Episode 231: Growing Marantas and Alocasias in California
Maranta group plants are popula for their stunning foliage, but are prone to spider mites. Photograph: German Rivera
Transcript
Episode 231
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
plants, growing, leaves, pot, water, humidity, light, spider mites, begonias, roots, substrate, cuttings, german, indoors, watering, allocations, ledge, variegated, bit, hear
SPEAKERS
German Rivera, Jane Perrone
Jane Perrone
You say Alocasia, I say "Bloody hell, I'm not growing one of those, they're really difficult!"
Jane Perrone
I have no idea why I'm in such a good mood today, but I hope it's infectious. In this week's show, I'm joined by a listener and grower, German Rivera, to talk all about two genera that can trip the best of us up - that's Alocasia and Maranta - from his perspective as a grower in Long Beach, California, and yes, I'm jealous! Whether you have one house plant, or 1000 - and I'm guessing there are some of you with that many plants. I know you so well! - this is the podcast for you! On The Ledge brings you the vital stuff you need to know about indoor gardening, channelled through the medium of me, your host, Jane Perrone! So, welcome! I'm delighted that you are here, and a jazz hands welcome for Natalie and Anonymous, who offered up a donation to On The Ledge this week, helping to keep this show going. Natalie did it via PayPal, and Anonymous, via ko-fi.com, so thank you to both of them. And if you are a Patreon subscriber, please head over there. I've got a very, very short survey for you to fill out to find out what you like and what you don't like about my Patreon offering. It's a kind of monthly crowdfunding platform, if you're not familiar, and I'd love to know from current patrons what you think of it. If you fill it out, you get to enter my prize draw for a swag bag of On The ledge Merch. And if you're not a patron, but want to become one, then you'll find details for that and all the other ways to support the show at janeperrone.com. One of the many delights of making this podcast is discovering listeners around the world who can share their growing experiences with me and patron and listener, German Rivera, is doing just that this week. German joined me via the medium of the internet to chat about two plant genera that we grow indoors but sometimes don't find the easiest to handle - Alocasia and Maranta - and I'll also find time to answer a question about making trailing plants fuller. So, settle down, grab yourself a cup of tea or other beverage of your choice and let's begin.
German Rivera
My name is German Rivera. I live in Long Beach, California. I've been collecting plans for about four years now. I started collecting in 2018, when my girlfriend gave me a mineralia. I actually had plants before that too, but it wasn't anything that I paid a lot of attention to. I had a Euphorbia trigona, which I believe is the African milk tree. And I had a Crassula Ovata, which I know you're a big fan of, that grew massive, even though I hardly paid any attention to it. And before I moved into my new place, I was living in a 500 square feet, one bedroom apartment and I had close to 200 plants in there. At the new house, you know, it's a really big house with a yard and everything, so, funnily enough, I actually have less plants now than I did back then!
Jane Perrone
Well, you started off your obsession with houseplants with a Ming aralia. I mean, that was a kind of an interesting gift on behalf of your girlfriend! I don't think they're that easy. Perhaps you disagree?
German Rivera
This is the one thing about me: I'm very obsessively a researcher. If something lands in my hand, whether it's a book, or a film, or anything, I've got to research where it came from. And so I did the same thing with the Ming aralia and I figure out how to grow it and it's still alive now. It's been with me, you know, four years and it's doing great.
Jane Perrone
Oh well, that's good to hear! I love your approach. Research is key, as we know. What's really interesting with on the Ledge, is having this global audience because although, in a way, gardening indoors is similar around the world actually, it's not the same, depending on where you grow stuff. And we were talking off air about, previously, German, about Alocasias, and we heard from the lovely Roos in a previous episode, but I want to hear about your experiences growing Alocasias where you do. Tell me about the challenges and the joys.
German Rivera
Well, the funny thing is, when I was listening to that podcast, a lot of the things she was saying just didn't make sense to me, because my experience is quite different than what she was doing. I have about 12, I want to say. I stopped counting plants, by the way, a while back, because I just don't want to know any more!
Jane Perrone
Very wise!
