Episode 183: leaf botany part six - what do plants know, with Beronda Montgomery
Transcript
Episode 183
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Jane: Hello! My name's Jane Perrone and I host a show about houseplants called On The Ledge. Welcome! After last week's tantrum, I'm back to my usual calm and happy state this week, bringing you another instalment in my leaf botany series, with plant biologist, Beronda L Montgomery, here to talk about what plants know and her new book, 'Lessons from Plants'. Plus, I answer a question about plants to keep in your shower.
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Jane: A warm welcome to this week's new Patreon subscribers: Janet, Lisa, Chris, Danielle and Donna became Ledge-ends. Megan became a SuperFan and Ray became a Crazy Plant Person. Thanks to all of you. If you want to find out more about being a Patreon subscriber and unlocking extra content in the form of my Extra Leaf episodes, check out the show notes at janeperrone.com and you'll also find details there of how to make a one-off donation if you don't want a regular commitment. Thanks to RNGardner, who supported the show by leaving a five-star review for On The Ledge. Please go and fill out my survey if you haven't done so already. You have until Monday 10th May, the end of the day UK-time, to fill it in and be in with the chance of winning a £25 Spreadshirt voucher. Your answers will help me determine the future direction of On The Ledge, so do check out the show notes and click on the link to take part. I know some people had problems with that link. Hopefully you will be able to click on it and it should work fine, but please report back if you have any problems.
Thanks also to everyone who came back to me with your own plant peeves after last week's episode! Lots of you are angry about glitter and paint sprayed onto plants, which I think we've talked about on the show before. Rapscallion got annoyed about mini planters the size of egg cups, with the sprig stuck in it. Iris doesn't like Tillandsia glued onto sea urchin shells. Jody raged about Bonsai listed as houseplants and Jamie is horrified by the idea of calling bottom-watering "butt chugging". I think that's another one I've moaned about on the show before. One last one from Ronya, I hope I'm pronouncing your name right, Hoyas that are rooted and sold in coconut husk. Yes, it works in a tropical climate, but it's a death sentence in your average home. It's also almost impossible to remove. I feel your pain. I have been there before. Do go on to the Facebook group 'Houseplant Fans of On The Ledge' if you want to share your plant peeve. The thread is still there and I'll link from the show notes.
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Jane: What do plants know? This is a question that's been bothering me since I started growing plants at a very young age. Can they tell when they're surrounded by their fellow species? Do they know the difference between an animal, a human and another plant? How do they communicate with each other? Beronda L Montgomery's new book, 'Lessons from Plants', delves into many of these questions and that's why I was so excited to get her on the show. So let's dive right in and find out lessons from plants, with Beronda Montgomery.
Beronda: I'm Beronda Montgomery. I am an MSU foundation professor at Michigan State University, jointly appointed in two departments; the department of biochemistry and molecular biology as well as the department of microbiology and molecular genetics. My research group studies how organisms such as plants and photosynthetic bacteria, who have a limited scope in terms of the space in which they live, determine what's going on around them - what the light cues are, which nutrients are available - so that they can match their behaviours to the environments in which they find themselves to really strive for success and limit any kind of damage.
Jane: Beronda, that sounds like you've got a lot to say on this topic, which I'm summarising as 'what do plants know?' Lots of people who've listened to my show have taken on lots of houseplants and they're constantly trying to figure out how to keep them happy, but what I'm fascinated to discover from you is quite how plants understand, or sense, the world around them, which is what I want to get into today. You've written this wonderful book, which I have in front of me, and it has a beautiful cover. 'Lessons from Plants' - should we just start there? If you could tell me what prompted you to write this book and what it offers in terms of an insight into the world of plants?
Beronda: Absolutely! So I was prompted to write the book after a number of years trying to share my enthusiasm for plants with those in my life who were outside of the sciences. I come from a family of people who work more in business and healthcare and personal care spaces, so I was one of the first in the family to set down a path where I was dedicated, over the years, to studying biological organisms and being in scientific spaces. Some of my real interest in trying to share what I was learning about plants, and the great enthusiasm and awe I had from them, came from wanting to invite family and friends into my space, so I started to share lessons with them. I happen to have parents who are very much into flower gardening and vegetable gardening, so some of the things I was learning was translating to them things that I was watching them do in their spaces. Over the years that commitment to wanting to be open about the enthusiasm for plants also really impacted the ways in which I gave scientific talks. Ultimately, a few years ago, giving a scientific talk at a scientific conference, I was approached by an acquisitions editor who would ask if I'd ever thought about writing a book. So I pitched this idea of sharing not only what I've learned about plants over the years - they're certainly in the book, some of the things that I've learned from a scientific perspective, hopefully in an open and accessible way about plants - but over the years, I've learned a lot from plants in terms of reflecting on how they go about being in the world and some things that we might be able to learn from them in that respect.
Jane: One of the things I wanted to start by asking you, was about how much "consciousness" we can ascribe to plants? As houseplant growers, we love to give them names and you know... she's sassy, he's a diva, giving them different kind of personalities! I'd love to get your insight into how plants know things; when they are, where they are and what's around them?
Beronda: That's fun to hear! It's fun to watch the ways in which humans engage with their plants and I think part of what that is, is us engaging with other organisms, but it is us also picking up on the awareness of plants and the fact that plants, even though they may be of the same species, like humans, there is some variation amongst them, so you may notice different things about plants. When we start to talk about consciousness, one of the things that can become a barrier is that often we're thinking about it from a human perspective of consciousness. I think that if we instead allow ourselves to think about it as awareness of knowing where you are in context and responding to that, then plants are certainly highly aware and they're certainly able to take in information about what's going on around them and to respond to that. So I have kind of not gotten caught up in whether it's consciousness the way we understand consciousness because it's not. Humans have a brain and a central nervous system, but plants are certainly highly aware of who they are; they know if they're with kin-related plants or not; they are clearly aware of what's going on around them and we can see that, whether we are trained botanists or not. Those in our homes will see a plant turning towards a window and that's an awareness of the direction from which light is coming. So I think that they are highly aware and that awareness to me is awe-inspiring when you really start to understand the myriad ways in which plants are aware of what's going on around them. In terms of us talking to our plants, or engaging with them, we offer that as interaction. It's recognized, often, as increased carbon dioxide, or movement, or other ways and so there's an awareness of our being there even if they don't know that we're human in terms of being able to perceive that. So I think there's a lot going on there that, to me, is still worthy of great awe and great understanding.
Jane: This is making me wonder whether the plant that's sat on its own in a pot in a hallway somewhere is thinking to itself, "I'm all alone! None of my family are around me. I'm totally isolated." You said that plants are aware whether there's other plants around. How does that awareness take place?
Beronda: The awareness happens through multiple channels. One of them is that plants are able to perceive if there are other plants close by and so that "close by" is perceived as shade, but it's shade that's different if it's a plant next to it versus if it's a human or a building next to it because the colours of light, as well as the intensity of light, changes if it's a plant next to it, whereas often just whether it's dim or bright changes if it's a non-plant. So certainly, when there are close individuals next to it, it can perceive that, in addition to changes in the light, there are chemicals which is a kind of language that's produced by plants and plants of one species often are producing the same chemical language, so that's perceived as a related type of plant, whereas a plant that's distantly related often produces a different version of that language. So, much like humans, we're able to detect where, if it's a language we've been embedded in and picked up over time, and so plants are able to communicate through chemicals as well as changes in the environment when there are beings near it.
Jane: Does that mean then, I'm not going to use the word happier, but will a plant be able to grow better when it knows that it's got other similar plants around it? Is that a sort of thing that then makes it able to interact in its environment in a more successful way?
Beronda: At times, yes. Often plants that are similar will communicate and collaborate. So, for example, if there is potential danger and there are herbivores around, plants of similar type, if one of them are attacked, they will communicate to others and those plants can then preemptively put their defences up against potential danger. Sometimes plants do compete for access to resources and what's interesting about that is that if they are in an environment with kin, they temper that competition so they don't compete as vigorously as if they're growing with the plant that they're not related to. So certainly, being in a community with others who you recognise as kin either tempers your competition or will encourage collaboration, so they certainly will grow better and defend better when they're communicating with each other in that particular way.
