Episode 239: what to do with a dead houseplant
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TRANSCRIPT
Jane Perrone 00:03
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Jane Perrone 01:24
He's dead, Jim. In this week's On The Ledge podcast what to do with a dead houseplant. And more importantly, how do you know it's dead in the first place? So I answer a question about a Monstera deliciosa user with a split personality.
Jane Perrone 01:49
Hello, I'm Jane Perrone. If I sound a bit hoarse, I've picked up a cold. And so yeah, it's been a fun 24 hours of intensive tissue consumption by my nose, but I'm here to tell you about houseplants. And if you want a good laugh, I'd recommend heading over to On The Ledge podcast on TikTok, where you can see me smelling - not once but twice - my Stapelia hirsuta, the South African succulent that has a reputation for stinking and yes, I can confirm it does stink and I made a lot of people laugh in this video because I went in for a sniff not once, but twice. So go and check me out on TikTok. If you haven't already followed On The Ledge podcast there. I'm trying to do a bit more on that platform because it's kind of fun and it's reaching out to a different audience. So if you're on TikTok, go and take a look and you can find out what I think Stapelia hirsuta smells like - it's not anything nice. It's not bouquets of flowers. Let me just tell you that much.
Jane Perrone 02:59
And a thank you to Jennifer who has become a Ledge End, supporting On The Ledge with a regular monthly donation on Patreon, which is super kind Jennifer, thank you so much. And thanks to all the other patrons. I enjoyed a zoom chat with the Ledge End and Superfan level patrons recently and I answered some questions and had a chat about some of my begonias, one of which I managed to maul live during the zoom, which was quite funny. But that was great. So that's one of the other bonuses that you get at the two higher tiers of Patreon, occasional zoom chats, as well as ad-free versions of the show, and two extra episodes in the form of An Extra Leaf every month. Check the show notes to find out more about that.
Jane Perrone 03:47
But now let's crack on with our topic this week, the dead houseplant and what to do. Well, I think the most important thing to start by saying is that - as I say many times on the show, if you've got a dead houseplant sitting in front of you right now, do not feel bad about it because it happens to us all it happens to experienced growers as well as people who are new to growing houseplants. Hopefully as you get more experienced, it happens less often, but it really still does happen. I can guarantee you that, but the wisdom of the more experienced houseplant grower will tell you that sometimes a plant that looks stone cold dead has not actually had it. It may look snuffed out, superseded, terminated, done for, ended, exterminated, vanquished, vanished and indeed departed but you will find that, unlike us humans, lots of houseplants have a trick up their sleeves for coming back from the dead and the secret lies pretty much inevitably under the surface of the soil.
Jane Perrone 04:59
So before you declare your houseplant completely dead, do take it out of the pot and find out what's happening at root level. There are lots of houseplants - I'm going to name a few here - that can revive from their underground storage organs, be those bulbs or rhizomes or tubers. I'm talking about things like Calatheas years, Alocasias, things that grow from bulbs like owl Albuca spiralis the 'frizzle sizzle' succulent with the spiralling leaves, some begonias, the list goes on. So don't waste a plant that could well just be having a little sleep. Or you may have forced it into sleep with your inadequate care, but that's okay, because it may be able to come back. So for example, a Calathea that's lost all its leaves to red spider mite. What I tend to do with those and yes, I have had a few over the years is just chop everything back to nothing - down to stumps, and stick it in a clear plastic bag and see if anything reshoots, because usually it does, and then you get this gorgeous flush of new foliage. Same with Alocasias. The one thing that's going to stop that happening is if those underground storage parts have been rotted by too much water. And the only way to really tell is to get your hands in there and have a little squeeze. Anything that feels mushy, soft, anything other than firm, probably that is the end of your plant. But if you find any little tubers in there, for example, Alocasias, some might have succumbed to rot, while others may feel firm. And so those ones are worth saving, and preserving and trying to sprout again.
Jane Perrone 06:51
It's amazing how much it's possible to be affected by the death of a houseplant. I did read some research by Patch Plants who are houseplant seller here in the UK. And according to the press release, launching their plant paramedic service, which I think was a bit of a sort of a summer stunt in a way. They said that a survey of their customer base found that 10% of the 10,000 respondents said they carried out a funeral for a dead plant. That kind of surprised me. I mean, what do they actually mean by a funeral? I guess this is where it's open to interpretation. What do they mean by a funeral? Does that mean you sort of, you know, quoted that WH Auden poem that's famous from Four Weddings and a Funeral? Do you play some music, a full eulogy? I just can't imagine what that would involve. I'd love to hear from you. If you've held a funeral for your houseplant, I'd love to know. I mean, and but I don't I don't diminish the significance of that. You know, there are houseplants which if I lost, I would be really, really upset. So I can I can fully understand that for some people, they would feel the need to mark that in some kind of way.
