Not Another Jungle: Comprehensive Care for Extraordinary Houseplants

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Well I'm gonna bring you some amazing gesneriads. But you know. What is it about, this is what's fascinating about houseplants, though, is that for one person, something could just spark off this incredible reaction in away, you're absolutely fascinated. And I'm sure when I read the text here, I'll probably be fascinated to. You've literally given me the book about half an hour ago, so I haven't had the chance to read it. But tell me about this particular orchid and why it's in here and what it offers us in terms of being a fascinating plant. Jane: We could spend another hour talking about your beautiful vegetable patch and beautiful garden. This is like something at Hampton Court or something! When are you coming to Hampton Court or Chelsea to design? Come on! Am I getting an exclusive here? Jane: Yes, do you use a light meter, or do you just use your eyes? Do you ever get into the light meter territory? Key types are the banana skin, used as houseplant fertiliser. He says: “Bananas have loads of potassium, and people think that means their plants are going to get loads of potassium. This is so wrong. Even if it [the skin] did have lots of potassium – which it doesn’t – that’s not what plants need. If plants are going to grow healthily, they need a balanced fertiliser and different plants require different levels of NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium)." Tony: So it does come out round, almost like a large form, but the fenestrations on it are unbelievably spectacular. If you look here - the marks on the leaf, and you see the really pronounced veins - that's where it's going to split, so it turns into, almost, a trident, but then it morphs completely differently. So this, currently, is known, not registered, but known as a Monstera burle marx flame. I hate the name it's been given! I think it sounds really cheap and nasty but it was previously thought of as Sierrana. Sierrana is actually a completely different plant and Sierrana is also a subspecies of Deliciosa but has rounded leaves, like Deliciosa, also, when it's immature. So it's all over the place!

You're looking at, you're wiping down that plant with great love. That's all I can say about that picture.Jane: Don't get me started on this! I did a column recently on one of the plants in this genus and the stress that the people on the magazine and the RHS had trying to decide... and I'm like, "No, it really should be Thaumatophyllum**" and we had a big to and fro about it and I can't remember what the final conclusion was. Jane: I was going to say they look like they're starting to reshoot. We'll get into a bit more, sort of really geeky stuff in a little bit of Patreon content, but that's the unicorn that we've all heard about. It's never Obliqua, but here we are, it is Obliqua, so what's the story behind your getting hold of the Obliqua? Jane: You can fix that with lots of modern bulbs and things, it just depends whether you want to invest in that technology or how you want your home to look and the aesthetic you're trying to create. Tap water is absolutely fine for houseplants. The only exception to that is carnivorous plants, which require rainwater or water from a river or a pond, something like that,” he says, adding that levels of chlorine in tap water are way below any level which would affect your houseplants. Oh, well. It's lovely. Well done. It's fantastic. So congratulations, Tony and I'm sure you'll get a fabulous response from people who do go out and invest in a copy.

Jane: My eyes are light meters. This is the way I think about it. I can tell from just looking at something, what's going on. I will get it out occasionally, just to prove something. I find that it's just a visual thing, as opposed to anything else. I want to know about your love of Aroids. Orchids were a previous obsession, but now it's Aroids. What is it that draws you in? Is there something about the thrill of the rarity that's making you, like, "I've got this plant that no one else has got, mwahaha!"? Jane: Not stretch marks. It almost doesn't look real. I can't explain it very well. It almost looks like car upholstery on a leather upholstered car. This is one of Tony's biggest bugbears, who says home-made fertilisers are “a total waste of food or total waste of time. Sometimes it can actually create a negative impact on the plant". Tony: That one doesn't have a name. I don't name my plants but - comedy -- usually after a few drinks... It is. We struggled with the name so it was never going to be called Not Another Jungle. And I was really adamant. So when I first signed up for this book, I said, I don't want to be in the book. No pictures of me.Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you are the hardest working man in the house plant world I don't know how you do it. How you've written a book and opened a shop and done an amazing, you know, amazing amount of social media. When do you sleep? It makes me tired just thinking about it. So I salute you for that. And I think it's, but it's this book is a really great addition to the sort of array of different houseplant books out there because it does do something different. I love the photographs. Now you are a photographer, but you didn't do the photography for this book yourself. Why was that because it was just another thing to do? 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. Tony: Xanadu Gold, that's right. There's just an endless... but at the moment, it's Thaumatophyllum. I just love the new leaves.

Tony: It needs a repot. It's been in that pot since I got it, when it was a lot smaller. It's only recently, this year, it's started putting out some new growth. If you enjoy doing it and find it relaxing, then go for it. Just know that if you are trying to increase humidity, it’s not doing that. And it can cause things like fungal problems on the leaf if the water is not drying off,” says Tony. Tony: No, absolutely not. It's really strange. A lot of people online look at my collection and they think that I just buy everything. That's not a smart way to do it and it also takes the joy out of it. I think the most wonderful thing, for me, is swapping with someone. Sending them something like this, this I got yesterday from someone. I sent them one of my variegated Adansonii, they sent me this Aurea one and we didn't pay a penny for it. Jane: Tell me about your pots. You've got the bigger plants, the floor plants, you've got some lovely pots. Are they anything particular, from anywhere in particular? Jane: It's an interesting one. I do feel for people trying to build a collection of Aroids because... I'm old, so I want a book that tells me everything, but there's no one source. There's so many different information sources and you must have spent a lot of time doing research for different sources to get all the information that's now in your head and the information is changing all the time, as well. I think that's the other thing.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. Jane: The leaves are amazing! I just really like these, as my children would say, "chonk" stems! They're just so cool. Tony: I showed people online why it's called Elephant Ear. When you shake it like that, it's like an elephant walking, isn't it? Tony: I've just bought a light meter. That, actually, was about the greenhouse and it was just to figure out, not necessarily, like, levels, looking at numbers, just figuring out which parts were getting the light from the panels that I was putting in and which ones weren't. It was very sort of basic like that. All the plants featured are available internationally and can be acquired by US readers (many plants have their origins in South America or Asia). Wonder at the natural world with Not Another Jungle and curate and care for your own incredible collection of happy, healthy houseplants.

Tony: No, no. 110%. So the majority of people that buy these very expensive plants, like I say, they're not buying them to show off to people, they just want to have them because they enjoy collecting things and collecting plants. Some people buy them to propagate, some people buy them for themselves. I have one woman who asked her husband for this instead of an engagement ring and she gets more joy out of it, so why not!

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We're here to talk about this lovely, lovely book. And I feel like we've been on parallel journeys with this, I'm not going to go on about my book, because that's not what this episode is about. But it's really exciting that your book is now a physical thing. How does it feel? 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.