Episode 296: live podcast recording with Worcester Terrariums and the Bearded Plantaholic

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Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:15] Jane Perrone Hello and welcome to On The Ledge Podcast. I'm your host Jane Perrone and if you're looking for planty information and chat, you're in the right place.

[0:28] Jane Perrone Earlier this month I was at the Malvern Spring Show in Malvern in Worcestershire here in the UK and I was delighted to be part of the very first houseplant festival organised by Green Greenrooms Market which has recently been taken over by Sarah Gerrard-Jones the plant rescuer who you may remember from her interviews on this very podcast and also Ian Morrison from the plant fertilizer brand Liquid Goldleaf. Now they are doing exciting things with Greenrooms Market and that includes this house plant festival so this was in a building at the Malvern show show and brought together loads of wonderful houseplant sellers plus talks plus workshops it was a cornucopia for any houseplant lover and I was very glad to be there hosting the main stage on the Saturday and Sunday of the show and also doing a talk about my book Legends of the Leaf plus I recorded a podcast with the legends that are Ben Newell aka Worcester Terrariums and and Johnny Balchandani, better known as the Bearded Plantaholic. And today you're going to hear a recording of that live podcast.

[1:47] Jane Perrone Very, very slight warning. There are no swear words in here. However, there is a plant name which sounds a bit rude. So if you're not sure about whether you want to hear that, it sounds rude, but it's just a plant name. So I'll put a list of the plant names that we talk about or we do a little quiz with in the show notes. So if you're not sure if you want young ears to hear that, then do go and check out the name first in the show notes. But I would encourage you to listen because it's awfully fun and includes questions from the, half hour or so of live podcasting. And also go and check out the show notes for more information about Green Rooms Market. If you've never heard of the Malvern show before, it's a wonderful show set in the beautiful countryside of Worcestershire. I highly recommend going if you haven't been before. It was my first time and it's an outdoor garden show, but there is now this houseplant element, which I thought was a really great addition to the show. I'll put a link in there so you can find out more about Malvern. But for now, let's get on with the live recording from the Malvern Houseplant Festival.

[3:01] Music.

[3:06] Jane Perrone It's time to say hello to my guests. Now, I'll introduce myself first. My name is Jane Perrone, and I make a podcast called On The Ledge. It's an indoor gardening podcast. Hands up who doesn't know what a podcast is. any non-podcast listeners here everyone more or less it's just a radio show on your phone or your computer um and if you want to go and have a listen if you're not sick of the sound of my voice there are 290 plus episodes to listen to all about indoor gardening so if you've got a question about your house plants then you can find the answer there but let's welcome today's guests uh we've got the wonderful you're already am i on you're on you're not on i'm on okay yeah uh we got have we got you can you introduce yourself please johnny, Hang on, we've got a slide. I will introduce Ben while we're waiting. So this is Ben Newell of Worcester Terrariums. You're probably familiar with this chap. He's gone viral. He's got an amazing following. He creates incredible terrariums. And next to him, we have the bearded plantaholic, Johnny Balchandani. Would you like to introduce yourself, chaps?

[4:26] Jonny Balchandani Ben, let's take it away.

[4:27] Ben Newell I feel like I'm really loud.

[4:29] Jonny Balchandani You are exceedingly loud.

[4:30] Jane Perrone We love you loud. Loud is good.

[4:33] Ben Newell So I am a content creator, I was working as a postman up until just over a year ago. I've just had a book come out with DK uh called Hello Tiny World which released on May the 2nd. I essentially make videos about terrariums and the interesting animals that you put inside them I've had some fun brand deals with disney and marvel and paramount and yeah it certainly beats being a postman although I did enjoy that that was a lot of fun.

Jane Perrone Okay I'll be asking you afterwards about how to make sure my parcels get delivered in good shape but now let's move on to you Jonny, you're you're a larger than life character in the world of houseplants, how can we sum you up tell tell us about you.

Jonny Balchandani I believe I attempt to make some good content about house plants in a very easy way to digest with comedy as I think that comedy helps us to absorb and learn. So that's basically who I am, Jonny, and I'm a plantaholic.