Jane Perrone 08:03
So once you've established that your plant really is dead, and all hope is lost. What then? Where do you put your plant in this day and age when we're all concerned about recycling and reusing and reducing? How does that apply to houseplants? Well, one of the most difficult things that you're going to face is what do you do with the plastic label? That's may well be still in the pot? Well, you might be able to put it in your curbside recycling bin. It depends on where you live, whether that type of plastic is recycled where you live or not. If you're in the UK, you can go to the Recycle Now site to have a look. The plant rescuer Sarah Gerrard Jones has just started a campaign trying to get some change in this world of these plastic labels that are supplied with plants which often are incredibly unhelpful in terms of what the plant actually is and how to look after it. Giving very skimpy amounts of information and information that is often wrong. Like you know, this can go in a dark corner and it's a cactus and apart from anything else, these are made often from virgin plastic and often that is very hard to recycle. The pot on the other hand, well, provided you give it a scrub out with hot soapy water, even if the plant has died from some kind of pest, you should be able to reuse it for a future plant. Generally speaking, you'll find that if you get a basin of hot water, add a bit of washing up liquid, maybe add a squirt of bleach as well or disinfectant, that will kill off most pests by combining the hot water with the soap and disinfectant. Just make sure you scrub every surface of the pot inside and out, because obviously eggs and baby pests can go in nooks and crannies. So get yourself an old washing up, brush your nail brush and get in there and give it a good clean, rinse dry and hey presto, you can reuse that pot. Some garden centres do offer recycling and take back schemes for pots. So do check those out if you've got too many. Also, if I have too many pots, usually, I find there's somebody who will take them, school gardening projects and so on will often need pots. So if you can avoid chucking them in the black bin, so they go into landfill. Likewise, if they've been in a cachepot, an outer part, of course, you can reuse that - most of these are made from materials that were lost and lost and lost. Again though, I would recommend scrubbing in hot soapy water with a bit of disinfectant in there. That will just make sure that you're not transferring anything from one plant to another that might be hanging around in the bottom of that pot.
Jane Perrone 11:04
Now we come to the plant itself. If you're lucky enough to have a compost heap, then this is a great place to put your dead house plants. It's where the vast majority of my dead houseplants go. I don't worry too much about pests because things like mealy bugs and red spider mite will not survive a winter in the UK. In my compost heap, they will be killed off by the cold over winter and the resulting compost from those heaps goes on the garden. So everything gets reused. If you've got plants that are very root bound, you may need to get a pruning saw out or similar and chop up that root ball so that it decomposes more quickly. Often they can be really, really tough and difficult to break up, and they'll take a long time to degrade. So if you can get a pruning sort out and chop it up, you may find it therapeutic as well if you're feeling stressed about having killed a houseplant. The only exception to this would be if you have bought your houseplant in the last year, particularly if it's from a non specialist grower a big box store, the likelihood is that plant may well still contain neonicotinoid chemicals in its system, their systemic chemicals that are taken up by the plant and they persist for about a year in plants. So if it's a recently new plant that you've killed, you may want to put it into the bin rather than into the compost heap. If you want to be really careful about looking after the health of your garden.
Jane Perrone 12:42
I think one of the benefits of being able to put your houseplant on the compost heap is it does somehow soften the blow. I kind of feel like when I've put it on the compost heap, at least I know that even though the plant has died, it's going to go on and benefit the rest of my garden. I do love composting. I think I've talked about this on the show before - it's got such a powerful message about regrowth and rebirth and cyclical nature of life. And your houseplants can become part of that. So I do really appreciate having a compost heap to put dead houseplants onto.
