Episode 202: jewel orchids
Jewel orchids from @Uglyplanting (left to right) Ludisia ‘Lightning’, Anoectochilus lylei ‘Cream Center’ and Anoectochilus roxburghii ‘Light Form’. Photographs: Reshma Lobo.
Transcript
Episode 202
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Jane: On The Ledge is reeking of opulence this week as we enter the world of Jewel Orchids. Hello and welcome to the show! My name is Jane Perrone, host of On The Ledge podcast, the houseplant podcast that gets you up-close and personal with the world of houseplants from the comfort of your living room, or wherever you choose to listen. In this week's show, I'm learning about the world of Jewel Orchids, with Reshma Lobo of Ugly Plantling. I visited her home in London to discover the sparkling world of these tiny plants and how you can make them at home in your home. Plus, I answer a question about planting a selection of plants in expanded clay pebbles.
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Jane: PreciousKittyCat in the US gave a five-star review for the show - thank you for that! JessFromBrum also gave a five-star review. Brum is a UK word for Birmingham in the UK. Jess writes, "Be careful, may contain brainwashing! I've just come back from the garden centre with a Strawberry Saxifrage and a Hoya carnosa Tricolor and I'm starting to think I should limit my intake!" Well, yes, this is an issue, as is well-known! I apologise, Jess, but what can I say? Both smashing plant choices, so I hope they grow well for you. Thank you to Corbin, Jordan, Kira and Timaya, who have all become Patreons recently. If you want to find out how to join the clan of Patreon subscribers, check out the show notes. All the details are there. The TL;DR is: commit to paying around $5/£5 and for that you get access to two exclusive extra episodes a month, a December mail-out through the post and the chance to support your favourite planty podcast!
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Jane: When it comes to Jewel Orchids, it's the leaves and not the flowers that are the star of the show. Get them in the right light and those leaves just sparkle. But I know, from listeners, that not everyone has been able to master taking care of these rather special members of the orchid family. I visited Reshma Lobo of Ugly Plantling in London to find out more about this fascinating group of plants and why she is determined to produce and sell Jewel Orchids in the most ethical and sustainable way possible. First, I had to find out what exactly is a Jewel Orchid? Here's Reshma to explain what it is...
Reshma: What is a Jewel Orchid? Is it even an orchid? A lot of people have actually asked me that when I was at the garden museum last weekend. It opened my mind to a whole different aspect of the fact that how much is out there in the plant world that we don't know about. Some of us do, some of us know, but I thought it was very cool the fact that people just said, "Is that actually an orchid?"
Jane: I guess common names are confusing because there are plants that are called Begonias that aren't Begonias, so we all think, "Are you calling it an orchid because it actually is or just...?"
Reshma: There's something about Begonia peperomia? No...
Jane: Pellionia, yes. That's often called Begonia, isn't it? Yes, it's so confusing but...
Reshma: Anyway, so coming back to what is the Jewel Orchid. They're orchids, they actually are. They are of the O**rchidaceaesegment of the plant family. The big difference is that they actually grow on the ground, they don't normally grow on trees or branches and at higher places, they actually just grow on the ground; terrestrial orchids, that's what they are. The beauty of them is that their flowers are not as stupendously beautiful or exciting, but it is the foliage. The foliage is just absolutely stunning. Each type of Jewel Orchid has a different type of foliage, so Anoectochilus, for instance, has very deep, black, burgundy, purplish, dark chocolate type of leaves. Then you've got these veins that look like burnt fire or embers just running through. That's pretty exciting. Macodes is different, Ludisia has different growth pattern as well and the leaf pattern is different, Dossinia... there's just so many varieties. The problem is that most people actually don't know that there are all these varieties of plants and also all these varieties of Jewel Orchids. So, Jewel Orchids, it's basically your terrestrial orchids. Where does it grow? How does it grow? Well, it grows on the forest floor, under the canopies of plants and trees in the underbrush where you've got tons of leaf litter, moss and worms and things going around, so it's a very damp, very humid but also airy type of substrate that they actually get and that's the sort of damp, but some moderate air movement, type of environment that they grow in.
Jane: Is this in southeast Asia? Is it spread across southeast Asia, or are there any particular places where they proliferate?
