An array of cacti and succulents on display in Tony Irons’ greenhouse. Photograph: Jane Perrone.

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TRANSCRIPT

[0:00] Music.

[0:15] Jane Perrone If you are worrying right now that you have traveled through time unexpectedly because On The Ledge shouldn't be out for another week - relax - this is a bonus episode - an extra - a freebie for you to enjoy. And in part two of my succulent extravaganza i'm in the Bristol area again meeting cactus and succulent grower and seller, Tony Irons, to talk all things lithops and more.

[0:50] How the devil are you? My name is Jane Perrone, and I am host of On The Ledge podcast, usually a show that comes out every other week, but it's May, everyone's growing, everything's getting rather fecund and so is this podcast so there's going to be a few bonus episodes in the next few weeks this episode is a follow-up to episode 291 where I travelled down to Bristol in the UK to visit hayley stevens of mint plants now in that interview hayley mentioned a chap app called tony tony irons and tony lives a few miles away from Mint Plants specifically a place called Portishead which may ring a bell if you are aware of the English trip hop band of the same name. And he is a prolific cactus and succulent grower and seller - so I headed over to his greenhouse after my visit to Hayley to find out about his collection growing and selling cacti and succulents and in particular the wonderful world of Lithops aka the stone plants.

[2:06] Music.

[2:12] Tony Irons I'm Tony Irons, I'm a cacti and succulents grower and propagator. I've been here in Portishead for about 30 years and I've had this large glass house for about 20 years at that.

[2:26] Jane Perrone I just said as I came in this is probably the best organisedgreenhouse that I've seen. It's absolutely pristine, everything is in its place. I guess this is how you have to be when you're growing plants for sale so your collection here ranging from various different genera and cacti and succulents talk me through some of your favourites- is there anything here that that you're never going to sell,that's particularly special?

[2:53] Tony Irons Right I specialize in Lithops which are living stones these are Lithops down here which I don't sell those because they're stock plants, I wait for the bees to pollinate the flowers and the bee is me with a faux squirrel brush. Ao I produce my own seed...

[3:14] Jane Perrone Sorry what kind of brush?

[3:15] Tony Irons A faux squirrel - not real squirrel

[3:18] Jane Perrone okay okay

[3:19] Tony Irons It's a very light brush that just sort of tickles...

[3:22] Jane Perrone Feathery, sort of, okay...

[3:23] Tony Irons And Iproduce my own seed. You can see in this one there the pods are coming through Yes. Then in the autumn of each year I pick them off, packet the seeds up and then I start to sow indoors in the propagator from November each year. And mostly I sow about 9,000 seeds a year.

[3:51] Jane Perrone Wow! And what is it about these stone plants that really o bviously catches your attention? They're your favourites, what is it that appeals?

[4:00] Tony Irons I grew into it. I used to grow the whole range of cacti and succulents but gradually Ifound I was able to look after Lithops, grow them, pollinate them and sell them, because to some people they are hard to deal with. You've got to learn when to water, when not to water, what sun to give them etc etc. A lot of people can't get on with it, because it's so different to most of the other cacti and succulents.

[4:28] Jane Perrone Well give us your potted - excuse the pun - guide! I mean this is where where people get scared because I know, you know, gotta not water at this point but not at this point break it down for us Tony...

[4:38] Tony Irons Right with these plants, we're talking in March, but we don't water the Lithops until they've changed their bodies, which they do over the winter, and the new bodies come through. So we start watering at the end of May each year. We carry on watering normally until about August. Then I reduce the watering until come October, they've had their last water. From October through to the next May, no water at all. They semi-hibernate. And during that semi-hibernation, the old bodies gradually shrink and the new, more colourful bodies come through.

[5:20] Jane Perrone I like the way you're describing them as bodies because they do have quite a sort of a fleshy quality to them. Presumably this adaptation is designed for them to survive quite harsh conditions where they grow in Africa.