Jane Perrone 13:19
Can house plants go in your food waste bin, if you have a food waste bin collection service. I think the answer is generally no. I mean, if it's just a few leaves and a really small plant, you can probably get away with it. But anything bigger, you may find that is frowned upon. It's not food waste, therefore, it's not right to go in that particular bin. If you have a green waste bin should be fine. Again, I would recommend not putting in giant lumps of rootbound compost, but breaking those up if you can. The green waste that's collected from kerbside in big wheelie bins usually is processed at a really high temperature so that anything in there that's problematic, pests and disease-wise will be eradicated by just the temperature at which things are happening. So that's a good option if you have one of those systems operating where you live. If your plant is covered in pests, don't hang around, it really is worth bagging that plant up as quickly as possible and moving it away from any other plants in the vicinity. Because those pests most of them are sucking the sap of the plant and once the plants died, they will naturally start to move on to other plants and indeed they probably have already done so. So if your dead plant is surrounded by other plants, definitely worth checking them, giving them a really careful check over to make sure that whatever pest that is, has not made its way onto your eye other plants because, to be honest, it probably has, I'm afraid tell you. So bag it up. If you've if you use paper bags for your shopping, you could use one of those, get it in there and get it away from your other plants as soon as possible.
Jane Perrone 15:16
What about the substrate the plant is in? Now this is a bit of a vexed one. And probably before I had root mealy bugs, I wouldn't have hesitated to reuse the soil in the pots of plants that have died. However, having now had really bug, which is the root-based equivalent of the mealy bugs that eat the top part of your plants. They suck on the roots under the surface, they're hard to spot, hard to eradicate. I would be very cautious about reusing substrate without sterilising it first because you just don't know what you are passing on. And I'm sure this is how root mealy bugs have spread throughout part of my collection.
Jane Perrone 16:03
How do you go about sterilising? Well, if it wasn't for the fuel crisis, you can switch your oven on and bake them in the oven for an hour or so. I mean, I guess you could do it while you're cooking something else. Although I'm not sure I'd want soil cooking at the same time as my food. People also use the microwave in a similar way. If you're doing it in the oven, then I'd recommend you do at least half an hour at 95 Celsius, which is 200 Fahrenheit. If you're doing it in the microwave, then the timing will depend on the volume. Most people recommend two minutes for a kind of standard size of pot or container that you've put your soil into. If you're doing a lot then you might want to add on an extra minute or two to that timing. It's not very appropriate at this time of year as I record in October, but if you are dealing with this issue, and it's sunny, you can certainly stick the compost in a black plastic sack, put it outside on a hot sunny day and it'll get up to a high enough temperature that will kill most pathogens that might be in that soil. Another thing you can do if you've got your car parked somewhere cars get really really really hot in the sunshine. So see how hot it gets in your car. If it gets above 49 degrees centigrade. Again, get your bag of compost, stick it in the car, seal it up in a black plastic sack, put it in the car, make sure it's had a few hours at that temperature and that way you'll have an energy free way of sterilising your compost. If you've got Leca you can boil that up. I've also heard of people doing the same with Pon but I think the trouble with Pon is it's a lot more difficult to pick the roots out of Pon than it is Leca and if possible you want to get rid of all the the roots from your substrate.
Jane Perrone 18:05
What I would re use houseplant soil for without a moment's hesitation is for putting on the garden as mulch. In my climate, anything that's in there will be killed off over the winter and will not survive with the possible exception of vine weevils which are probably already in the garden. Anyway. We talked about those in the Aeonium episode with Mellie Lewis a couple of weeks ago, and I would certainly use them for outdoor pots if I was repotting something outdoors you could certainly also add the exhausted compost to the top of those pots or add them to existing soil mixes. And yeah, put them on the compost heap. The compost heap is the most wonderful leveller - everything gets mixed around and after amount of time you get good compost for your outdoor plants. So what's not to like?
Jane Perrone 19:04
If you are going to sterilise houseplant compost and reuse it, do bear in mind that it's going to need some kind of additives. If it's been in a pot for quite a while, then it will have broken down. It's best to bulk it out with some new houseplant compost and also it will probably have run out of any nutrients that were in there. So you'll need to start fertilising again straightaway if you're using it 100% Obviously if you're cutting it with new compost that probably will contain some nutrients and just think about making sure that it's nice and fluffy and maybe add some more drainage material if the plant you have warrants it which let's face it, most houseplants do prefer to have an airy compost rather than something that's heavy and doesn't contain many air pockets.