Reshma: There's actually different types of Jewel Orchids in every single continent. Okay, maybe not Antarctica, obviously, not Antarctica, but throughout the tropics and subtropics, including South America and North America. There are certain families and species of Jewel Orchids everywhere. Is every single Jewel Orchid as beautiful? No. Can you actually cultivate and grow at home every type of Jewel Orchid you come across? No. So there's only a small subsection of them that are actually in cultivation and you are able to cultivate long-term in a home environment, or in the lab environment, or a greenhouse environment. But most of these types of Jewel Orchids, they just grow in nature. Some of them you may not even notice, even if you're right on top of them, because, you know, this beautiful foliage that we admire so much, why did it evolve like that? It's camouflage! They're just hidden in the dry leaves and in the rocks that they are in. Sometimes you look at in-situ pictures of these, which I'll send to you by the way, and you think, "Where is the orchid? Oh, there it is!" because it's hidden in its environment and what it uses as camouflage is what we admire the most.
Jane: Presumably they do flower, but the flowers are not the main focus, or is there a certain appeal to the flowers too?
Reshma: Oh gosh! The thing is, the flowers are so intricate and so beautiful, except they're so tiny you can't see them!
Jane: So you need a hand lens to admire the flowers?
Reshma: Yes. Over here you can see I've got a Platythelys maculat**a flowering and this is the season, by the way, this is when most of your Ludisias at home also should be putting out but December/January is generally when they flower. They flower in the cool season, so winter-time is when they generally flower. They flower, but you can see the leaves are so much more beautiful than the flowers. The flowers are intricate. It's just so tiny. I suppose we're just not able to admire and appreciate that. Actually, if you look at photos of the Anoectochilus you'd think there's a fairy there with a very frilly dress, a very white, frilly dress! It's one of those things. It's beautiful, it's just too tiny.
Jane: Yes, that's really interesting. I've had lots of questions from listeners over the years about Jewel Orchids, so at some point we want to get into the specifics of how to look after them, but I wanted to ask you first about the different species that you can grow in a domestic setting. I think the Ludisia discolor is probably the one that most of us will be familiar with and the one that's probably the most widely available? I know that you're doing great work in terms of hopefully making more species available. What are some of the other species that we should be looking out for? It's like a kid in a candy store!
Reshma: Ah, I can talk about that! Where do I start? So the great advantage of Ludisia discolor is that you don't necessarily need a terrarium environment or a high humidity environment, they grow quite well within a household humidity level. If there's one thing about all these other species that we're talking about, it's that they do need a high humidity. We'll get back to that in a minute because it's damn easy to make that happen. What sort of species will grow well at home given that slightly higher humidity that they need? An Anoectochilus, as well. There's a lot of species in this genera. Anoectochilus is the genera and there's loads of species in that genus. Most of them will do well if you give it the high humidity environment. An Anoectochilus platythelys goodyera species, Vrydagzynea, this year is another very rare species, actually, but there's loads. An Anoectochilus, actually, has loads of species within that genus anyway, so each species or hybrid of it looks different to each other, so it's quite attractive. Everyone knows Macodes petola, Macodes sanderiana, Macodes lowii, Dossinia marmorata,which is a slightly bigger and darker. It's not a variation, it's a totally different species but it looks very similar. It's evolved to look similar to the Macodes. So these are the different species that you can very comfortably and very easily, honestly, grow at home.
Jane: We'll have to provide a list of those in the show notes. We'll do a list so that everyone can find out more about those because sometimes the names just slip past our ears, but that's really useful to know.
Reshma: It's also very difficult because when you're reading a word, a name, Latin names, you think it's pronounced in certain way but when someone else says it the way...
Jane: Tell me about it, yes.
Reshma: "What was that, do I know it?" and I'm not claiming to pronounce anything properly by the way.
Jane: It's absolutely fine. There's no wrong answer!
Rehma: No, because it's a proper noun and proper nouns can be pronounced any way you want them to be. Here you can see in front of me, so for instance, I was talking about high humidity environment, I've literally got moss sitting in a wine glass and a Jewel Orchid growing in that wine glass with a smoothie Starbucks plastic cup thrown over it which has this little bit of a hole for ventilation. It's as simple as that. Here's a vase and drinking glass of water, maybe, with a bit of sellotape on top and a few holes poked through. It's as simple as giving them the light that they need, which is all around us anyway, and just giving them that little bit of high humidity and they're comfortable. If you're comfortable in an environment in terms of temperature, the plants are comfortable as well.