German Rivera
But I have about 12 Alocasias under my care and all of them are under different conditions. Most of them are in my house, but I do have a regal shield that grows outside and I have a, I believe it's called the Mayan mask, and that's grown in my greenhouse, which is a new addition to my growing experience. The greenhouse is probably about three months old and so I'm still trying to learn how things kind of grow in there, but he seems to be happy! I got the Alocasia specifically for the greenhouse and it's put out probably, like, four new leaves since I got it, so I'm thinking it's liking it in there! And then I have a lot of smaller Alocasias, like a Stingray, the Amazonica, I have a few Dragonscale Alocasias living inside and, you know, they all need a little bit of different care, but, overall, they're pretty much the same. In full disclosure, I live about a mile away from the ocean, so I think that helps with the environment, not only in my house, but also outdoors. We do get a lot of, like, mist in the mornings, which I'm pretty sure helps the plants a lot.
Jane Perrone
Just describe where you live climate-wise. I'm sort of imagining ocean breezes and the big skies of California. Am I right?
German Rivera
That ocean breeze, those come in, especially during the fall. The colder - you know, in quotes! - weather, it's actually the best time for plants out here because it doesn't get too cold and we do get a lot of nice ocean breeze. Summer can be a little on the drier side, but overall, I don't think the humidity here in Long Beach goes below 40 at any time, for the most part. It stays around 50, which means that indoors, it can go up to 65 for a good chunk of the of the year
Jane Perrone
And how does that affect the way you're handling your plants then? I mean, is it a question of battling air conditioning, or high light levels?
German Rivera
High light levels, is a big issue, especially at my old place. I was on the second floor, I had a south-facing window and I was, like "Oh, I can grow anything in here!" But at some point, I actually had to move my plants way back from the south-facing window, just because a lot of them were getting scorched. So that is a big issue. We do have a lot of sunny days here, obviously and that makes, that can make growing a little difficult. In terms of humidity, again, like I said, it kind of just, it's pretty stable and I'll talk a little bit more about humidity once we get into care because I feel like that is one of the most misunderstood parts of growing plants. I was guilty of it myself with, you know, buying humidifiers, but I think I've learned how to handle that.
Jane Perrone
Well, okay, where do we start with care then? I guess substrate is the other key thing for Alocasias, just assisting you getting the watering right, if you've got the right substrate?
German Rivera
So one of the things that I do is I mix my own soil and I tend to avoid, again, thanks to your podcasts, anything peat-based, I try not to to buy. I use a good combination of orchid bark, cocoa coir, either perlite or vermiculite. I've actually been getting more into using vermiculite and perlite. I just like the way it looks and to me feels a little, I don't know, it just feels a little more healthy for the plant, for some reason and I use a little bit of sphagnum moss to retain humidity in there. So that's kind of, like, the substrate that I use for all my tropicals. I like it fast-draining because I tend to water quite a bit, so that helps with it, but I also like to keep the soil nice and moist for the plants, evenly-moist I guess is the correct term.
Jane Perrone
If you get the substrate right then watering becomes so much easier, doesn't it, because you can keep the soil evenly moist without it holding on to so much water that you're causing root rot problems and Alocasias seem to succumb fairly easily if you don't get that right.
German Rivera
There's actually a misconception, at least, again, this is all based on my experience about Alocasias not liking to sit in water, but if you look at the way they grow in their natural habitats, they're usually at the very edge of ponds, or other bodies of water, where their roots are basically submerged in water all the time. So I tend to kind of think of it in terms of a balance,. Make sure you give it enough light, that they can actually take as much water as you give them. So one of the things that I've learned about Alocasias is that they love bright ligh. I prefer to put them, you know, pretty close to a south or an east-facing window and, actually, most of the ones indoors, especially the jewel Alocasias, like the Dragon Scale, or the Black Velvet, I put them fairly close to to an east-facing window in my living room, where, in the morning, they get about two hours. So, really, bright morning light, which is obviously not as harsh as, like, your afternoon sun, and if you have a south-facing window, I, you know, I just move them away from it as much as I can, but they still get a good amount of light there. So bright light is key for Alocasias, definitely. I will not put them in medium or low light because that is what kills them. And, full disclosure, I killed my first Alocasia by keeping it in the dark thinking "Oh, it's gonna grow like this!" and the desk didn't get any sunlight at all, so that's that's how it died!