[5:34] Jane Perrone Well, it's great to have you on the stage. I'm very honoured to be chatting to you today because these are two towering figures in the world of houseplants. So if you have houseplant questions, there will be a Q&A at the end. So I hope we'll have some time for that. But I want to dig in a little bit deeper into how you guys got into this wonderful hobby and what you're growing and how you're growing it. Now, on my show, I have a section called Meet the Listener, and I get people to answer five questions. And I'm going to get you guys to answer these five questions. Don't worry, this is not mastermind. There's going to be no hard challenges. You're going to be okay with this. But the first question is, and this one to Jonny.

[6:19] Jonny Balchandani Okay, ready. Do I have a time frame?

[6:22] Jane Perrone No, no, no. There's not going to be a buzzer or anything. You're okay. And I won't be judging you on your answer.

[6:27] Ben Newell She's going to be judging. Maybe some points at the end. We'll see how it goes. When did you get into houseplants? And how did it all start? And why do you think you were attracted to this wonderful world of growing stuff?

[6:38] Jonny Balchandani Well, to be honest, I think not houseplants themselves, but by default, I grew up helping sometimes my mother out, who does look like my sister today. Day she's this red lady here in the front um who was specialized in outdoor plants was very passionate had a huge garden and I'd go and be kind of forced in occasionally to helping out which was enjoyable but i didn't find the actual plants geraniums or busy lizzie's very exciting at the time the leaf structure didn't really flick my switch um and so over time i thought oh oh, let me look at some other type of plants that look a bit cooler in my eyes. Obviously, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And then I slowly, probably about 15 years ago now, discovered aroids and indoor tropical plants and started growing my collection. So it stems probably from the mother. And then once I found my flavor for plants, I kind of went into the house plant. And it's been 15 years of just growing the collection into the jungle that it is today.

[7:43] Jane Perrone And it really is a jungle - I recommend if you haven't looked at the Bearded Plantaholic social media that you go and check it out because there are some pretty impressive plants that you've got there I know i have begonia envy for your beautiful cane begonia.

[7:58] Jonny Balchandani Oh the maculata! So there was this really ugly very very tall man, quite scary, I'd steer away from him if you ever see him = called Ben. He was a postman before and he actually gave me the begonia when it was was this big because he couldn't he just couldn't grow it he was useless and said no there was not enough space at the time he didn't have enough space and he was very kind yeah to have spread some love like we do in the plant community and he shared the plant with me and then every time it appears in a video...

Ben Newell He never tags me ...

Jonny Balchandani I never tag him and he's very sour about it because he wasn't able to grow.

[8:36] Ben Newell I get zero credit for that.

[8:38] Jonny Balchandani Yeah zero credit because you didn't grow it but no he gave He gave it to me. I do mention him. He's just sour. It's a little bit of jealousy, but we do love each other. He's actually a really good friend of mine, so I'm allowed to tease.

[8:49] Ben Newell Yeah, that's true.

[8:50] Jane Perrone I mean, I think some people in the audience probably want to know your secret with that Begonia maculata, because I've had at least one person at the houseplant query desk today saying, how do you grow this plant? The leaves keep dropping off. Any top tips?

[9:03] Jonny Balchandani I mean, yes, to be fair. I mean, like all begonia, I suppose... Not over-watering, but always keeping your soil moist is really, really key. If you do let it dry out too much or if it's over-watered, those leaves are going to drop. Also, light. It does actually like, in my opinion, quite a lot of light. So some people don't give it enough light with some begonias and they don't grow. Also, one key thing for me about plants in general, but also the maculata, is weirdly trimming it will actually encourage, like we spoke about briefly yesterday, more growth. So because they're cane begonias, they've got little canes that come out of the ground. Each time you snip a cane, that cane will produce at the very least two more shoots. Not only that, but it'll also stimulate more growth at the base.

[9:55] Ben Newell How big's the pot that it's in?