Jane: So, rolling back, obviously, you've gone quite far down the road with these Jewel Orchids, you're now tissue culturing them, but where did this all start, as a fascination, for you? Is it, sort of, a lifelong thing, or how did you first find, discover and love Jewel Orchids?
Reshma: Oh gosh, I don't even know anymore! As you can see, I have a lot of different types of plants at home, some of the more common ones and some not so, but I've always taken an interest in the not-so-common ones, the quirky ones, because I want to know how they grow and what does it look like? I like ferns that look like cactus and I like cacti that look like leafy green vegetables. So I like that the fact that we live in this world that has, gosh, so much variety, there's so much nature around us, that I've always been quite drawn and oriented towards that. I've always grown plants. I grew up in South India and everyone's got a garden and I don't mean garden with a pretty lawn and a couple of flowers. It's just wild, it's everything! There's a mango tree, there's a coconut tree, there's bananas growing there and in between there are some flowers as well and some vegetable patches behind it. It's that sort of thing and everything grows together. There's different varieties and different types of plants that grow together. So that's the environment I grew up in. When I moved here to the UK, imagine my horror when I realised that you can't actually grow anything beyond summer!
Jane: Yes, I can imagine that!
Reshma: It was because, back home, you eat a mango and you'd throw a seed and a couple of months later, you already have a sapling over there and you didn't even do anything to it, but over here, you need to do a lot of tending for the plants. So I had to actually find ways, because I can't grow anything outside, I had to find different, creative ways to grow things inside. It was just a natural progression from that, discovering new types of plants, different varieties of plants and different environments that they grow in and just experimenting. That's how it really originally started. I didn't even start with the focus on Jewel Orchids, or anything like that. I, of course, like everyone, love Ludisia and Ludisia alba plants and they're beautiful. Then I thought, "Oh, Jewel Orchids. Really? Is that literally just the only thing available out there?" And you start researching and you find out more and you read more academic papers. I am a bit of a geek anyway, so when I do a Google search, I look at academic papers, I look at images, I use terms like "in situ", which basically means in the original space, in the original situation, so to speak. So looking at all these things, you just, sort of, pick up a lot of stuff, slowly just transition to just reading more and understanding more about tissue culture, plant tissue culture, animal tissue culture, how these things work, how they impact our lives, what are the different things? I was telling you earlier, ginseng for instance, the world's ginseng comes from tissue culture. You would never even know this if someone hadn't actually told you that powder of ginseng that everyone in South Korea, for instance, literally everyone in South Korea has it for their health benefits every single day. It actually comes from tissue culture. Half the food we eat, fruit at least, bananas, pineapples, corn, a lot of the stuff actually is tissue culture and not to be confused with genetically modified food, by the way; it's just tissue culture. So then that begs the question, what is tissue culture? Well, it's basically plants grown in test tubes. How do you do that then? Well, you take a piece of plant tissue called an explant, you put it in the nutrient solution and hormonal solution that instigates it, or induces it to grow shoots, and you think, "Oh, that looks pretty good then," and then you take it out of it, put it in another nutrient solution and hormonal solution to induce it to start growing roots. Then you slice it, divide it up, and start planting it, re-planting it, in a very secure environment where it can grow some more and then that's ready to be transplanted, whether that's food, whether that's an ornamental plant, it doesn't matter what type of plant it is. This is the general tissue culture process that happens. Then it was just a question of trying to apply that to Jewel Orchids. Now, why am I dealing specifically with Jewel Orchids? Now, we know that any beautiful thing in the wild is threatened in its habitat because of humans. Anything that's pretty and we want in our homes, there will be somebody out there who will go into the wild and poach it from the wild to meet the customer demand and to make a living, presumably. I want a clean conscience with my orchids. I don't want endangered species that have actually been pulled out and poached and sent to me, shipped across the world. I want to make sure that what I'm growing is ethically-sourced, grown sustainably and the way for me to do that, and find that assurance for myself but also for other people, when I start sharing and selling this, is to make sure that... How do I make sure it's ethically-sourced? The only answer is to meet the scale and demand that people want of these things, it's to do it through tissue culture. Not to say it's easy, but...
