houseplant pest - it’s a question of repeated attention to try to keep their numbers under control.
Most of the plants Christine is growing are things that may be under extra stress because they are better suited to life outside. It totally makes sense that we keep some outdoor plants indoors at the start of the growing season when it’s still too cold outside for them, but a lack of light combined with warm temperatures can put plants under extra stress, which can leave them more vulnerable to pests. If you can, adding growlights can really help them to grow strong.
Aphids can fly in the window or come into the house on cut flowers or produce, so it’s hard to be rid of them permanently. The best treatment is repeatedly wiping leaves - you can use a pesticide spray, but the physical action of removing the pests and their eggs with a damp cloth is very effective.
An aside: did you know the leaves of the goji berry (Lycium barbarum) are edible?
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 by Jahzzar and Whistle by BenJamin Banger (@benjaminbanger on Insta; website benjaminbanger.com).