[9:57] Jonny Balchandani The pot's not huge. Now, I'm not very good with measuring pots, but I'll give you a sort of approximate, very professional, you know, something like this. So it's probably about this wide and this high, and I will never repot it again because it's just too big. However, I am going to give it a trim because over winter, there are some shoots that shoot out with no leaves on, but trimming it is actually the key to growing a thicker plant. Otherwise, you'll always end up with just one strand and you'll think, oh, why is it not happening? But if you trim it, more stems will actually grow from the base and also more shoots will grow off each stem. I love the idea that pruning produces growth which I think is a self-improvement message in itself.

[10:37] Jonny Balchandani Absolutely, a message that we can take away for life as well agreed absolutely.

[10:41] Jane Perrone Let's move on to you Ben you said that you're a postman how did that transmute into you being a viral uh star of socials?

[10:50] Ben Newell To be honest I - how can you hear me is that yeah okay - so to be honest I was working two full-time jobs I was working as a postman and also as a content creator um so I would finish at Royal Mail at like two o'clock or something and then I'd go home have a shower maybe have a nap and then just really crack on with making videos and I did that for a long time and I really wanted to leave Royal Mail to become a content creator but it took it like i said it took a a long time. There was a large portion of that where I just wasn't making any money. But I just kept going. I kept making videos. I think at my peak, I was putting out at least a video a day. And I don't nearly do that now. And I work full time as a content creator. So yeah, it took a long time, but it was absolutely worth it.

[11:45] Jane Perrone Next question coming up. What is the latest addition to your houseplant collection? What is the latest thing that has caught your eye, maybe at this very show, that you're growing for the first time? Or maybe trying again after failing, which is also the case.

[12:03] Jonny Balchandani Oh, I don't fail. Don't look at me. No, I'm joking. I do. I'm just joking.

[12:06] Jane Perrone Everybody kills plants, Jonny

[12:08] Jonny Balchandani Absolutely. Me included. Just less than everyone else.

[12:11] Ben Newell So one, I don't really buy plants that often because a lot of the time I'm just taking cuttings from other terrariums. But the tiny orchid, Specklinia dressleri.

[12:21] Jane Perrone Okay, let's have that again. Let's have that name again because that sounds like a good one.

[12:27] Ben Newell Specklinia dressleri. I think I'm saying that right.

[12:29] Jane Perrone I'm going to be Googling that after.

[12:30] Ben Newell You've not seen it?

[12:32] Jane Perrone No.

[12:34] Ben Newell It's a beautiful orchid. It's mounted on some tree fern in a £10 Amazon cloche. And it's honestly the leaves are so tiny probably going to have a problem when it flowers because it's not got that much space but it's growing epiphytically on this tree fern um and it's just a stunning plant it's not cheap it's about 30 pounds for a small for a small piece let's just get into epiphytes for a minute what is an epiphyte and why are these plants so common in the indoor growing world so an epiphyte is essentially a plant that grows on another other surface, usually a tree. So your Phalaenopsis orchids are epiphytes. You know lots of different kinds of orchids are epiphytes um i think especially in the terrarium world because you have that increased humidity um there are so many amazing epiphytic plants that we can use and some of them are really really easy to grow um there's that begonia dodsonii have you seen that, a really beautiful plant um again quite hard to find but once you have it it just grows so quickly, so fast, and you'll have it forever once you've got it.

[13:46] Jane Perrone Over to you, Jonny. What have you been buying recently or swapping? Swaps also allowed.

[13:49] Jonny Balchandani Well, I'm waiting to have a little mooch around today after this talk. So I'll have a look here. The last thing that I got myself that was new for me and very exciting was something called a mint Monstera deliciosa. So it's the Monstera, but a mint variegation. So it's not like the elbow not like the Thai Constellation it is like it states minty so it looks very white but all of the veins on the leaves are green so not like the elbow where you've got too much white that it can brown off because there's no chlorophyll with this the veins actually have the green in which helps sustain that white mintiness to it.

[14:30] Ben Newell How much is one of those plants?

[14:32] Jane Perrone That's what i wanted to know, that was my first question.

[14:35] Jonny Balchandani So did my mother. I paid £450 for one leaf cutting, which is now a slightly bigger plant. That was a few months ago. In between, I've seen that there are some online sellers now that sell a smaller baby version of it for around £250, which is rooted. So they are still quite expensive, but beautiful specimens nevertheless.