Jane: It's so fascinating that you've gone down that route and I'm really pleased that you and other people, other growers I've met, are going all-out to provide ethical, sustainable plants that are interesting in this country, in the UK. Obviously, we've had a Brexit situation which has shaken things up a bit in terms of the supply chain for lots of things, including plants. It seems to make sense to me to have lots of people doing interesting things like you're doing. Obviously, there must have been lots of challenges along the way, but the end result is your company, Ugly Plantling, and you're selling these beautiful tissue cultured Jewel Orchids. If somebody's starting out, would you recommend that they go for something like Ludisia discolor or, presumably, provided you just provide those basic needs of humidity and the moss substrate, is the world your oyster? Is there a level of difficulty with the plants you're selling?
Reshma: This might sound controversial but I find growing these Jewel Orchids way easier than Ludisia. You wouldn't believe the number of Ludisias I've killed or at least have died in my care, let's say, not actively killed! I actually find these way easier to manage and control compared to Ludisia, which are thick-stemmed. They're all generally easy to take care of, including Ludisia. As long as you meet certain thresholds in terms of humidity and watering and temperature and light, they're all relatively easy to take care of. If someone's starting out, what would I say? I would say "Go buy one. See if you can meet the kind of conditions it actually wants to be in and, if you can keep it alive, go buy another one. If it dies, go buy another one anyway, so that you can learn more about it and see what works because the only way you can actually learn more and more is through failure. If you pass the first time, if you are successful the first time, whether it's in growing Jewel Orchids or in life, what have you really learned?"
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Jane: More from Reshma shortly, but now it's time for Question of the Week, which comes from Laura and it concerns expanded clay pebbles, or Leca. I still don't know how to pronounce... I don't think it really matters does it? You know what I'm talking about: those lightweight, brown, porous bits of clay that you can grow houseplants in and use for all kinds of different things. Laura wants to grow several houseplants in Leca together, different houseplants, and is wondering if that is something that is possible. "Is there some reason why I couldn't?" she asks. Well, this is a good one! You seem to be very concerned, Laura, about the water requirements of the plants. I think you've got a good chance, provided that the plants light requirements are similar. So, if you put something like a cactus in there along with a Maidenhair Fern that's probably not going to work for a number of reasons. Their light requirements are just so different and you wouldn't be able to put that pot somewhere where you could please both of them at the same time. Obviously, if you're using Leca and you've either got a reservoir of water below or perhaps you're soaking the Leca every now and again with water with a fertiliser diluted into that, the plants will be able to regulate themselves, there'll be plenty of air around the roots, there shouldn't be too much problem.The only problem I can think is if you've got a plant that's got a really meaty root system, along with a plant that's got a very delicate fibrous root system, whether they will both be able to coexist, whether one might outperform the other. I think this is a general problem when you do grouped plantings. Usually, in the end, something will out-compete the other plants and do better and start to take over. This is just the way it goes. It may take six months, it may take six years but if you do a grouped planting it's not something that's going to last forever and I think the best you can do is try to match up the kind of plants that you choose. You can make life easier in terms of breaking down different groups of plants and changing things around by keeping the plants individually in their pots - obviously, that can be soil or it could be just pure Leca - and then having them submerged together in a bigger pot in Leca. I hope that makes sense. So, individually potted but then placed into the Leca and surrounded by Leca, so that if you do find that the plants are just not working it's easier, then, just to break the whole thing down, remove the plant that's not doing well and switch it out for something else, rather than having to untangle all the root systems.Obviously, even individually-potted, eventually the roots may come out of the bottom of that pot and start to merge with other roots but, hopefully, it just gives you that ability to take something out that's not working a bit more easily.