Jane Perrone
I'm sure there are millions of Alocasias facing the same fate because people think "Oh, you know, they don't need a lot of light! I don't want to burn them" and, as a result, they end up dead quite quickly. It's a sad reality.
German Rivera
There was a guest that you had a little while back and I remember him saying something about "Get to the level of your plant and look out the window. If you see the sky, then it's going to get get a good amount of light" and I kind of live by that rule. I don't remember who that was, but I remember thinking
Jane Perrone
That was @houseplantjournal. Yeah, I think it was Darryl Cheng. Yes, great advice, really great advice, and provided that, you know, you give plants a chance to acclimatise to extra light, you know, it really does pay off. I would agree with you completely on that. Do you find that Alocasia leaves do as Monstera leaves do and really sort of turn to get the full effect of that sun? I find that Monstera leaves and other aroid leaves, they really do actually move quite quickly in the direction of that light source. It's quite amazing to watch!
German Rivera
Yeah, actually they do. I've noticed that even from day to day. I have an Alocasia Stingray, I don't know if you're familiar with that? It has really long stems and the butterfly type of shape, or Stingray kind of shape leaf. I turn it almost every single day and I noticed I've noticed that the leaves, you know, if the leaf is facing away from the window, it kind of turns upside down to get the light. It happens within a couple of days. It doesn't take weeks, it's just a couple of days and it's already trying to absorb as much light as possible just by going upside down, almost!
Jane Perrone
So that's light and substrate. I mean do you have some special concoction for the water and feed, or do you just use tap water?
German Rivera
So for my Alocasias, I mainly use tap water. I do have an aquarium, which means I get to switch water out on a regular basis, which gives me some really good fertiliser for all my plants, that dirty water from the aquarium. I tend to water with that because, also, I just don't want to throw it out and, you know, it's full of nutrients. So I don't do that often. I would say I do that, maybe, once a month, I water it with aquarium water, but for the most part, it's just tap water in a very, very diluted organic fertiliser, liquid fertiliser. I just, you know, usually, I think the bottle says eight pumps per gallon. I do, like, a really quick pump into the water can and I water with that. I notice the difference when I don't fertilise and when I fertilise.
Jane Perrone
it is important to do it. It's just, I think, sometimes people think that more is more, which you know isn't the case with fertilisers. So we talked, you mentioned Stingray there, the Dragon Scale ones obviously hugely popular too. Is there one that's particularly, I'm not going to say your favourite because I know that's impossible, but is there one that you're particularly proud of getting to a really good state?
German Rivera
So, I have a variegated Aurora, I believe is the name of it. I got that from a friend of mine and when I first got it, it dropped, I want to say, most of its leaves, and had one left, and right now, it's on its fourth leaf! And it also has a pup, which happens to be variegated too, so I'm very proud of the way that one's growing. I thought it was going to be difficult because of the variegation, but it seems to be doing pretty well. And yeah, that and the Stingray are probably my favourites. I love this thing. Right? I just love the the weirdness of it and the way the leaves emerge. They're just amazing.
Jane Perrone
What's the variegation like on the Aurora? Is it kind of cream-splashed, or something else?
German Rivera
It's very similar to an albo Monstera. Have you seen the albo Syngoniums? It kind of reminds me of that a lot. So it's very white. Yeah.
German Rivera
As a visual artist and designer, I tend to gravitate towards well-designed pottery, and I'm not gonna lie, I've spent quite a bit of money on some pottery. So for my Alocasia plants that like to be moist, I actually use ceramic planters. For the most part, they're all in the planter itself, but I do have a few, especially when I first get them, I put them in plastic, those translucent plastic containers so I can keep an eye on the roots. Yeah, I used to keep everything in nursery pots and then just put them in cache pots, but now I'm more of a, "You know what? I have this really nice pot. I want to use it. I want it to be displayed!" so I actually just put all my plants in their pots nowadays.