[5:33] Tony Irons Yes, most of them come from South Africa and Namibia. They've got to contend with the goats, with the weather. They live on very little water. A lot of it is water blown up from the foreshore, up the valleys. and they conserve the moisture in those bodies. You've also got the problem of natives, new roads, new trackways, new villages forming that can decimate a population, because some of them just grow on one hillside in one area and nowhere else. So they really need to be nurtured.

[6:14] Jane Perrone And the flowers are fascinating too. And you've got these interesting seed pods that follow. What are the - how do you get them to flower? Can they sometimes not flower if they're not happy?

[6:27] Tony Irons Well if you look above you in the glass house I've got a fourth bench up there yes okay attracts the sun right in the top, now that tries to mimic the intensity of the sun in Africa and that way they can grow just above soil level without getting elongated, struggling to get the sun. So I provide a lot of sun and that's it.

[6:54] Jane Perrone That is the secret! And I guess that might be the problem growing th ese on a windowsill that maybe you they do start to get a bit... I've seen ones where they're sort of they're they're not supposed to be sort of stretching up.

[7:07] Tony Irons And they look ugly.

[7:08] Jane Perrone Yeah they don't look great like that so i guess if you're growing them indoors maybe a grow light is a good supplement too.

[7:14] Tony Irons Yeah yeah and also you don't generally see them ingarden shops, plant shops. Basically because they can't provide the light they need. If they're in the shop, within a month they start to get elongated and the staff don't know how to water them.

[7:29] Jane Perrone So when you do water them from May to tailing off after August down to no water from October, how are you doing it? Does it matter top, bottom? It doesn't particularly - because of the amount I've got here I have to use a hose and the problem where the glasshouse is, the water is hard, so consequently when you water from above you can get markings on the body. Although it disappears, it's not ideal, but Ican't do anything elseabout it. To water by a watering can would take two thirds of a day: I don't think myback would stand it.

[8:06] Jane Perrone Absolutely and have you got any favorite lithops, are you hybridising? Producing your own?

[8:13] Tony Irons I have got my own hybrid.

[8:15] Jane Perrone Okay, let's have a look at that.

[8:16] Tony Irons It's called 'Ironstone'.

[8:18] Jane Perrone Oh, well, that's a great name.

[8:20] Tony Irons Because Lithops are nicknamed living stones, and the brown markings on the body look like lumps of ironstone from South Africa.

[8:31] Jane Perrone Ah, OK.

[8:31] Tony Irons So I've had to write a description for it, get it recognised. And you can see here there's two seed pods which come the autumn. I'll be able to pick out and sow more seed.

[8:45] Jane Perrone I describe these seed pods as looking like a Trivial Pursuit counter. I guess that's, you know, that's a slight licence. But they are sort of these round little nubs. And they're very clever at conserving their seed, aren't they?

[9:01] Tony Irons In the wild, they wait until the rains come to open the seed pods because the rain activates the seed pod to open and 85% of the seed spread out around them. But they're clever. They're not sure if that rain is going to be sufficient to germinate the seed in the ground so they wait and then three weeks later if the rains have come and are substantial the other 15 percent of seed will fall out and blow out from the seed pod.

[9:35] Jane Perrone I guess they've got to sort of hedge their bets a little bit to make sure they can survive. And what is the parentage of that 'Ironstone' cultivar?

[9:43] Tony Irons I a couple of Lithops species that have been crossed and it's bred so that when seeds are produced, the new seedlings all show the new characteristic.

[9:57] Tony Irons And is that something you enjoy doing, that hybridisation? Is it fun?

[10:01] Tony Irons I enjoyed it. It was nice having one that I was able to name myself. It was accepted. It had to be written up in a journal and published, I think it was about 2015. And I've seen them in a catalogue from Sweden, the seed for sale.

[10:20] Jane Perrone Oh okay.

[10:21] Tony Irons In fact my wife turned to me she said they're allowed to sell your your seed? I said of course they are!

[10:25] Jane Perrone And the other thing that i think people worry about with with Lithops is substrate - you probably aren't going to succeed if you just put them in regular houseplant compost and I'm sure you have your own special formulation what do you recommend though?