Jane: It's just mind-blowing to think that all this is going on under our noses, both in our homes with houseplants but also when we go outside. I can't imagine, in a large forest, how much incredible networks of communication are taking place that we're just, as humans, completely unaware of! That's mind-blowing!
Beronda: Absolutely! As we're just going about our hike there's all of this communication going on around us; collaboration between plants, collaboration between plants and other organisms, but yes, fascinating biochemistry going on right before our eye, or either under our feet in terms of what's happening in the soil with the roots of plants.
Jane: Yes, we haven't even got onto mycorrhizal fungi and what they're doing, but that's another whole world of incredible stuff!
Beronda: Yes.
Jane: I've often thought, really I should start another whole podcast on the fungus world because, talk about mind-blowing! It's absolutely incredible and I think the more we can understand this, the more we have respect for the plants and trees around us, hopefully, and understand that they are doing these incredible things. Just because it's not the way our brains work, or it's not the way our bodies work, doesn't mean that it's not equally as incredible. Do plants have a sense of self though? Are they able to tell where they end and something else begins? I don't know if that's a particularly good way of expressing it.
Beronda: Yes, I completely understand. Plants do have a sense of self in that there's a lot of evidence in the scientific literature and even in some of our experiments that we've done, that if you have plants growing next to each other, as they come near to each other, sometimes there's a slight change in their behaviour, or if the tips touch, there's a response to that at the molecular level. So that's a sense that you understand where you end and somewhere else begins. Even if you look in forests, there's something that are called these canopy gaps, or canopy spaces, that you'll see and that's an awareness of plants realising that they're growing next to someone. Originally, people thought that was just kind of a physical abrasion of when they touch, but there's scientific evidence that there's a genetic network that helps control these gaps in the canopy between trees which is clearly an awareness of making space for someone growing next to you. You can also see it with roots under the ground, where plants that are of two different species, the roots are excluded from intertwining and so that's an awareness of yourself, roots versus the roots of someone else, and those are often mediated through chemical signal and chemical awareness, but plants are able to detect when there's self and when there's another plant or other being there.
Jane: I've seen so many memes on social media about the fact that plants that seem to be able to grow in a crack in the pavement in the wild and then we put one in a pot in our homes and they just keel over, they don't last and they're somehow being coquettish by the fact they're refusing to survive. How does a plant in a pot... presumably it's quite limited, it's literally limiting its interaction with the outside world in the sense that it's in a pot, it's not connected to the fungal network and the roots of other plants, so does that mean that houseplants will have to adopt different strategies to adapt to life in a pot?
Beronda: Life is certainly different for the same plant when it's in a pot versus when it's in a field and that's because when it's in a field it is connected with this entire network of bacteria in the soil, fungi in the soil, interacting with other plants. When it's in the potted soil, we think we're giving it the best of everything that it needs. We probably have rich, organic soil, we may even give it nutrients. That's a very different environment from its natural context. Sometimes that soil, although it doesn't seem to us to be sterile because it's dirt, compared to what it would find in the environment, it can be depleted of the rich organisms and community that it would find. Certainly, it's not often interacting through its root system, although it may be interacting with other plants through the air if you have more than one plant. It's really growing in isolation and I think that we think about the ways in which humans in isolation often don't fare well socially or mentally, if you have a human who's in solitary confinement or something, you see mental effects over that time. Plants in a pot, even though you're giving them a lot of nutrients, a lot of resources, that's a very different environment than being connected in a rich and diverse community of other plants and other organisms in a natural context. So, sometimes, what happens in those cases, is that plants build up their kind of hardiness by having to respond to herbivores. They induce some kind of defensive chemicals, having to recognise others, and in those pots, sometimes those things are not being induced. So, if you get some mites or other flies, they've been living a happy life where they've not had to be on the defence and that comes as quite a shock to their system. So those are some of the things that we're watching. Even though we think we're doing the best care, we've protected them from really strengthening their kind of natural abilities to deal with diversity, good and bad, in natural context.
Jane: It's fascinating to hear that when a pest does land, that plant will then be sending out chemical messages to other plants saying, "This is around." As a botanist, how do you go about measuring that? Do you have to put plants into a sealed environment and then measure those VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds)?
Beronda: A lot of times that is what happens. There are volatile organic chemicals that you sometimes put plants in an enclosed environment and you're able to sample the air around them to see what volatiles are there. Some of these volatiles actually stay within the plant and are transported through the internal transport systems and so, often what people can do, is collect the plants and measure some of the changes in the volatiles that are accumulating in the leaves, but you certainly can measure what's considered the air space or head space around plants as well.
Jane: I imagine we have so much more to learn about this stuff. The first time I heard about this, actually, was in a novel called 'The Overstory', which is an amazing book which I highly recommend anyone to read, about trees and the way that trees communicate and it's about lots of things, but it's a really interesting book. I wasn't really fully aware of the powerful messages that can be sent through those VOCs and it is absolutely fascinating stuff. Tell me about plants and memory. Surely perennial plants must have some kind of memory because they know when to cup, to pop out, every year - they know when to flower. It's a human construct, the memory, but what's the plant equivalent?
Beronda: Plants do have memory and, a lot of times, some of the mechanisms by which plants have memory is not different from other organisms. There's been a lot of talk about epigenetic changes in humans and how there are these markers along our DNA that are evidence of past environmental exposures, plants have similar mechanisms. One of the ones that we know the most about, I would say in plants, is how cold can serve as a memory. Plants can't remember when they've been exposed to cold and some perennial plants, this is critical, because it's that exposure to cold that tells you you've been through winter. So you have to remember that you've been through winter so that you know spring is coming and it's time to flower and there's a real understanding of how plants, the DNA and epigenetic markers are accumulating during this wintering and that can be passed on to the seeds. So there certainly is a memory that plants have and a lot of times these memories are most impressed by reproducible environmental signals. So, long periods of cold is a winter, long days is summer and so they're using cues like light and temperature that are generally reproducible in the environment as memory over time. So you can certainly see that plants do have memory. We've had a lot of conversations about intergenerational memory in humans over the years and plants, there's some evidence, and certainly you can study that, by following seeds, that there may be such in plants as well.
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Jane: More from my interview with Beronda shortly, but now an update on my crowdfunder. A mahoosive thank you to everyone who has been pledging to support my houseplant book, 'Legends of the Leaf'. I'm at 91% and I've got until the end of May to reach my target, so only another 9% to go! It's getting really exciting! I want to reach the end so that I can really focus on getting this book out there, so please support me if you can. You can use the discount code MaySoon10 to get 10% off your pledge now. Visit the show notes or just type in janeperrone.com and there's a big plug at the top of my page for the book. The book won't happen unless I get to 100%, so please spread the word and make your pledge for one of the sweet offers you can get, including a print of the beautiful artwork by my illustrator Helen Entwisle, a signed copy of the book or a houseplant consultation with me! How fun would that be? And if you've booked one of those consultations, just to say, as soon as the book reaches 100% then I will get your details from Unbound and will be able to set up those consultations. Now - more lessons from plants, with Beronda Montgomery!
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Jane: What are the unanswered questions for you, of plant knowledge and understanding and sensing that you're still looking for an answer to?
Beronda: There's so many. I think back to when my son was a cute little third grader and his teacher was talking about science and plants and she had exposed him to photosynthesis and she said, "Plants and photosynthesis are one of the things we understand a lot about. I remember my son raised his hand, she told me, and said, "That can't be true because my mom is still talking about photosynthesis and plants all the time!". She and her colleagues... I think there's so much we still have to know about plants and part of that is because we study a relatively small number of the plants that we know exist on earth. We call them model species. They're plants that are easy to grow in the lab and we kind of understand their genetics, but there's so many other things that we don't know about plants because there's such a huge range of them that aren't easy for us to cultivate in the lab, that live in spaces that are very different. We talked about plants growing in pots in our home... the conditions in which we grow plants in the lab is even more restricted and defined. These are really over-protected plants. So the ways in which plants do respond in natural context, we have a lot more to learn about that, of the range of signals to which plants are able to respond. I think part of the limitation we have in understanding plants has been, for many years, sometimes, the technology, but I think it's also the ways in which we limit our understanding of plants because we try to understand them from the context in which we understand ourselves. So there's so many questions, I think, that are out there and one of them is how much plants do know which animals are around them and how they respond to that. I really am fascinated with some of those particular things, questions we will never understand in my lifetime, but I think we have so much more to learn from the range of plants which we can study and the ways in which we really start to break the limits of our understanding - how they are responding not just limited to our own human context.
Jane: In the book, you talk about some lessons that we can learn from the way we engage with our plants as caretakers and the way that plants relate to each other and the way we can support and mentor each other. A book that's been very fundamental for my understanding of plants is 'Braiding Sweetgrass' by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It's an amazing book and you're building on some of that knowledge and considering indigenous plant knowledge as well and what that can bring to our understanding. There's so much to talk about here, I don't quite know where to start, but why did you feel like you had to put that into the book?
Beronda: I thought it was really important. I have learned so much and actually found hope in the ways in which I reflect on how humans have this kind of natural engagement with plants, and most humans have a default understanding that plants should grow. So, a plant in our environment, if it's struggling, we really start to ask 'What can I provide for it? What nutrients does it need? Does it need to move in the house? What's going on external to that plant that's limiting its growth because we expect that it should grow? When I expanded that to also thinking about the things that I did learn from Robin Wall Kimmerer and reading both her books and having the privilege of hearing her talk, but also reflecting on some of the traditional stories and knowledge that exist in my own family, from generations. Amongst those, I'm from the south in the US, a descendant of enslaved people, and there's a lot of knowledge just has been passed from generation to generation about how to use plants and engage with plants medicinally - all of those kinds of things. I think there's a lot of knowledge that we have from our human experience with plants. Paired with this human expectation that plants could grow, that really provides me hope that we possess the ability to engage with others in different ways, both from very different perspectives, the diversity... One of the stories that I love that's been shared by Robin Wall Kimmerer and other indigenous peoples, are how they are often using farming practices that are about growing different plants together, polyculture, the benefits that come from plants growing in diverse communities and supporting each other through collaboration. That kind of default expectation of growth, but understanding of the power of living in diverse communities offers a lot of hope for me, in terms of what our capacity as humans is, even when we don't live up to that capacity all the time. So I think there's some powerful lessons that we can draw from the natural world and those are some that have really stuck with me over the years.
Jane: It's powerful stuff, isn't it? It's really interesting to talk to older relatives about plants. Whenever you speak to older relatives, you can sometimes unlock some fascinating stuff. I'm interested now in the way this millennial generation that's latched onto houseplants, and indeed younger, and I wonder whether that is going to be a gateway for them to start appreciating plants outside as well. I guess that's the hope.
Beronda: I hope so. It's been quite inspiring. I talked about how plants have often served as a beacon for hope for me in something I wrote recently. One of the things that's been really fascinating to watch, is the ways in which plants have popped up in social media spaces across the globe, particularly even in this pandemic. I think that one of the things that's fascinating about plants is that it gives you someone to care for in your environment and whether you live in a space where you can have pets or not, plants can be brought into most spaces and I think that they feed into this human need to care for something else. There's actually a lot of evidence that plants can really be almost a therapy for people engaging with plants and there are some therapeutic practices where people are encouraged to care for plants and I think that one of the things that's fascinating with plants is almost anybody can pick that up and engage with them, but also in ways that sometimes other organisms don't really allow us to see the immediate outcomes of the care that we invest. You can see when you're caring for a plant and there's great fascination when a new leaf emerges, or you see a leaf coming out. You see lots of pictures and videos of this on Instagram and TikTok and all of these spaces. You see the outcomes of your care, you see that plant thriving and it's fascinating to see how a new leaf is emerging or new branches emerging. So I think that it really resonates with our ability to engage with someone in these spaces that's been elevated in a time when many of us have been isolated, either alone, or with our families, during this global pandemic, and I do hope the kind of love we've seen for plants, the fascination we've seen with people growing lettuce from a lettuce scrap, that some of those fascinations will carry on after this moment. I hope that, in addition to just the general fascinations, that people are drawing real lessons from what they're observing in their spaces.