Jane Perrone
Wow, that sounds amazing. And what do you do in terms of pots? I mean, I saw a good meme recently, which was, like, new houseplant person; cheap plant in a really expensive pot. Experienced houseplant person; really expensive plant in, like, an old plastic coffee cup, which really resonated with me! I don't know what you use for your pots?
Jane Perrone
I like that technique, but I always worry, then, that I don't have the right, stylish saucer to go underneath it, or do you have some other method that avoids that problem?
German Rivera
I have saucers that I bought specifically for pots. The one thing that I do, I do water a lot in my sink. So I water in the sink and then I I let it sit there for a little while and then I usually put like a towel or something underneath it on the counter and just let it sit for a little bit longer, but actually, most of the pots that I have come with their own saucer. That's actually kind of like a big thing for me: I tried to buy pots that come as a unit.
Jane Perrone
Yeah, it looks so much better, doesn't it, if it's been designed for the actual container?
German Rivera
Yeah. Are you familiar with that L B Design? They do really nice ceramic pots. They're very minimal, they come in a few different colours, but the saucer fits perfectly under it and all you see is, like, a little line around the pot where the saucer begins.
Jane Perrone
That sounds nice. Yeah, it's hard to find the ideal saucer that is the right size, shape, colour, depth, etc. It's a struggle!
Jane Perrone
More from German shortly, but now, a question, and it's about training plants and how one can avoid that spindly look that you sometimes experience and this question comes from Nick who used the contact form on my website, jane perrone.com, to get in touch, which is absolutely fine. If you need to send photos though, the best way to do it is to email me at ontheledge podcast@gmail.com There are two major things to take into account here. One is light - it's kind of always light, isn't it? If you've got a trailing plant of any kind that is looking spindly and the leaves are not really performing my first thought would be is it in enough light? So often, plants just stop growing when they're not receiving enough light. It happened to me recently with a Hoya that I'd kind of stuck somewhere out of the way. As soon as I moved it to a much brighter spot, those leaves started growing in, so I would always say, spindly trailing plants, give them a bit more light and see what happens. Assuming they are getting enough light, there are sometimes things that you can do to give them that fuller appearance and it's all about propagation. So, depending on the plant in question, there are two things you can do. The first is just to take some growth off the plant. As you'll know if you've listened to the show before. By taking out the growing point you encourage the plant hormones that prompt growth to transfer their attention to the side shoots or the buds that form those side shoots rather, and make the plant bush outwards rather than continuing their journey straight down. Seeing as you're taking some cuttings, it's then worth propagating those cuttings, and once they've rooted, you can add them back into the top of the pot. Now let's not be mistaken, some plants are always going to have that slightly threadbare look at the base of the plant. That's just because of the way they grow. Listen back to the Tradescantia episode, with the delightful Avery Rowe, and you'll hear more about that. Often trailing plants do lose leaves as they go along and focus their energy in the growth point. But definitely returning rooted cuttings to the top of the pot will help to make sure that you've got just more stems and more leaves and therefore a less threadbare look. How do you add those stems? Well, all I would do is just take the plant out of its pot have a look at the root situation. If the pot isn't really root-bound, you can probably just snuggle those cuttings in there, making sure not to damage those new roots in using some kind of small dibber, or small tool, or a chopstick, just to make a bit of room in there, in any bare soil, and put those cuttings in once they're rooted. If the whole thing is looking rootbound, then you may need to re-pot and add the plant to a bigger pot and at that point, you'll be able to hopefully just nestle those new cuttings in around the edge of the pot in that new compost. That's the best way to do it for everything, from aroids like Philodendron scandens, to Sedum burro's tail, or Ceropegia woodii, the string-of-hearts. All of those plants can be propagated and made fulle and that way, hopefully, your plant will look that little bit more leafy. But first things first, do check the light because that's often the thing that is lacking. I say this every time but I'm just going to say it in case this is the first time you've listened to the show: it's easy to think "Oh, Jane said put it in light!" so immediately put it in blazing sun, or even just up the light level significantly. This can cause sunburn. So any light changes need to be done gradually so the plant can adapt. And remember, this time of year, I'm recording this in July 2022., in the northern hemisphere, the sun is really strong, so you have to take extra care, but on the whole, extra light is almost always a good thing for plants, if you introduce it in the right way.
Jane Perrone
We've talked about light, water, feeding, substrate. What other Alocasia tricks have you got for us?
German Rivera
Honestly, light and watering, that's the key and do not worry if your Alocasia drops all of its leaves when you first bring it home. My Silver Dragon, when I first got it, it was a mess because I got it shipped and it came out of its pot during the shipping, so all the roots were, like, all over the place. It had three good leaves, but one of them was already on its way out. So I was really sad about it. When I potted it up, it dropped all its leaves, so all I had was the little corm, just sitting there, and, eventually, it's actually one of the most successful Alocasias that I have now because, let me see, I have it in front of me, has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight leaves. And let them acclimate - that's the one thing and, like you said, you know, if you're going to place it in bright light, it's going to, the original leaves, might not be you know acclimated to that, so it's probably going to lose those leaves. Once the new leaves come out though, don't be acclimated for that lag. As with everything plant-related, and it took me a while to realise this, patience is the key.
Jane Perrone
I am far, far, far from an Alocasia grower, but one of the benefits I can see is that, unlike, say, some of the plants I like, like, I don't know, a columnar cactus, or something, with that, you know, you get damage and that's it - the damage is going to be there forever. Whereas, with an Alocasia, like, if it drops the leaves, it can still come back and the leaves are lovely and perfect and that's quite a good feeling!
German Rivera
Yeah. Funnily enough, my variegated Aurora, one of the newer leaves got chewed up by our cat. I was upset at first, you know, because it was the first new leaf that I got from it, but it has three other leaves right now, that are perfect. So, yeah, that's the cool thing about I think most aroids in general, or most foliage plants, that, eventually, you'll get new leaves and they'll look great!
Jane Perrone
Yeah, it is. It's a big plus. It's not going to make me start growing loads of Alocasias, I just don't think I've got the mindset for it, but then again, I said that with Begonias and now my Begonias are . . . I feel like I've mastered Begonias - not terrarium types - but once they can cope with general room humidity, I feel like I've conquered, so who knows what might happen in future!
German Rivera
It's a huge genus and there's so many. I mean, we have Begonias growing outdoors here. So you can grow them indoors, you can grow them outdoors. And there's so many different ones, that I'm sure there's a perfect one for your climate, or, you know, for everyone's climate.
Jane Perrone
I agree. I agree. Well, that's for another episode. We're here to talk about Alocasias but also, if we've covered enough on Alocasias, another one of the genus that I probably would say, I don't enjoy growing: the Marantas. They're so popular, they're, you know, flying out of the big box stores and the specialist houseplant shops because they just look so gorgeous but lots of people, again, like the Alocasias, struggle, don't they?
German Rivera
Yeah, you know, it's funny. I was just listening to the latest episode of the Plant Daddy Podcast and I believe it was Matthew that basically said he's given up on them!
Jane Perrone
Well, I should chat to him because I've literally got - I actually can't give this away - I'll tell you this: I have a Maranta Lemon Lime, which is my last prayer plant that I haven't given away, because I've just decided, Jane, this is not your genus! I cannot give this plant away! When I've, like, advertised it on local groups, I've kind of said "This is not a beginner's plant! This is quite hard!" - I don't want it to go to somebody who's going to be completely naive and not understand how to look after it. It's doing fine, but it's sat in a plastic box and I I'm not able to enjoy it because as soon as I take it out of this plastic box, it gets red spider mites. So that's my issue!
German Rivera
That's so interesting, because the Lemon Lime Marantas, actually, are the prayer plant that I tell people to begin with, which is kind of funny! My experience with it is that it grows like a weed for me! I actually have two of them; I have one that's hanging in the guest bedroom and then we have one in the kitchen, where the kitchen conditions are not the best, but it's doing well in there.
Jane Perrone
I don't know what's going on! I mean, I've grown, you know, prayer plant family plants very successfully in the past and I think, with this one, it's just that they're, just, the humidity is not right for the plant in my home and I've gotten to the point now where I'm, like, I've got so many plants that I just I need to focus down on particular genera and I've decided that this is not the genera for me. But I mean, I remember, as a child, my parents having a Maranta, the traditional red vein one, and being very successful with it, but lots of people do struggle.
German Rivera
I might be able to help you with this them because I struggle with them too, at the very beginning, but, you know, I currently have, I want to say, maybe, ten of them and, again, I have three in the greenhouse, currently, that are doing really well and then the rest of them are living in the house, where I think my current humidity, right now, is about 57, which is good for them, but it's also a light and watering issue of, just like with Alocasias, that they really don't like bright light. That's the one thing that I've noticed. So they're on the completely opposite spectrum of Alocasias in terms of light. They don't want to be in darkness, but they definitely like medium light. I have three growing near a north-facing window in our bathroom, and they're doing really well. But watering, just like with Alocasias, make sure they stay evenly moist. The minute they go dry, that's when you get pests in my experience. It has nothing to do with humidity and has everything to do with consistency when it comes to Marantaceae. You've got to give them a consistent amount of light, a consistent amount of water, but also, once you find a good spot for them, don't move them, just leave them there and they'll reward you with growth.
Jane Perrone
I think that's maybe where I went wrong because, I mean, I've had that particular plant, I had it in my office bathroom and it was doing really well for ages, but I do find it's just so prone to spider mites and maybe it's because I really struggled watering plants consistently. Anyway, I'm much better with plants that relate to drying out between waterings but it just, every time, I mean, I even had it in this plastic box and treated it time and time again for spider mites and, again, this plant is just, it's just a spider mite magnet! I mean, how do you treat spider mites on these plants?
German Rivera
It's funny, because that's one of the things that I always get a lot of questions about, especially for both Alocasia and in prayer plants. I feel like people hate them because of the pest issues that they have with them. Alocasia amazonica is the perfect example of a plant that I've heard so many people say I'm never going to buy that plant again because within a week, it's covered in spider mites. So this is the way I handle that. And obviously, you've got to have a little bit of extra time: I work from home, so it kind of works for me, but what I do, at the very least every time I water, either one Alocasia or the prayer plants, I spray them. I have a bottle with a little bit of, like, alcohol. I believe it, you know, if it's like a 16 ounce bottle, I put about two to four ounces of rubbing alcohol in there and I spray all the leaves and I just spray them and let it sit there in the sink. I tried to do that at least once a week, you know, or, like I said, whenever I water them and that really helps. I feel like that helps a lot in terms of keeping pests at bay. My oldest prayer plant is Makoyana, that I actually got from MSC Tropicals, and it's two and a half years old now. When I first got that plant, I think it got spider mites probably, like, five different times. But when I started doing the spraying on a regular basis, it's been clean. It's the happiest plant ever. It actually just gave me a ton of new growth where the leaves are almost double the size of the original leaves. I remember reading something, or hearing something, about spider mites being hydrophobic, which means they're afraid of water. And that just kind of hit something in my brain where I'm, like, well, if they're afraid of water, then just keep throwing water at them! And that seems to work for me.
Jane Perrone
I think part of the problem is because they're not a visible pest. People don't realise they've got them until it's reached a very dire state of affairs, when they can actually see the webbing, and then they get disheartened because, at that point, probably all that foliage is going to have to be cut off and the plant ends up being chucked away despite the fact that, like my Maranta, like, several times I just chopped off all the foliage and it did grow straight back and so, like the Alocasias, you've got that benefit of growing from the rhizome and being able to just regrow new leaves, which is great, but I think a lot of people just get disheartened and think I've had enough, you know? I didn't realise this pest was here until it got really bad and I'm going to chuck it out.
German Rivera
Yeah, and I don't want it to sound like I spent hours of my day spraying my plants. I, you know, if I were to quantify the amount of time actually spent on caring for my plants throughout a regular day, I would say maybe 20 minutes, maybe 20 to 30 minutes at the most. The thing is, I know which plants . . . on certain days, I'll do my Alocasia, I'll water them, I'll spray them and then just put them all back in their place. I think it was on Plant Daddy Podcast, they were talking to someone that's a expert on crotons and I know a lot of people suffer with spider mites with them too, and he says something where, you know, yeah, spider mites are gonna live with them, you're growing crotons, but all you've got to do is, whenever you walk by it, just spray the back of the leaf a little bit with a little bit of water and that should take care of it and that's kind of like the way I I treat pests nowadays. If I'm near a plant and I have a spray bottle, you're gonna get a little bit of spraying.