Jane Perrone 19:58
And the final thing to say about dead houseplants is, take a minute to think about how you treated that plant - what's gone wrong - and try and learn some lessons. God knows we've all been there with this. It's sometimes it's just an honest mistake where you've left a plant out and it's got frosty. Sometimes it's just that you haven't had the time, energy, mental space to deal with a plant that's got a problem. But have a think about what's gone wrong, so that if you're going to buy that plant again, you can learn some lessons and make sure that you don't have the same thing happen twice. And sometimes it's just a case of saying, this isn't the right kind of houseplant for me, I cannot provide it with the right conditions in my home. So if you've had 20 mushy succulents that have all died of root rot, because you just don't have anywhere sunny to put them in your house, maybe it's time to think about growing something different. And there's absolutely no shame in that - in choosing your plants according to the conditions that you have, rather than trying to work some kind of miracle and you know, get cacti and succulents to be happy in the darkest corner of your room when you can't afford to buy grow lights at this time. It's all about weighing up, what works for you and what doesn't and that way, hopefully your houseplant experience is far happier.
Jane Perrone 21:30
Now let's tackle the question of the week which comes from June and concerns Monstera with a split personality. And June has done well with this plant because it was grown from a single leaf cutting acquired seven or eight years ago. The trouble is the plant is lush and full on top but sparse at the bottom and June wants to know if there is a remedy or if there's a plant that she can plant around the base.
Jane Perrone 21:57
Now looking at June's plant - I'll put a picture in the show notes - I suspect that this is a Monstera that maybe hasn't had quite enough light over the years. In fact, June says in in the email that they've invested in some Soltech growlights to help the plant. You know this is a plant that grows wild in Mexico. It's not a plant that likes dark shade, it will survive it because it's a tough plant, but it's not going to grow particularly well. Looking at June's plant, though, it actually looks really healthy, it doesn't look particularly problematic. These Monstera deliciosa vines will lose the oldest leaves as they grow. And a lot of vines end up like this with what we call "bare legs", it's a very, very common thing. As the bottom of the vine gets thick, the plant is relying on the leaves high up in the canopy that are getting access to light and it doesn't need those lower leaves so much.
Jane Perrone 22:55
Oftentimes when you see a plant that does look really kind of evenly grown, you'll find that actually they've there's two vines in there or there's a vine that's curved back on itself. So it's been made to look fuller the base by a kind of an illusion, which is absolutely fine, but doesn't mean that there's any extra leaves on the bottom of that plant. I've suggested to doing that taking a top cutting would be fine. The plant hasn't outgrown its space yet, but at some point it will get tall enough that this will be necessary. Anyway, there are two ways of doing this - you could just cut off that cut top cutting just below a node, the point where the leaf stalk petiole joins the stem. You might need a thick pair of scissors or even a little pruning sore or serrated vegetable knife to cut it off. Then you could either stick that in water or in some soil and grow that on and then stick it back into the pot once it's rooted and therefore you'll get a bushier effect or you could go down the air layering route. This way you'll be able to add the cutting straight back into the pot as soon as you chop it off because you'll have allowed roots to grow. And the air layer is very easy with Monsteras, you can literally just get some substrate or moss, coir, that kind of thing - and ball it around a node, wrap it in cling film or foil or anything to hold it in place. You can buy these fancy balls that - plastic balls that you kind of lock around a stem and a node to make it root, but you can just use whatever you have to hand, tie it round and it will start to root. And then you can just cut that stem off just below where you air layered to make the new cutting and then that can go straight back into the soil.
Jane Perrone 24:55
The other way is as you say, June, some underplanting. It's got to be something tough and that's going to suit similar conditions to the Monstera. My two suggestions, were maybe another aroid, like a Philodendron hederaceum which could be planted at the base and would be pretty happy in similar conditions and then could kind of romp around. Or you could put some kind of Epipremnum aureum down there. Again, it would kind of romp around the bottom of the pot, or something like a Peperomia 'Hope', another trailing plot. Again, I find Peperomia 'Hope' incredibly tough and tolerant with those leathery leaves. And it will kind of fill out the base a little bit. And in the case of the aroids - the philodendron, or the epipremnum, they may start climbing up a bit up up with the Monstera as well, which may be a look that you're after. Or if not, you could just keep that plant trimmed, so it just trails down. So there are a couple of different options June. I mean looking at your plant, I'd be very happy to have a Monstera deliciosa that looked like that. It looks very healthy to me. So well done. And that's the key to have good houseplant care is thinking ahead and figuring out how you're going to solve problems as they arise, spotting things before it gets to be a serious problem. So good forward planning June. And if you've got a question for On The Ledge drop me a line ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com.