[15:07] Jane Perrone Can I just give a shout out for the plain green Monstera deliciosa here? If you're thinking, this man's just spent hundreds of pounds on a plant, then really what I would say is t he plain green one's pretty much just as beautiful, and you can enjoy it and pick it up for a lot less money.

[15:26] Jonny Balchandani Like I said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[15:28] Jane Perrone I'm not anti-variegation, but I just think sometimes we need to appreciate the plain green, too.

[15:35] Jonny Balchandani I think the plain green was my first plant ever in my collection and is absolutely stunning. But also, I feel, depends on where you are on your plant journey, but if like me you've already had the plain green for a long time and you love it and like it you you're not particularly going to buy another plain green one so that's why i like to have a collection and ideally with my monstera to have one off if i can each different type because i am a collector i like to have all of them whatever that plant may be so it kind of makes me happy today that i've got each Pokemon out there.

[16:12] Jane Perrone I was just going to say is this houseplant Pokemon going on here. You've got to catch them all.

[16:16] Jonny Balchandani Absolutely. That's why I'm the plantaholic, because I cannot stop myself from, once I get into that sort of wantingness of a certain plant, I want them all.

[16:25] Ben Newell Do you still have that first plant, that first Monstera? I've still got the first Monstera that I've ever had, and I love it to pieces. It is the Monstera genus, full stop. They're incredible. Whether it be a Deliciosa or another one, they're amazing.

[16:39] Jane Perrone Now, you've got a lot of room for plants, but you must have to do something with these plants, which do get meters tall. What's your tips for people whose Swiss cheese plants, Monstera, have reached the ceiling?

[16:53] Jonny Balchandani So firstly, it depends kind of what type of feel you want to go for in your home. So if you do like a jungle feel and you like things to take over and have a more biophilic kind of lifestyle and relationship with it, then I'd say if you're not bothered about the leaves is getting bigger and bigger then you could weave it onto your ceiling so my begonia maculata the roof the ceiling excuse me is too small so i carefully bend the stems and attach them to my ceiling so they grow over the top which you sorry i knocked you out there ben um would have been good actually um so so you can bend them if you do like jungle is massive don't have to cut it but if it it is getting to the point where you do need the space and you can't do anything then propagate it um we had a talk yesterday about propagating we can talk afterwards i don't want to monopolize this this bit but propagating is a great way to multiply to your collection or to swap for something else do you know what i mean you can swap for a different monstera um or sell them i have open days that were as well at home so for example next month on the 23rd i have an open day I open up my jungle, I open up my house, people come over, we swap, we sell cuttings and plants, we have a good time, we listen to some reggae music. So that's something that we can do as well.

[18:11] Jane Perrone It's great. Why have I not been invited to this before? Let's move on to the next question. And this is a simple one. Complete the sentence, I love my houseplants because... Ben.

[18:25] Ben Newell I love my house plants because they give me so much joy and to be honest I don't have that many house plants just to clarify, all of my plants are in terrariums pretty much.

[18:35] Jane Perrone They're houseplants, they're in a a house!

[18:36] Ben Newell Except for that thrips ridden Ficus I was telling you about earlier which I've had clearance to get rid of from you.

[18:44] Jane Perrone Yes so we've been talking about a thrips infested rubber plant owned by Ben and I have given him permission to get rid of this plant because it's gone too far. So, yeah, I'm afraid Ben's girlfriend might be after me after this. But we'll see how that goes. Jonny, your answer to this question. I love my houseplants because...

[19:06] Jonny Balchandani I love my houseplants because I can grow them bigger than the people that gave them to me and it irritates them. No, I love my houseplants because... Because, I mean, it's kind of similar, but I just feel good being immersed in what I feel is like a jungle. I just feel better than looking at walls. I just feel better looking at greenery. And it also, for me, I do feel, stimulates creativity. So whether that be on a day-to-day basis on social media or even for my day job, I do feel like being in that place gives me that extra boost of creativity rather than being just in an office block looking at a wall and a computer so yeah it stimulates me.

[19:49] Jane Perrone And that is a wonderful thing! Let's talk next about the fourth question - who is your houseplant hero? Okay, you can't say each other, that's going to be a really boring answer.

[20:03] Jonny Balchandani Definitely not that lady over there.

[20:04] Ben Newell My house plant hero?

[20:06] Jane Perrone It could be somebody famous or somebody local to you or...

[20:10] Jonny Balchandani You can tell them it's me that's ok.

[20:10] Ben Newell You are my houseplant hero! I find that a difficult question to answer because, i'm often asked you know who do Ilook up to in horticulture and there are a lot of people who i look up to but specifically with house plants i don't really kno, Sarah has been a big influence on me and Johnny has. I couldn't pick one person in particular. So, yeah, I'm going to go with that answer. I'm going to accept that. It's not quite what I was hoping for in terms of clearness, clarity of purpose, but I'm going to accept it. Johnny, I'm hoping you can bring us a very simple answer.

[20:52] Jonny Balchandani Very simple answer. It's plants, not specifically houseplants, but my mum. Oh. My mum, definitely my mum. She's been awesome, inspiration, and the greenest fingers. I know we say it doesn't exist, but there's stuff that I kill that she can propagate. So it's, yeah, unbelievable, unbelievable.

[21:12] Jane Perrone Now we're moving on to the darker side of things. I need to know, the last question, name your plantagonist, the plant you simply can't get along with. Is there a plant, we all have this, a plant that you know how it's meant to grow, you know the theory but it just hates you.

[21:32] Jonny Balchandani Calatheas - can't stand them and I'm slowly going off Alocasia as well.

[21:38] Jane Perrone What is it that calatheas do to you that's so heinous i just feel like they look beautiful you bring them home sometimes they'll they'll do all right for a while but at the end they just for me go crispy and you know they like humidity they like this they like that i can try all of that but they still die so i don't actually own apart from a maranta got a variegated lemon and lime which does okay but pure calatheas I just can't grow them - the orbifoliaspecifically is just a no-go.

[22:12] Jane Perrone This is going to be reassuring for a lot of members of the audience who are going, okay Johnny can't grow calatheas so I'm feeling a lot better about myself now because uh this is a plant that lots of people struggle with. Ben? Enter Text...

[22:25] Ben Newell Then to be honest um again don't have that many houseplants but i grow a lot of moss and the one moss which i really like the look of when it arrives in its little pot is Christmas moss. Vesicularia montagnei. It looks so nice when I get it in the pot, but whenever I try and grow it in a terrarium just doesn't seem to to work for me so yeah.

[22:47] Jonny Balchandani No way...

[22:48] Ben Newell It's a type of moss, have you grown it?

[22:49] Jonny Balchandani I didn’t know you you had any default at all, I thought you know what I mean i'm quite happy about this.

[22:54] Jane Perrone It's good to know that everybody has their achilles heel.

[22:58] Ben Newell Yeah maybe um do you know like Ficus thungerbii too sometimes it either really works for me or just totally flops so vesicularia montagna and oakley fig those two so i don't have any idea what you talk about when you speak about this latin stuff.

[23:17] Jonny Balchandani is it a creeping ficus?

[23:19] Ben Newell yeah Igave you so Iknow just just making sure because i get i get scared when I hear all of these latin names I get confused - my small mind can't compute it.

[23:28] Jane Perrone Well well ben and I will give you a master class in scientific Latin after this.

[23:33] Ben Newell You're gonna be quizzed on this in a minute.

[23:35] Jane Perrone Unfortunately we can't get these up on the screen perhaps we'll give these a quick go before we go to questions. I wanted to get these up on the screen for you to look at as well but unfortunately for technical reasons that's not possible so we'll just have it up on my phone and i'm going to start you off with an easy one oh no okay this is for johnny i mean ben's going to be fine on this jonny can you say this this name the one at the top there...

[24:05] Jonny Balchandani Begonia Darth Vader. Darth Vaderina Anna.

[24:11] Jane Perrone Ben would you like to offer up a pronunciation of this plant?

[24:15] Ben Newell Begonia darthvaderiana.