One other thing that I'm just going to throw into the mix, in case anyone wants to give this a try, if you look at any of the classic Dr. David Hessayon Houseplant Expert books, they have a section at the front which shows different group planting arrangements and one of those is the "pot et fleur" - oh fancy! We're going into French! - and all this is some kind of container with several houseplants and sunk into the substrate. Probably, in Hessayon's time, this would have been soil but, of course, we could use Leca or Pon or whatever. Sunk into that substrate is a sort of test tube, it could be anything actually, you could use any plastic tube - I'm thinking, in the past, I've bought vanilla pods that come in a little clear plastic tube. Anyway, you submerge that into the substrate and fill it with water and then you can have a fresh flower that is part of the arrangement that you can replace when it needs replacing. So it just adds a different element. It's something that could look very naff and dated, but I think that you guys out there could make something really cool, a modern 2021 "pot et fleur"! The things that Hessayon suggests, well, it's all fairly conservative - daffs in spring, roses in summer and holly sprigs in winter - but I think you could do something much more inventive. Actually, the pictures show a round tub with Sansevieria,Maranta,Epipremnum,Hedera andParlour Palm with a Chrysanth flower in the middle. Then there's another one with a carnation in the middle and a Parlor Palm,Maranta andHedera helix, but you could do anything with this. You could use any bloom that you fancied and I think it could look really quite nice. I will link to an article from Gardens Illustrated that brings this trend rather more up to date and gives you some more ideas on this, but I'd love to see your "pot et fleur"! Have I inspired you? Please drop me a line to ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com Equally, if you have a question that you would like me to answer, that is the correct email to use. Back to my interview with Reshma of Ugly Plantling and some of you sent in questions for Reshma, so I'm trying to make sure I get all of them answered for you.
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Jane: I did have a question from somebody who had a problem with some rotting of a Macodes petola. Basically, it sounds like it was in a closed terrarium and then the stem broke off. Can you go too far with the humidity and moisture with these plants? Is there a risk that they become too moist, or what else could be going on when your plant rots?
Reshma: If the roots don't have space to breathe and they're clogged with water, or too much soggy moss, or too much substrate, the roots have no place to breathe and that's a recipe for root rot. Why does root rot happen? Basically, it's the bacteria and the germs that have just grown in there and penetrated the root and destroyed it, or penetrated the stem and destroyed it. Why was the bacteria growing there in the first place? Because there was no air flow, because the substrate wasn't drying enough and that's a recipe for anything mouldy, right? You leave something in the fridge closed it will grow mould and that's despite controlling the temperature and keeping it in the dark place and all that. Why wouldn't that happen in a light situation, where it's actually getting all the nutrients that mould wants to grow in? I think the solution is really simple. I wouldn't recommend having these in a closed terrarium. I think there should always be a little bit of airflow, always, for most of these plants. It doesn't need to be a whole lot, in fact probably not too much either, just like a coffee cup, one of those Starbucks plastic smoothie thingies that you get on top, something like that works really fine because it gives a little bit of an opening for airflow, moderate amount of airflow that it does get, but it also keeps the humidity high. So if there's root rot, can you save the plant? Snip it off, wait for it to callous, see if you can either plunk it in water and get it to root again or plunk it in moss or some substrate of your choice and see if you can get it to root again and that's pretty much it. If it does root, put it back in your original substrate, or moss, or a terrarium.
Jane: Is moss the best substrate for a lot of these Jewel Orchids? Is it the thing that grows best? Is there anything you need to do to the moss when you get it before you plant up?
Reshma: I wouldn't blanket say that moss is the best substrate. I'll show you a couple of in-situ pictures and you can put it on the notes as well. When you look at the pictures of how these plants grow, there's a lot of leaf litter on the ground. That gives it coverage for the roots and rhizomes, but actually it's a very airy and very open type of substrate to be growing in and that's what I'm trying to do with the moss. I don't use dry rehydrated moss. I actually use living moss, so, because I give it the right humidity and light, the moss is actually growing with the plants and they're having some form of a symbiosis over there and moss, obviously, because it's not dry moss, it's not getting cloggy, it's not getting dry, it's actually living, it's growing and it's making all that space around the roots, so the roots are getting the kind of aeration that they need as well as the moisture that they need, so I've actually not had any root rot. Except the Ludisias, of course, because they were in substrate and for some reason I could never get that right with substrate. So, for my purposes I use moss because 1) it actually looks quite attractive because the moss is living, it's growing, it's green, it's pink, and so on and so forth and it's growing with a thing. 2) The moss regulates the moisture levels around the root, so to speak, so I personally find that quite useful and easy to do. But you do you! You work with the substrate that you're most comfortable in, that you understand the most and you can give the plant what it needs. Ultimately, there's this onset expectation that we give what we can to the plant and we expect the plant to survive no matter what we give them, but it should actually be the other way around. It's, like, what sort of environment does the plant want to be in? We should try to give that plant that type of environment. Whether Jewel Orchids or not, just try and give the plants the sort of environment they actually need to thrive and they will, so that's essentially what I do.