[10:42] Tony Irons For sowing the seed I sow in 50 percent by volume, vermiculite and 50% John Innes seed compost. It leaves it nice and pliable to prick out the seedlings very easily. Any John Innes two or three has got a lot of goodness in it that the seeds don't need at a young age. Plants will need it, but seedlings don't.

[11:09] Jane Perrone And then once you've got them potted on and they're in their mature form, what do you use then?

[11:16] Tony Irons I use the same cactus and succulent mix as I do for all the other plants. A lot of grit in with it. Peat is being phased out this year, so next year there won't be any peat in the compost at all.

[11:31] Jane Perrone And has that been a tricky change? Have you been experimenting with different things?

[11:35] Tony Irons Yes, a couple of nurseries have given me peat-free compost to try out, but to be honest, it's utter rubbish. There's a lot of experimentation needed, isn't there, to get it right? The problem with peat, I mean, it does damage the environment by using it, but also it attracts sciarid fly and such, and with Lithops, you don't want little scourfly nibbling your seedlings. And the imitation ones that use perhaps ground down bits of plastic and so on, is just as bad so really they haven't got a true peat- free compost available that is suitable for cacti and succulents yet.

[12:17] Jane Perrone Yeah but you found something that you're happy enough with to...

[12:21] Tony Irons I found this one which i've started repotting everything in that soil,you run your finger through it yeah it's It's lovely and gritty.

[12:31] **Jane Perrone **Yep, yep, looks perfect.

[12:34] Music.

[12:42] Jane Perrone More from Tony Irons' greenhouse shortly, but a couple of little reminders for you in the meantime. Derek Haynes, the chocolate botanist, is going to be on the show answering your botany questions. Yes, yours. So please do remember to send me your questions concerning anything to do with plant science, your house plants, how they grow. Derek can help. So drop me a line to on the ledge podcast at Gmail dot com. And we will be rounding them up in a special episode with Derek, which should be enormous fun. Also, it's not too late to get tickets for the Malvern show. I am going to be there on the 11th and 12th of May. It's on on the 9th and 10th of May as well. There's a special houseplant festival at the show for the first time this year. It takes place in Malvern in Worcestershire and the houseplant festival will be packed with really amazing planty people like the bearded plantaholic, Ben from Worcester Terrariums and a whole host of trade stands from houseplant sellers ranging from Ottershaw Cacti and The Aroid Attic to Dibley's Nurseries and Between Two Thorns. So you can buy plants, learn about plants, plants talk about plants. I'm going to be doing a live podcast recording as well which will be enormous fun, so do check out the show notes for a link to buy tickets or just visit RHS malvern that's m-a-l-v-e-r-n dot co dot uk, I would love to see you there, it's going to be so much fun. I will have copies of my book Legends of the Leaf and Houseplant Gardener in a Box available for sale and I will happily sign your copy whether you bought it from me or not. I am also lining up a series of episodes that I'm calling Late Night On The Ledge. So these are going to be episodes for adults only with very much planty themes but striking out a little bit from my usual core content. So, for example, there's going to be an episode about planty tattoos. If you can think of something in particular that you'd like me to cover in one of these late night on the ledge episodes, then do drop me a line. I'm still taking suggestions.

[15:14] Jane Perrone Right, back to my chat with Tony Irons to find out more about the tartan tennis ball.

[15:22] Music.

[15:30] Jane Perrone Now you've got one of my absolute favourite cacti, sorry, succulents here, it's not a cactus, Euphorbia obesa. I remember seeing that in the Dr. Hessayon's houseplant expert as a child, just being absolutely captivated, just thinking it was the most amazing thing. I think euphorbias are wonderful succulents because there's just so many, obviously it's a huge genus, not just succulents, but there are some really wonderful ones. I think one of my favourite names for it is it called the tartan golf ball or the tartan tennis ball I've heard it called?