Jane Perrone 26:26
Well, that's just about all for this week's show. A reminder about my British Library, houseplant and indoor jungles panel on November the seventh. You can livestream it if you're not in the vicinity of London. I'm joining James Wong, Mike Maunder and Carlos Magdalena for a wonderful discussion about houseplants what could be better check out the show notes to book your ticket in person or the live stream now. And I'm also doing a propagation workshop at the Garden Museum on Saturday, the 22nd of October. That's part of the houseplant festival which is on all weekend, the 22nd and the 23rd. So you can book your tickets and come and meet me and my assistant Kelly for a good chat about how propagation works and some practical examples and you'll get some propagations to take home with you. Sound good? Again, check out the show notes and get your tickets booked. And Hand Lens Gang T shirts are available now on my merch website. If you go to Janeperrone.com and click on shop, you'll see them I'm also going to be showing them off on social media shortly. So if you want to become part of the Hand Lens Gang then get yourself a t shirt or hoodie or sweatshirt or a sticker proudly displaying that you're part of the Hand Lens Gang with beautiful illustrations by Pepi Nugro.
Jane Perrone 27:58
Well I hope you're dealing with more alive houseplants than dead ones this week, but whatever you get up to with your plants, do have a fantastic week, and I will be back next Friday for more planty chat. See you Bye bye see you bye bye bye bye bye. See ya bye bye. Love you. Bye. Ciao. Bye. Bye!
Jane Perrone 28:30
The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll by The Joy Drops, The Road We Used to Travel When We Were Young by Komiku and Sundown by Josh Woodward. The ad music was Dill Pickles by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra. All Tracks are licenced under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.
This week I explain how do you tell when a houseplant really is dead, and what to do with its remains; plus I answer a question about a Monstera with a split personality.
My Hand Lens Gang merch is available now! Check it out here.
Check out the notes below as you listen…
First of all, make sure your plant really is dead. Even if all the foliage is brown and crispy, some plants will still be alive below the surface.
Many plants including Calatheas (Geoppertias), many Begonias and Alocasias grow from underground storage organs such as rhizomes or tubers, so check these on your ‘dead’ plant to see if any are firm and still alive. If so these can be resprouted.
If your plant really is dead, what do you do with the pot and labels, the plant and the substrate? Plastic labels are not necessarily recyclable (see The Plant Rescuer’s campaign on plastic plant labels) but check with your local facilities (the Recycle Now website is useful if you are in the UK).
Plastic pots are often hard to recycle too but usually these can be cleaned and reused many times - or given away for someone else to reuse. Make sure you wash them out with hot soapy water, scrubbing all corners, nooks and crannies - I use an old washing up brush and add a squirt of bleach or disinfectant to make sure no pests survive! Do the same with any cache pots before reuse.
Plants with pest infestation should be immediately bagged up and dealt with away from your other plants (check surrounding plants for the same pest, as they may well have spread). Plants and substrates can go onto the compost heap provided they have not been treated with neonicotinoids (systemic insecticides) in the past year. In temperate climates, most pests will not survive the winter, with the probably exception of vine weevils (more on vine weevils in the Aeonium episode).
You can also add houseplant substrates as a mulch on outside pots or beds.
If you want to reuse substrates, it is worth sterilising the soil to remove pests and disease pathogens: you can do this in an oven at 95C/200F for at least half an hour, or 2-3 minutes in a microwave. If your car gets really hot (49C-ish), you can seal compost into a black plastic sack and leave in the car for several hours for the same effect. Leca (expanded clay pebbles) and pon can be boiled. You may want to mix this with new houseplant substrate, drainage material and nutrients before using on your plants.
Make sure you reflect on why a plant has died: perhaps it’s time to try growing something different or less demanding, or trying the same plant but taking a different approach to its care.
June’s Monstera deliciosa.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
June’s Monstera deliciosa is looking a little bare at its base: is there a way around this problem? It’s worth noting that this is totally normal for this plant, but it is also normal to want to make your plant look as bushy and lush as possible!
Air layering the plant or taking a top cutting that is rooted and planted back into the pot will help the plant look bushier.
Or June can try underplanting: I suggest Philodendron hederaceum (heartleaf philodendron) or devil’s ivy (Epipremnum aureum) or Peperomia ‘Hope’ which will climb/trail and fill in around the base of the pot.
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 and Sundown by Josh Woodward . The ad music is Whistling Rufus by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra.