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Tony: If you imagine, when they get big and have that gorgeous reflective texture, it's going to look spectacular!
Tony: Yes. There was a waiting list when I first got it. The first batch that went out were ten that went out all over the world and this is the second batch of them. Tony: They're growing all over the floor as well, possibly because we moved so much. So the plant is like, "I'm being moved, the wind has shaken me, I need to anchor myself to the ground."Jane: Yes, that's very true. I think it's that thing of, what's that law? There's a law about this. I did this in RHS Level 2. I can't remember what the law is called but it's, basically, all of these different factors with plants, light, moisture, temperature, they're all kind of linked together. I'm going to have to look this up after the interview. It's the one that's limited, the law of limiting factors, maybe that's it? Yes, and it's that sense of, "Okay, yes, you're doing great, you're fertilising it, you're getting the watering roughly right, but actually, there's just not enough light, so it's never going to reach its potential." I think that's the trouble, is that lots of modern homes don't have that much light.
Tony: So the majority of Aroids, even the things I have in the greenhouse, could be acclimated to grow in the home. They're not going to grow as fast, or as big, or as reliably, and you might get some more problems, you might have to manage watering a little bit more, but they really can be acclimated to most, I say, average houses, but some houses have 30% humidity and some have 70%, some have a lot of light and some have none. So there's two avenues you can go down; you either choose a plant that you like and then you create the conditions it's going to thrive in, so you can give it artificial light if you have to, you can give it more humidity if you have to or you figure out the kind of space and conditions you can offer and find plants to fit that. So there's two different ways you can go about it, neither is right or wrong. I think it's just really important to find out what your plant needs and make sure you're giving it. Tony: Yes! You look closely at your pot, no matter what medium you use, and there's going to be some form of life in there. Again, this is from outside, it's so important to nurture that ecosystem in the pot because it helps the soil structure, it helps roots absorb nutrients. Repeated pesticide use, whether that be natural or synthetic, is not only killing the pests but it's killing the ecosystem in your pot, which is eventually going to have a detrimental effect on your plant overall.Well, I have to say it's, there's a lot of gorgeousness in here to enjoy. Were there, was there anything in here that you found really challenging to write about or anything that was particularly enjoyable, or you know, that you really got into that you were flying away with or where where were the peaks and the troughs? Tony: It's still up in the air, yes. There's a lot of different thoughts on that. I mean, Borsigiana isn't a recognised name. It was just invented, but use it if you like because people know what you're talking about, but I'd say the easiest thing is just to do small-form and large-form right now. I've grown both of them in the same situations, from nodes, and they act completely differently. They fenestrate in different ways, they grow at a different rate as well, even from nodes which are sort of the same maturity. So, in my eyes, they are two different forms of Deliciosa but, for instance, I have six different forms of Monstera adansonii subspecies Laniata. That sounds very specific, but every region has a different version of it, so it's not crazy to think that there might be two, or even more, subspecies of Deliciosa, like that was thought as a subspecies of Deliciosa at the moment. Tony says that bottom watering is not essential and there's nothing wrong with tap water for your plants Myth: Homemade fertiliser is always best
Tony: Other things, I suppose we have to talk about the Rhaphidophora testrasperma variegata because that excites me so much: the rarity, but also, I love the variegated pattern on it. Jane: On The Ledge podcast is on a journey to houseplant fabulousness! Hello and welcome to On The Ledge! I am your host, Jane Perrone, and this week I actually got to leave the house, yay! I am out of Covid isolation and negative; thank you science and double jabs! I have been to visit Tony Le-Britton aka @notanotherjungle, to bathe myself in a houseplant collection that may well make you go weak at the knees and I answer a question about a bare, naked Hoya stem! Light can also be used to manipulate plants, to encourage flowering, for example, and Tony uses a light meter to determine the best spot for them.
It was really, that was one of my favourite parts of the book, were the photoshoots and preparing the plants for the shoot as well. I mean, it wasn't all smooth sailing because if you can imagine for instance the variegated Rhaphidophora tetrasperma, not many of them at the time weren't many of them around. For the book I showed how it stem propagate that so I have to have that plant ready in all different stages of the propagation from it being first cut to the shoot to it's first leaf. All for that one day. And same with begonia leaf cuttings, I basically had to make like 50 of them two weeks apart to make sure I had one in each stage of its development for the step by step. So it's a lot of work. Tony: I'll probably leave that for another year or so, I think. They're fine. A lot of these are so epiphytic, it's just somewhere for them to hold on to and then I ply them with fertiliser and that's all they need.