Jane: Awesome. I'm just going to consult my notes again because my brain has slightly stopped working. This is another question that I've had from a listener to do with problems with Jewel Orchids and this concerns somebody experiencing powdery, white spots on their Ludisia discolor, which sounds to me like mildewy kind of symptoms. What other things can go wrong? What might powdery white spots be? I dread to think whether mealybugs are a possibility with this plant?
Reshma: If it's London water that's splashed on the leaf and dried and left, that could very well be just that.
Jane: Should you use rainwater on these plants? Is it better, if you can get hold of it?
Reshma: Yes, rain water or some kind of filtered water is fine. Distilled water is fine. Although if you're always using distilled water you might need to think about some kind of feed and nutrients. I try and use rainwater. I live in a flat, but I'm lucky that, in this particular flat that I'm living in, I have a bit of a balcony outside. My neighbours probably absolutely hate me but I've got tubs and buckets and grill trays.
Jane: You've got a great set up there! I love it.
Reshma: It's set up over there just to catch the rainwater, tip it into the tub and so whenever I need water for my Jewel Orchids or my other plants, I just use the rainwater. I only use tap water when it hasn't rained for several weeks and I haven't managed to catch enough water. Then I use tap water, but not all the time as tap water... so tap water I think is bad enough in the best of circumstances but plants in general... some are hardier than others, but they all will suffer in the long term when the soil becomes too alkaline because of the hard water that we use. Again, easily remedied if you put your mind to it. Coming back to your question on how do you deal with mildew. It is mildew. I've had mildew on my Begonias last year and it was a painful experience. At least 20 different species of Begonias had to be binned in the end because no matter how much you chop it, how much treatment you do, what type of treatment you do, for some reason, it just keeps coming back because, again, it's fungus, right? If there's a mould spore in the air, if it settles on a leaf, that's it. That's all it takes and no matter how much cleaning you do it just keeps coming back.
Jane: I feel your pain. The only time I've ever really been devastated to throw things out, but just Begonia powdery mildew is just...
Reshma: It just does not go!
Jane: No, and people say "Spray it with this" and it doesn't work.
Reshma: It does not go and it just keeps infecting all the other plants as well and then you've got to cut your losses and say, "Okay, this is it." I'm so traumatised from the experience I don't have that many Begonias anymore, only about five or six.
Jane: Touch wood, my current Begonias have not got any mildew. Long may that continue. Presumably any plant that's perhaps living in a slightly higher humidity situation has the potential, particularly when there's a limited air flow. What about pests? Are there things that like to snack on Jewel Orchids?
Reshma: Snails absolutely love them and they go chomping down on them, chomping down on the leaves, so if you're using moss you've got to make sure that you prep it and clean it.
Jane: How do you clean it? What's your process?
Reshma: Hydrogen peroxide, any old food-grade hydrogen peroxide, diluted to the right strength with water. I soak the moss for a good ten minutes, rinse it out and then I use clean water again to soak it out and rinse it out. This is live moss and despite that treatment, actually the moss does recover and it will continue to grow, at least in my experience, it does. That's what I do to moss. I don't mind any beneficial insects in the population that I grow and there's probably some beneficial insects in the moss, and even my little pots of Jewel Orchids, but I just make sure that the key pests that we worry about, things like thrips and mites, spider mites and snails are not. If you've got a thrips infection, dump it. Seriously. It's not worth the hassle. Dump it, get a new one. Again, going back to my point in cutting your losses, the thing is, you're trying to save one plant but if you've actually got loads of other plants, you're just risking an infection, a cross-infection with all your other plants and that's a much bigger heartache than letting go of one plant. Spider mites are fine, mealybugs, things like that, I think you can easily treat them with the regular treatments. Maybe I've been lucky in that sense, that I haven't actually had any of my Jewel Orchids get any pest infections, the snails chomping down aside!
Jane: Is there a UK Jewel Orchid community out there? Are there fellow enthusiasts, or are you finding yourself very much on your own in this particular fascination?