Jane: It's really encouraging isn't it and, for me, it's been a really enjoyable process to see so many more people catching on to this stuff? Was plants something that you've always had an interest in? You said that your wider family don't have a background in botany. Was it something that just intrinsically fascinated you from childhood?
Beronda: Even as I say that, my mom is a botanist. She's not a trained botanist, but I grew up in a house with hundreds of plants, it seemed, both inside and outside. I wasn't always fascinated with them when she was caring for them, although she had some that would climb along the walls and vine around things. I thought they were beautiful. It was actually years later that I took a plant physiology class and realised all the interesting things, as you said earlier, that are going on right under our nose or in front of our eyes. Certainly, I reflected back on that, that I had grown up with someone who had the most exquisite abilities to understand what was going on with her plants and was able to even nurse some of her friends' and neighbours' plants back to health. So I was embedded in it, but it wasn't really a deep, conscious engagement at that stage. It was later, when I took a class and realised all of the fascinating things happening behind those kind of things that I have been immersed in, by osmosis, growing up, that it all came together. Certainly, once I got to that point, the relationship and conversations that I had with my parents - my mom's still an amazing gardener. My dad, who's passed away, was a beautiful vegetable gardener - it's when some of those things came back together, from my childhood, later, as I started to really embrace being a trained botanist, I would say.
Jane: Is the world of botany changing as an understanding of the value of indigenous knowledge about plants? Is that being embraced?
Beronda: I think, in pockets. I would argue that probably not as quickly as it should. I think, unfortunately, we often set up these kind of artificial barriers with the things that untrained humans know about plants and what we trained scientists know. I think we set up unnecessary artificial barriers. I do think that the work of people like Robin Wall Kimmerer, who's a professor of ecology and still sharing some of those ethnobotany and indigenous practices, is increasing the awareness of the real importance of that, is part of what I hope to do in writing this book. I think that we're leaving so much knowledge just out there, untapped, because we put these artificial barriers between our disciplines and between what's considered good science and what's considered not good science, when I would say it's all types of science and we'd either decide we're going to access it or not. We've benefited from it so much over the years in terms of so many of our medicines come from plants and it's fascinating to me how slow some scientists can be to accept that because there are a myriad examples when science, decades or hundreds of years later, has verified something that indigenous people knew all along and yet we still have this resistance to be open to other ways of knowing. I think it's really limiting our ability to come to grips with who we are in the space of this planet and that's one of the reasons why I insist on this reciprocity for myself of learning about plants but also learning from them.
Jane: That's a great point to end on. Thank you so much, Beronda, for joining me on On The Ledge today. It's been really fascinating and good luck with your book. I really hope lots of readers get a copy because it's a wonderful read. Thanks so much.
Beronda: Thank you so much for the invitation and the beautiful work that you're doing on this podcast. I really do appreciate you and I appreciate your work.
Jane: Thank you.
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J**a**ne: Beronda Montgomery's book, 'Lessons from Plants' is out now, published by Harvard. I'll put all the details in the show notes so you can check it out. Now it's time for Question of the Week, which comes from Aisha, who has just moved house and has a stand-up shower. Once a week, Aisha's plants go into the shower for a bit of a clean down. Aisha loves the feeling of being surrounded by plants while showering, taking them back to a childhood spent in Malaysia, and, naturally, the thought follows, "Could I hang some trailing plants on the top of the shower? Which ones would thrive in the space?" What a great question and an interesting one!
I think, provided that you're a little bit careful with shampoo, conditioner etc, shower gel, splashing onto the plant in excessive quantities and the water being super-hot - I know I like super-hot showers, so that may not be good for all plants - I think there's a number of things that you could put in your shower. Air plants are the thing that immediately spring to mind because you can have them hung in all kinds of configurations, either from wires, or from netting, or just in a metal container of some kind, or on hooks. There's lots of different ways you could display them and they would just love that humid atmosphere and suck up all of that moisture.