[16:04] Tony Irons I've not heard that, I must admit I tend to use the latinized names because absolutely when we used to trade abroad, German, French, Russian, whatever, if you use a Latin name you understood what it was, whereasby calling it a golf ball or bunny's ears, it changes from each country.

[16:25] Jane Perrone Absolutely. I mean, am I right in thinking that this is a euphorbia where you have male and female plants? Am I right in that?

[16:31] Tony Irons That's it, yes. You can see two here, the stamens you can tell which is male and which is female. And people do ask me to send plants, one male, one female.

[16:43] Jane Perrone Right.

[16:44] Tony Irons I can do that when they're flowering, but the rest of the year I can't.

[16:48] Jane Perrone Yeah, of course. Only when they're flowering can you actually tell.

[16:51] Tony Irons That's it. and also you probably don't realize, they can change their sex during their lifetime.

[16:56] Jane Perrone Oh really?

[16:57] Tony Irons Yeah, so you could end up with one of each and then find one changes - you're left scratching your head wondering why you can't get any viable seed.

[17:07] Jane Perrone That's amazing! I knew that happened with other plants but I didn't realize that could happen with Euphorbia. in a way it's quite a basic plant, it's just a lump of plant tissue but it's got these amazing talents.

[17:19] Tony Irons But they were here on the earth before you and I.

[17:23] Jane Perrone Exactly.

[17:23] Tony Irons So they've had a lot of experience on how to treat the climate and conditions that they're thriving in. So they've probably learned a lot more than us.

[17:35] Jane Perrone Absolutely. And next to it, you've got the lovely Senecio. I'm just going to read this.

[17:42] Tony Irons Senecio, yeah.

[17:42] Jane PerroneWhat is it? Stapeliiformis.

[17:44] Tony Irons Stapeliiformis, yeah.

[17:46] Jane Perrone I'm seeing a lot of that recently around. It's got this incredible sort of striated...

[17:55] Tony Irons Single stem.

[17:58] Jane Perrone Marked single stem. It's kind of curious, but I imagine that is also... How do you say it? You don't say Senecio, you say Senecio.

[18:05] Tony Irons You can say Senecio. It's a bit like tomato to me.

[18:08] Jane Perrone Indeed, indeed. You know how all the names I say, I say them on the basis of how I first read them when I read them in a cactus book about 40 years ago.

[18:17] Tony Irons I still struggle on the names. Yeah, it is hard. I had a friend come back from Spain and they said in the capital they were selling those as a single stem, as a pencil succulent, five euros each. But I've never seen them selling them in the UK like that.

[18:38] Jane Perrone Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Different countries have different ways of doing things. I mean you've got a lovely sort of collection of different small you know nice sort of I don't know what that is it was that of like a five centimetre pot sizes that you're selling?

[18:52] Tony Irons Yes these are six and a half they are Dutch pots - Kuma pots - which are biodegradable, because in Holland they grow so much plants they found that the tip couldn't cope with the soil the dead plants and the pots, they just weren't working, so they brought in a law, whereas these pots, if they get damaged or the sun damages it, within 18 months it has to degrade down to nothing.We don't have that over here in the UK, but I think that's a great way of making sure you're looking after, well, the planet.

[19:33] Jane Perrone Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And so these have all been recently potted up. Are you starting to water these now? Are we getting into watering season? Where are we now? Middle of March?

[19:42] Tony Irons Just had the second watering last weekend. Because we're now middle of March. It's been a very mild winter. Things have been showing signs of growing. And with the new soil I've brought in, I've been potting them all up in new soil so I can get a good idea this year how they're reacting.

[20:04] Jane Perrone And any other particular favourites here that we need to mention? I mean, I'm seeing some really..

[20:08] Tony Irons There's so many aren't there?

[20:08] Jane Perrone I know that's the trouble.

[20:11] Tony Irons I love this one, a Gymnocalycium friedrichii. Colours and the markings on that body they're on their own roots - it's a lovely reddish brown and when it flowers, it's a coloured flower. Most gymnos are very pastel in colour which aren't too attractive but friedrichii has a nice pink flower. So that's been very popular this year. I've had quite a few in and i've had to restock.