Reshma: I wish there was a community, but I haven't actually... I think Jewel Orchids, in this range of variety that I offer, is relatively new to the UK and I think that'll take time for people, once they're exposed to all these different things and they try growing all these different orchids, I think that's just going to take time for people to band together and compare notes and actually support each other, in that sense. On Facebook, I've seen a couple of Jewel Orchid groups, but they're European posts. I mean, most of the people in those groups, and the posts, and everything, are more European than UK-based. I do know that there's loads of people who are getting into Jewel Orchids now and they're discovering the joy of Jewel Orchids.
Jane: I'm just looking at you and seeing the light falling on your face - it's reminded me that we haven't really gone into detail about light with these plants. It goes without saying that they don't need to be in direct sunlight?
Reshma: Not at all.
Jane: Neither do they need to be in the darkest corner? I always find it terribly difficult with light because everyone's home is different, but how do you know that you've hit the sweet spot in terms of light? Can you tell just by looking at the leaves and them being the right kind of colour and consistency and texture?
Reshma: Yes, you can, but, you know, leaves don't react overnight. It takes time to adapt to a certain condition. Actually, there's a really easy way of thinking about these things as to what is the right circumstance and situation and location and environment for these plants. Think about the environment that they actually originate from. These are little understorey plants that grow in the dappled shade of bigger shrubs and trees around them in mostly tropical and subtropical climates, at different levels of elevation. So what does this mean? Breaking it down a little bit, little understorey plants that grow in dappled shade, so they're growing quite close to the ground. They're growing in a very dense, humid atmosphere over there, just because they're close to the ground. The ground is always damp, it's in subtropical or tropical regions, so it's quite damp over there. Thinking about all of this in terms of light, in terms of watering, in terms of humidity and in terms of substrate, what that tells me is that the substrate should be something that's airy and damp, either moss or soil, some bark, anything that you put in there that's very loose and airy and just lets water flow through but also holds moisture, just doesn't get cloggy. What it also tells me is, clearly, they don't get a lot of light, so dappled shade, dappled light, which means translating that to a home environment. Just a moderate light set-up should be just fine -- moderate, or even low, light set-up should be just fine. If you're actually looking at measuring light - I always measure light, because what we perceive as light intensity is not the same thing as what plants identify as light intensity - so it's very easy to get, on an Android or an Apple phone, an app that gives you a light sensor. If you get one of those, it's damned easy because it tells you how much light per second is hitting that sensor. So when you hold it in the high light situation, it shows you.
Jane: Yes, that beam of light that your phone is in right now.
Reshma: Yes. It shows you it's quite high over here but where the Jewel Orchids are it's quite low and that's fine for them. So anything that is a PAR value of around 50 to 80 umol, as they call it, just works fine. Getting a light sensor is easy. It's not very technical. It's almost the same as saying, "Okay, what temperature is it? How much humidity is over here?" It's just the next step to say, "Okay, how much light is it actually getting?" So low light is fine, moderate light is just fine. Humidity, as I said, it's good to have higher humidity, 70% to 80% is good but, as I said, it's very easy to actually fix it up that those plants get high humidity. You don't need to raise the humidity of your whole cabinet or your whole house to cater to those little plants. It's just very easy. Then, in terms of temperature, I've grown these from anywhere between 15C / 16C to even 38C for short periods of time, so, in my experience, as long as it gets high humidity, you throw anything at it, it's actually very, very tolerant to that. So 20C - 23C is ideal because if you're comfortable, they're comfortable, but actually, for short periods of time, just the way that we can tolerate cold temperatures and very hot temperatures, the plants can also tolerate cold temperatures and high temperatures.
Jane: That's the wonderful thing about being able to grow them in the way that you're growing them there and they're kind of buffered from temperature changes by being inside that glass vessel as well. In a way, that makes life so much easier.
Reshma: It's so easy.
Jane: Presumably you could go away for a week and leave that and it's going to be absolutely fine?
Reshma: Yes, one of the... I call it a tub, it's not actually a tub, it's one of those glass vase things, all I've done is, you can see, I've put a bed of moss at the bottom and these are just growing in moss. On the top, I generally just put cling film over it and poke several holes for some airflow and that'll be fine for a few weeks, you can go away. It doesn't need watering, it doesn't need spritzing, nothing. When do you water? Well, when you actually see the moss looking a bit tired and it's beginning to dry a bit and then you spray it with some water.