[24:21] Jane Perrone Now, what I should say about scientific Latin, before we go any further and you think that we're getting rather prescriptive about this, is scientific names, try not to be scared of them. Because if you go to other countries and you talk to planty people, you find that everyone pronounces them differently anyway. There is no canon. There's no particular way of saying these names. So we're just having a bit of fun here, seeing how we can stumble over some of these names. But actually as long as you are getting out all the syllables it doesn't matter where you put the stress because I say MONstera they say monSTERa, so it's all good as long as you're understood um but we're going to try a couple more just for a bit of fun here.

[25:01] Jonny Balchandani You can go first.

[25:02] Ben Newell Okay I'll do this one.

[25:03] Jane Perrone et's let's try it let's try um this is a cactus, i should say about the Begonia darthvaderiana, itwas named after Darth Vader. It's a very dark, black, begonia.

[25:16] Jonny Balchandani That was a win then, wasn't it?

[25:18] Jane Perrone Yes, it was. Do Google it. It's amazing. Right, we're going on with this cactus now. Let's try this one.

[25:24] Ben Newell Are you joking? Look at that.

[25:25] Jonny Balchandani That's easy. Go on. You got the easy one.

[25:30] Ben Newell Weberboros... Weberboros... Serius... Johnsonii.

[25:35] Jonny Balchandani That's exactly what I was going to say.

[25:36] Jane Perrone That's pretty good. That's actually pretty good. That's that's

[25:41] Jonny Balchandani Well done Ben

[25:43] Ben Newell Do they get harder than that?

[25:45] Jonny Balchandani Because that was easy...

[25:46] Jane Perrone OK we’re gonna go for one more for each of you and I'm gonna give Ben another one as well. This is my favorite genus so I'm hoping you get this right.

[25:59] Ben Newell I heard you say this yesterday. No, no, I've since forgotten how you pronounced it. Okay. Acyanthus aslipioides?

[26:11] Jane Perrone Aeschynanthus. I mean, it starts with an A. You're going to be doomed to failure from the start. Aeschynanthus, member of the Gesneriad family. I knew that one. A really nice house plant. Quite hard to say. Maybe that's why it's not more popular.

[26:23] Ben Newell That one's yours.

[26:24] Jane Perrone And now, Johnny, we've got the final one for you.

[26:26] Jonny Balchandani I don't know if the RHS will let me say that one. Because I've seen the first three letters.

[26:31] Jane Perrone yeah it's three words it's the scientific name of a cactus that's called the boob cactus I did check with sarah that Iwas allowed to say that word on stage apparently it's okay so if you're offended go and see Sarah um right okay the latin though is ...

[26:46] Jonny Balchandani That one there?

[26:47] Jane Perrone Pretty special - it's the really long one johnny

[26:49] Jonny Balchandani Fantastic so i'm gonna just do the first hard bit and i'll leave you the...

[26:54] Ben Newell No no I did two in a row this was yours.

[26:57] Jonny Balchandani Right miratillo cactus Arctis, Geometry Zombs, cv... you told me that I had to be PC, and you've given me this one. All right, I'm going to say this in front of everybody. I'm just making sure. You don't know what's written here. All right. Fakuroki Bozo. I didn't do this. If this is filmed by the RHS, Jane Perrone wrote this.

[27:34] Jane Perrone Fukurokuryuzinboku but i don't know if that's right either.

[27:38] Ben Newell You're not going to be invited back here.

[27:40] Jonny Balchandani No the last time i'll be doing this.

[27:41] Jane Perrone Names are tricky...

[27:44] Jonny Balchandani Thanks jane

[27:44] Jane Perrone But give it a go like these guys did very bravely without any preparation so thank you for being brave with those names give it a go because everybody can learn something from scientific names they're actually quite useful in telling you something about the plant and a common language around the the world for understanding plants so they are actually quite useful don't be afraid to get things wrong that is how we learn. And on that note, I'm now going to ask for some questions from the audience, and Sarah is the lady with the mic ready to rove around for any raised hands so where shall we start it's interesting question about a house plant or insults for Jonny.

[28:29] Jonny Balchandani I'll reply back with booby cactus, careful.