[20:42] Jane Perrone Is is that the one that people often graft the gymnos onto other things?

[20:47] Tony Irons Yep.

[20:48] Jane Perrone Ah yes yes then they call it the moon cactus don't they what is that graft? Tell us about the graft, the rootstock?

[20:55] Tony Irons Well the thing is if you if you have the yellow, the reds in the body, you're not going to get chlorophyll so it has to be grafted onto a stock that's green it enables it to grow it won't live on its own if the stock died and the top was left you've got to graft it onto green stock to get proper growth so that's why you always see those grafted.

[21:23] Jane Perrone And is that going to last forever or is this something where you it's not going to eventually the yellow bit's going to get miserable?

[21:32] Tony Irons It's not going to last that long because the stock to my mind isn't that sturdy, but a younger person or someone just getting into cacti and succulents it looks colourful. Yes. And if it encourages someone to learn about a plant and to grow it they can then go on to the really difficult ones.

[21:52] Jane Perrone Absolutely and is this Hylocereus the base there, the rootstock?

[21:56] Tony Irons A lot of them are yes, you get different types of stock, but it's not particularly sturdy.

[22:05] Jane Perrone So as you say, drawing you in, but not necessarily something that long-term is going to be successful. But you've got all your Lithops here ready to sell, presumably these are all your plants that you've potted up. Really so they're just so cute, I think that's one of the things that people love. And here we can see - is this what we're seeing here where the new body is starting to come through.

[22:30] Tony Irons That's it, the old body is losing its colour and the new body is taking the goodness from the old body so these here you're looking at will get no water until the end of may when that would have happened the old bodies would have virtually disappeared and you then got the new body.

[22:49] Jane Perrone They're absolutely delightful. I mean each one is different isn't it? You could spend hours studying these and never get bored because they are also different. Iguess designed to match their can be camouflaged for their wherever they're growing in the wild. A re these all relatively the same level of difficulty or are there any that are like well if you're just starting out start out with this one?

[23:15] Tony Irons Well uh if someone's interested and they're just starting i'll tell them which ones to avoid because some like less water less mollycoddling than others so I do tell them so that they don't lose them but when you're, pricking them on repotting them if you damage the roots that's often fatal right you've got to be very careful. I've got a friend a South African friend who lives in this country, he's got a house in South Africa and he knows the areas they grow in. When he brings them back to this country, he's able to pop them up in the soil mix that replicate the soil mix from where they came from over there. And they're a bit like chameleons. They imitate the surroundings to blend in, either stand out or to blend down so they don't get eaten.

[24:12] Jane Perrone I just love this one in the front here where it's just got the tiniest little slit in the top where it's just coming through. It's just they're just so they're just so fascinating is it best to grow them individually like like this, and obviously they're going to clump up, but do people ever sort of mix and match different species in the same pot?

[24:29] Tony Irons You can do that but I wouldn't recommend it - it's like buying a pack of garden flowers, they're all going to be different size, germinate at different rates, I think it's best just to buy a small pack of one variety, grow them. If you've grown them well you can sell on any excess, or swap with a friend that's doing the same.

[24:51] Jane Perrone Now one of the things i do on my podcast every year is a sowalong where I encourage people to grow plants from seed and obviously cacti and succulents are fantastic things to use for this particular project. Apart from lithops any other particular cacti would you just recommend going for a mixed pa ck or there are any particular ones that are easy or particularly fun?

[25:12] Tony Irons No I wouldn't go for a mixed pack full stop. Go for certain species, Mammillarias are a type of cactus that have been around for a long time, but when they produce flowers, they're little flowers, but they form a ring around the growth centre, so 30 or 40 flowers in a ring near the top of a cactus really look really look attractive. So Mammillaria, they're fairly easy to grow and they grow fairly quick and can get large if you want them large.