I do think that the Moth Orchid might not be a bad idea, mounted on a piece of cork, it would be allowed to get moist and then dry out quite quickly, I think that's definitely worth a try - they're pretty tough and I can't see why that wouldn't work. The other one that I've seen in pictures of showers, which I think would work extremely well, is our old friend, Epipremnum aureum, the Devil's Ivy, or Golden Pothos. That plant will be absolutely fine in your shower, if you can find a way of putting it high up and then dangling down, it's going to love it in there. They're so easy. If you've got one of those shower caddy plastic holders you can actually fill that with plants and you can have that full of air plants or maybe a couple of orchids, some ferns, just make sure that any really delicate leaf plants are not going to be hit by the direct power of the hot water because they might get damaged that way.
I've also seen a nice picture of a big, tall Rhaphidophora tetrasperma in a shower, actually, and I think that could work. I think the only thing is, if the pot is going to get wet on a daily, or twice daily, basis, then you need to make sure that that growing medium is really free draining, so that you're not going to get the soil too moist. That plant's obviously going to get a lot more water than a regular plant would do in normal conditions, so just ameliorate the substrate to make sure that it's got loads of perlite, or Leca, or grit, just so that water is not going to sit around the roots, but it'll love that humidity.
I think Spanish Moss is another amazingly good choice for your shower. In nature, it hangs from trees in huge, lovely drapes and you could certainly put some on a hook and have it in your shower room. It's another kind of air plant that lends itself naturally to hanging in a shower. It will just love that humidity. The Latin name of that one is Tillandsia usneoides.
I think the main thing is that you're going to have to experiment and see what fits, what isn't going to fall on your head - that's another peril that I'm sure needs to be considered - and what will cope with the humidity levels in there without getting too bashed about, or too worried by hot water. So have a try and maybe move things in and out, as you experiment, and if you can't get any plants in your shower for any reason, then you can always buy yourself a lovely shower curtain covered in pictures of plants. There's some beautiful designs out there and you can get that biophilic effect without actually putting plants in your shower for real! If you've got a question for On The Ledge, drop me a line: ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com I will be happy to help! And that's another show done and dusted! I will be back next Friday, when I will be bringing you a whole episode devoted to a certain Dr David G Hessayon. Can't wait! Bye!
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Jane: 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 Kamiku and Overthrown by Josh Woodward. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. Visit janeperrone.com for details.
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Outtake:
Jane: And the Latin name of that one is Tillandsia usneoides... Why are you laughing?
Rick: That's not a real sentence!
Jane: It is a real sentence.
Rick: It's not a real sentence... "Tisnandia Suburoidies" - you're making it up!
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Did you know that plants have memory, senses and their own unique language? Find out more with Dr Beronda Montgomery, author of new book Lessons With Plants, in the latest instalment of the leaf botany series. Plus I answer a question about plants to hang in the shower.
This week’s guest
Dr Beronda L Montgomery is MSU Foundation Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Michigan State University. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and was named one of Cell’s 100 Inspiring Black Scientists in America.
Beronda’s book Lessons From Plants is out now, published by Harvard University Press. You can find her on twitter as @BerondaM.
The books mentioned in this interview are The Overstory by Richard Powers and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer - I highly recommend both!
Question of the week
Aisyah wanted advice on plants to hang in a shower. Here’s what I recommend…
Tillandsias would be my go-to as they will love the moisture and can be displayed in so many different ways. Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) - pictured left - would look great draped all over the place!
Epipremnum aureum aka devil’s ivy is so tough, it makes a really good choice for a shower.
I think ferns will work well - although maybe avoid fine-leaved ones. Stagshorn ferns (Platycerium sp) would be ideal, mounted on a plaque.
I’ve seen a picture of a Rhaphidophora tetrasperma climbing up the wall of a wet room - possibly not ideal right in the flow of water, and do make sure the potting mix is extra free draining.
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!
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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 Overthrown by Josh Woodward.