[28:32] Audience member So I 've got an african violet that grows in my kitchen window sill it's very nice doing really well in flower so I decided to take some leaf cuttings off it and thought which way is the best way to do it and one way was saying just stick it in in a pot and the other way was saying put it in water until it roots so i did both ways and I just want to know when will it actually grow something because the one that had the roots on it i put it back in the kitchen windowsill with what its mother plant is but nothing is happening and the other two was a bit of an experiment the ones that I just took off and um took the leaves and put it straight into soil. I put them in my greenhouse but I just want want to know when will it actually start getting leaves on it.

[29:21] Jonny Balchandani It's strange isn't it because we taught sarah how to do this.

[29:24] Ben Newell I know.

[29:24] Jonny Balchandani Weirdly can i just interrupt here, because i know you're asking us and i'll give this a bash and so will Ben most probably but weirdly i don't own one but i learned how to do it through Sarah's video, so it's weird she should really be here with us but, all I've seen her doing is cut the leaf off, put it in water in a nice, bright, warm place and wait. As I don't have one and I've never tried it, I don't actually know how long it will take. But I'm estimating between between a month and a month and a half, probably.

[30:00] Jane Perrone So sometimes with African violets, I think it is a bit of a waiting game. And the thing to know with propagation, I'm going to get a bit technical here. Is that all right, guys? Oh, yeah. Go for it. So I've noticed if you propagate plants that some plants will start to grow from a little section of leaf, like maybe a money plant, a crassula, or an African violet will grow even from a section of leaf. Whereas some plants like the fiddle leaf fig, Ficus lyrata, you have to have a section of stem. And I don't know if you've ever wondered why that is, but it's to do with something called meristematic material. It's just a fancy word for cells that can turn into other types of cells. And plants like the African violet, they've got that material all throughout the leaf. So you can take a piece of African violet leaf and propagate it, but it can be really slow. oh, I've got three leaves right now sitting in soil. And I'm like, I know they're not dead. It's probably putting on lots of root growth. And then when it's ready, it will start growing plant material because it's always worth remembering that the growth above ground and below ground have to kind of be balanced out. So the plant's putting on lots of root growth. You're doing it all right by the sound of it. You just have to have a little bit of patience, I think.

[31:17] Sarah Gerrard-Jones Also, I'd just like to add that if the leaf isn't dying off, then it's doing something. So even though you can't see roots, as long as the leaf is still alive, I think it's going to be doing something.

[31:27] Jonny Balchandani How long has it been? How long has it been that you've... A month. Give it some time. You know the maculata takes two months. Yeah, absolutely.

[31:37] Sarah Gerrard-JonesThat's okay for it to go floppy. As long as it's not kind of withering away, mine's gone a bit floppy too.

[31:42] Jane Perrone Okay, any more questions from the floor? We've got some hands up in the front here, Sarah.

[31:49] Audience member So this is for Johnny. yes sir which is your favorite uh indoor palm and why indoor palm indoor?

[31:57] Jonny Balchandani So weirdly Ilove palms but the one that's my favourite is not only for its physical attributes so my son is called Phoenix and when he was born i was given a phoenix palm and it's grown quite big compared to when i got it. So by default, that is my favourite palm, but it looks beautiful. Don't get me wrong. There are other palms that look slightly more fancy, like that rounded, fanned, ornamental one. I think they're stunning. But by default, it's the phoenix palm for me. It's hardy. It looks cool. When it's mature, it's insane. But also, it's got the same name as my kid.

[32:35] Audience member Thank you.

[32:36] Jonny Balchandani No worries, buddy.

[32:38] Jane Perrone Any more hands? Yes.

[32:42] Audience member Question for Jonny. Is it possible to hybridize philodendron at home?

[32:50] Jonny Balchandani To hybridize one? Yes it is. It's quite tricky I find so I'm only just weirdly getting into pollinizing anthuriums which i find actually is a bit easier to do because the entire inflorescence or the flower that's a long word - see I do know a few long words - the inflorescence that - calm down mum - the the flower itself but with philodendrons Idon't know if you realize but but they're actually closed. And they only open for a certain amount of time. And I'm normally in bed. So I haven't tried. But yes, it is definitely possible. I've seen people doing it. Notably, an American firm that I'm not paid to talk about, but NSC Tropicals, have hybridized quite a few really cool philodendrons. Does that mean you can only do it at night? You know what? I'm not adept enough in this to be able to say that. So the anthuriums, you can do it whenever and they actually have a female and male stage and to talk about the technical side jane i'm sure knows a lot about this.