[25:46] Jane Perrone Yeah that's a great tip and obviously the BCSS has its seed scheme which you can get seed from very reasonably and and increasingly lots of other places selling cactus seed as well now um you're right it's fun and the thing i like about cactus from seed is, unlike say growing i don't know tomatoes from seed they don't take up too much room you've got quite a long time when they're just sort of doing their thing in their seed tray before you have to do anything with them.

[26:12] Tony Irons Um tomatoes very quickly you've got to prick them out into grow bag or whatever and uh before the season's at an end the plants died and you've reaped the harvest um one lithops this size their minimum of three years old and i wouldn't sell them below three years of age right and where is there anything that you that you can't get your hands on at the minute that you'd like to sell but but it's just not available or too difficult?

[26:41] Tony Irons Yes, there are some, but they've generally been unavailable commercially. Basically because they store the seed, perhaps some of the Mammillarias, choice ones, when they flower, they store the seed pack within the body of the plant, and you can't get to the seed to get it out. So it makes them rare, so it means the availability of the seed is very limited, and very dear.

[27:11] Jane Perrone I hadn't thought of that but that's a really good point! And when you get to the point where you're ready to prick out your - I mean you've got some things over here that are in trays here, are these things that you're ready to prick out that have been grown from seed?

[27:25] Tony Irons Yes these are big enough they're probably about 4 years old, but I've not had the space to prick them out. They're Mesembryanthemumfrom South Africa again that I'll prick out into one of these six and a half centimetre pots.

[27:40] Jane Perrone I love looking at these. They're just like a little sort of jewel box of different colours and textures, aren't they? Do you ever sort of see somebody come up and buy something and you're like, oh, I don't really want to sell that. Probably not.

[27:52] Tony Irons I did at first. I did at first. It was a bit of a wrench, but I'm doing it commercially. This isn't a collection you're looking at. It's what I sell. But it's a selection that changes from year to year so I never get bored. With a collection they can sit there a bit like fossils in certain cases and you're not seeing the whole variety of cacti and succulents in front of you. This way I'm forever learning about new varieties and so on.

[28:26] Jane Perrone One other thing that's catching my eye here is this Crassula 'Buddha's Temple', that'sone of one of those plants that you see all over sort of Instagram. It's just so in a way bizarre-looking with this amazing nested set of leaves. The crassulas are an amazing plant family. Hayley and I were talking about this yesterday. I think they might be my favourite genus in the succulents. But are those hard to grow, those crassulas, the Buddha's Temple specifically?

[28:56] Tony Irons I find Buddha's Temples specifically are hard. They don't like to be over-watered, but there again, you've still got to water them so that the patination comes out. But yes, they're very hard. once they flower you then find at that point where the dead flowers and stems die, you often get three or four new 'Buddha's Temple' come, so it starts to spread and then it won't stand upright, so it's probably best just to cut the new stems off after a year year or two and start new plants.

[29:31] Jane Perrone And they're easy enough to propagate presumably like all the crassulas yeah.

[29:34] Tony Irons You just stick them in some sort of compost like this, there you can see that's the old leaf and it's rooted with new shoots coming out and that's I think within the last year just waiting for those to root.

[29:49] Jane Perrone Are you doing lots of shows this summer are you out and about?

[29:53] Tony Irons I'm not doing too many, it's the bigger ones i tend to do now and online, speaking to other nurseries, a lot of people aren't having the visitors to the nurseries as we used to, whether that's due to covid or whatever but internet sales are you know really going well.

[30:12] Jane Perrone That's great to hear well it's fantastic to see uh you're going strong and such a lovely collection of plants and yeah it's delightful to see such good - what's the word? Husbandry I guess is the word - it's just delightful! So I'm sure I'll bump into you at some of the shows this summer and probably have my wallet open for some more cacti and succulents. Just don't tell my husband.

[30:39] Tony Irons You'll have to hide them in the boot so you can't smuggle them indoors.

[30:42] Jane Perrone He won't notice. I mean, you know, they're not that big. I'm not going to buy anything huge. It's all good.