Jane Perrone
If you're going to have those plants as you say, you've got to accept that those pests are going to be there and it's just a question of keeping them under control. And you know, even if plants have a few spider mites, which you know I'm always banging on about hand lenses, but, you know, you can see with a hand lens, you might have one or two spider mites wandering around, but as long as you're keeping that population at a low level, the plant's not really that bothered.
German Rivera
Yeah, I have a Hoya that had a mealy bug infestation - the Hoya lives outside now - but, you know, I sprayed it, I cleaned it up, there's still mealy bugs there, the plant's still growing, it has a ton of new leaves, but I keep it under control. I gotta give it a spray every once in a while, but, for the most part, it, you know, the bugs are there, you just kind of have to live with them.
Jane Perrone
Is there anything else though about Alocasias or Marantas, German, that we need to cover?
German Rivera
I think we're good. I mean, like I said, patience. You've just got to be patient. I have Alocasias that are over two years old and same thing with prayer plants, and, at some point, they look horrible, but they'll come back. They always do.
Jane Perrone
That's a great message to end on. Well, thank you so much for your wisdom on these two groups of plants and, hopefully, that's given some tips for those of us who have struggled in the past with these particular ones.
German Rivera
Awesome. Well, thanks for having me!
Jane Perrone
My pleasure and it's been great to chat to you!
Jane Perrone
Thank you so much to German for joining me today. If you're a Patreon subscriber, you can go and check out my extra chunk of chat with German, where we talk about stereotypes to do with gardening among Latin Americans in the US. Very interesting subject and German's got some interesting insights into that, so go and check out An Extra Leaf number 94 if you're a Patreon subscriber at the Ledgend, or Superfan level. That's it for this week's show. I will be back next Friday, that's July 22nd, and I should give you advance warning that I'm taking the month of August off for a pause for On The Ledge, so episodes are coming out on July 22nd and 29th and then no episodes in August. The show will be back on September 2nd and if you're a Patreon subscriber, your subscription will be paused for the month of August, just so On The Ledge can have a little summer respite, but I will see you again next Friday. So, you and your plants have a great week! Bye!
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 Young', by Komiku and 'Oh, Mallory' by Josh Woodward. All Tracks are Licenced under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.
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Listener German Rivera joins me to talk about his experiences growing Alocasias and Marantas in California, and I answer a question about making pots fuller.
Patreon subscribers at the Ledge End and Superfan level can listen to An Extra Leaf 94 where German and I discuss stereotypes of Latin Americans in horticulture and the challenges of greenhouse growing.
This week’s guest
Graphic designer German Rivera lives close to the ocean in Long Beach California. You’ll find German on Instagram as @maisonelysium. The pot designer he mentions are LBE Design.
Scroll down for more images of the plants German discusses in this episode. All photographs are © German Rivera.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Ceropegia woodii aka string of hearts has a tendency to grow straggly over time. Photograph: Jane Perrone.
Nik wanted to know how to make trailing plants fuller and more bushy. The major consideration is usually light - upping light levels usually helps plants to push out new growth. Change light exposure gradually to prevent leaf damage.
Once you have corrected light levels, you can also remove cuttings, propagate and add them back to the top of the pot. This serves two purposes - more stems, obviously, but also, by removing the growing tips of the plant, it will often redirect growth hormones to the sideshoots of the plant to make it bush out. When you are adding rooted cuttings, you may need to completely repot the specimens, or you may be able to make a small hole and tuck the cuttings into the existing substrate and 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
HOW TO SUPPORT ON THE LEDGE
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.
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 two extra episodes a month, known as An Extra Leaf, as well as ad-free versions of the main podcast on weeks where there’s a paid advertising spot, and access to occasional patron-only Zoom sessions.
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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!
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CREDITS
This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, The Road We Use To Travel When We Were Kids by Komiku and Oh Mallory by Josh Woodward.