[33:55] Jane Perrone well i mean I don't but I do know the reasons why they open up - so there we go with them aroids they have this what's called the spathe and spadix structure so the spiky bit and the sort of the the cloak that's around it and a lot of these aroids are pollinated by beetles, so the plant allows the beetle in when the flowers are ready to be pollinated and then closes up the spade so the beetles are trapped inside.

[34:25] Jonny Balchandani No way!

[34:25] Jane Perrone They have some fun, just going to leave it at that, and then they pollinate and then the spathe opens up again to allow them to go off with their pollination done.

[34:37] Jonny Balchandani That is cool.

[34:37] Jane Perrone So it's probably to do with that timing and it varies from species to species. So that will be why you've got to get up in the middle of the night.

[34:43] Jonny Balchandani Buy some beetles. Let them go and have some fun at night inside the cloak.

[34:50] Jane Perrone One more question. From the front there.

[35:01] Audience member Uh hello I kind of just wanted to say you're a lot taller in person, that kind of weirded me out.

[35:07] Jonny Balchandani huge gigantic.

[35:08] Ben Newell Everyone says that.

[35:12] Jane Perrone He's usually sitting down in the videos isn't he, you don't know how tall he is.

[35:16] Audience member I kind of just started with all this and i found that i've acquired a lot of items in this hobby but i find things like sphagnum moss in my pillowcase and I don’t really know how to organize everything do you have any tips for that.

[35:30] Ben Newell I can relate to that i find sphagnum moss in my pillowcase too - to be honest I'm not a very organized person, I find it and it stresses me out because i like things to be tid. I bought boxes for everything and Ionly really buy what Ineed um for someone who makes a lot of terrariums and vivariums that is quite a lot um but yeah with sphagnum moss, for example, I buy it dry. And it comes very compact when it's dry. So then I just break off a bit and use that as and when. But you've not been to my place since it's been redone. Not the new one, no. So yeah, I've got Ikea boxes labeled with Akadama, coir. And it's fairly cheap to do. It keeps me sane. It needs to be relatively tidy. But yeah, it doesn't last like that.

[36:26] Audience member Thank you

[36:27] Jane Perrone Well thank you so much to everyone who's come and listened today and uh if you want to get a copy of Ben's book he'll be signing copies at the table just behind afterwards I've also got copies of my book if you want to have a copy of that but thank you so much to Jonny and Ben for joining me today it's been a blast

[36:44] Ben Newell Thank you

[36:45] Jane Perrone Yeah do feel free to if you're a bit too shy to ask a question come and find us afterwards and um also if you're not sick of the sound of my voice on the ledge podcast available on all good pod apps, thank you so much.

[37:01] Music.

[37:07] Jane Perrone Thanks so much to Jonny and Ben and to Sarah and Ian from Green Rooms Market for organising this fantastic event. I'm hoping they're going to be doing it again next year and I'll be invited again because it was tremendous fun, as I hope you could hear. That's all for this week's show I'll be back next Friday with another episode and an update on the On The Ledge sowalong - yes my asparagus ferns have germinated yippee so I'll see you then - bye.

[37:45] Music.

[38:05] Jane Perrone he 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 Whistle by Benjamin Banger. All Tracks are licenced under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.

[38:24] Music.

[38:25] Bye.

A live podcast recorded with Ben Newell and Jonny Balchandani at the Malvern Houseplant Festival. The Festival was organised by Green Rooms Market - thanks to Sarah Gerrard-Jones for holding the mic for audience questions and adding in her own thoughts!

My guests were:

Ben Newell aka @worcesterterrariums whose book Hello Tiny World is out now
Jonny Balchandani aka @thebeardedplantaholic

The plant names Ben and Jonny attempt to say are:

Begonia darthvaderiana
Weberbauerocereus johnsonii
Aeschynanthus asclepioides
Myrtillocactus geometrizans cv. Fukurokuryuzinboku

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