[30:46] Music.

[30:53] Jane Perrone That is all for this week's show. Thank you so much to Tony Irons. And do check the show notes at janeperrone.com for a full transcript of this interview, of this episode and links to Tony's website and other information that you might find useful. I'll be back next week with more planty chat just for you. Have a great week. Bye.

[31:29] Jane Perrone 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, and Dizzy Spells by Josh Woodward. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons.

[31:42] Music.

Host Jane Perrone talks to cactus and succulent grower and seller Tony Irons about some of his favourite plants, including Lithops.

This week’s guest

Tony Irons is based in Portishead near Bristol in the southwest of the UK. He sells plants through on eBay and in person at various shows. His website is here.
Find Tony on Instagram as @tonyirons_cacti.
Tony works closely with the guest of last week’s On The Ledge podcast, Hayley Stephens of Mint Plants. Listen to that interview here.

Meet me at Malvern!

I am going to be at the Malvern Spring show in Worcestershire on May 11 and 12 popping up for a talk and a live podcast recording as part of the new festival of houseplants organised by Green Rooms Market. Mint Plants will also be there and I’ll be talking to Hayley on stage on May 12. Book your tickets now and get 10% off with code JANERMSF10 - this code is valid from Monday 6 May until 23:59 on Saturday 11 May. All show details are here.

Tony Irons in his greenhouse. Photograph: Jane Perrone

Crassula 'Buddha's Temple' — *Crassula* 'Buddha's Temple' is not the easiest succulent to grow, but it’s gained popularity for its unusual structure. Photograph: Jane Perrone.

Check the show notes as you listen…

The biodegradable plant pots Tony uses are made by Kuma in the Netherlands.
Among the plants we mention are:
- Lithops (stone plants). Read Tony’s tips for growing Lithops here. Want to see whether a Lithops seed capsule really looks like a Trivial Pursuit counter? Check out this video.
- Euphorbia obesa aka the tartan tennis ball. Plants are either male or female. This is known as being dioecious.
- Senecio stapeliiformis aka pickle plant.
- Crassula ‘Buddha’s Temple’ (pictured).
- Gymnocalycium friedrichii.
- Moon cacti - colourful Gymnocalycium cacti grafted onto a rootstock, often Hylocereus.
- Mammillarias (good to sow for beginners - find out more about growing cacti and succulents from seed in On The Ledge episode 210).

*Senecio stapeliiformis* aka the pickle plant. Photograph: Jane Perrone

Titanopsis seedlings growing in trays in Tony Irons’ greenhouse. Photograph: Jane Perrone.

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Contributions from On The Ledge listeners help to pay for all the things that have made the show possible over the last few years: equipment, travel expenses, editing, admin support and transcription.

Want to make a one-off donation? You can do that through my ko-fi.com page, or via Paypal.

Want to make a regular donation? Join the On The Ledge community on Patreon! Whether you can only spare a dollar or a pound, or want to make a bigger commitment, there’s something for you: see all the tiers and sign up for Patreon here.

NEW! You can now join my Patreon as a free member or take out a seven-day free trial of my Ledge End tier. Visit my Patreon page for details.

The Crazy Plant Person tier just gives you a warm fuzzy feeling of supporting the show you love.
The Ledge End tier gives you access to one extra episode a month, known as An Extra Leaf, as well as ad-free versions of the main podcast and access to occasional patron-only Zoom sessions.
My Superfan tier earns you a personal greeting from me in the mail including a limited edition postcard, as well as ad-free episodes.

If you like the idea of supporting On The Ledge on a regular basis but don't know what Patreon's all about, check out the FAQ here: if you still have questions, leave a comment or email me - ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. If you're already supporting others via Patreon, just click here to set up your rewards!

If you prefer to support the show in other ways, please do go and rate and review On The Ledge on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen. It's lovely to read your kind comments, and it really helps new listeners to find the show. You can also tweet or post about the show on social media - use #OnTheLedgePodcast so I’ll pick up on it!