Jane: I mustn't forget to ask some of these other questions that have come in. Somebody wanted to know about pollination. What I do know about orchids is that they have very, very tiny seeds.
Reshma: Incredibly tiny.
Jane: Is it possible to pollinate Jewel Orchids, or is there a better way to propagate? Obviously, tissue culture...
Reshma: Technically, it is possible to propagate. I think Ludisia, for instance, has big enough flowers that you can use. So, it basically has what's called an anther cap, so the flower is structured to have some kind of an oval lip and a couple of wings on the side, if you can imagine that. When you lift the lip, it's got what is called an anther cap and that's where all the pollen is sitting. If you're able to hold, say, a needle, or a pin, or a chopstick, or something like that, and just touch the anther cap, it separates quite easily in fact, and use that to rub it against the stigmatic surface of the same flower, which is just underneath and you can tell what it is because it doesn't look smooth, it actually looks a bit sticky and creamy-coloured and you just rub it over there, either the same flower or a different flower, and you just wait for seeds to take, but that's a very slow process.
Jane: You're in it for the long game.
Reshma: It is hit and miss and it's not really reliable. Ludisia, you can try, but something like this, the Platythelys, for instance, they're so tiny. How are you going to do it? They are self-pollinating and in nature, bees, moths, caterpillars walking all over it, would pollinate them and they would stay but, generally, I think they just propagate through their own rhizomes. It flowers, the flower stem comes up, once the flowers are gone, then once all the flowers have died and the fluorescence, the plant basically retreats to itself and starts putting out side shoots, the rhizome just crawls over and you can chop and prop any of this, by the way. You can cut any of these and just make sure you've got a node and leaf and prop them in either water or through moss and you have a new plant and plant it back in, so it's very easy. You can propagate at home, it's just not going to give you the kind of scale you want in the time. If you want it quickly, that's not going to happen because plants are slow.
Jane: Yes, exactly. You've got to be patient, waiting for things to happen. I think any way that you can propagate plants always adds to your knowledge and helps you to understand them more, doesn't it, because you get to intimately know the plant?
Reshma: The only way to learn is actually by trying, right? Give it a try. If it fails, so what? Try again, try again, try again!
Jane: Exactly! It's been really fascinating to chat to you about this and, as ever, I now want a whole load of Jewel Orchids and I'm thinking about my son's fish tank, which is now empty of fish. I'm wondering if I might be able to steal it off him for my new Jewel Orchid collection! It's really fascinating to see what you're doing and I'm really excited to see that you're turning this into a new source of Jewel Orchids, certainly for UK growers anyway.
Reshma: Yes, I'm very interested in helping a lot more people discover the joy of Jewel Orchids. Like I said, I hate to use the word passionate, but it matters to me that these are ethically-sourced and grown sustainably and what we do should not harm the nature that gave birth to us, right? So I do want to make these sort of things more available. I'm actually working on getting even more. At the moment, I think I have got about eleven or twelve different varieties of Jewel Orchids and I'm actually working for more in the pipelines, cool, cool, cool stuff that I've not seen in the UK. I'm so excited that, hopefully in the near future, I'll be able to bring this up. I actually am also interested in making sure this is available more widely and, of course, I've got a website and, of course, I've got an Etsy shop, just like everyone else, but I do want to make this more available, widely, to people, so that they can just go into their local garden centre, see these things and say, "Oh I want to try that! I want to learn more about this and I want to try it. I want to grow these things!". I don't know quite how I'm going to get there but I would like to make that happen!
Jane: Well, I'm excited for your ambition and just tell everyone how to find you on the various platforms. We'll put it in the show notes.
Reshma: Yes, I'm probably more active on Instagram than any other social media at this point in time, so UglyPlantling is the handle, just one word, think of ugly duckling and just replace the duckling with plantling. If you find me on Instagram. then you've got my website because it's all linked up on Instagram anyway but the website is also www.uglyplantling.com
Jane: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing your Jewel Orchids with me and I'm fascinated to see how this develops because I want to see Jewel Orchids in every garden centre too! How exciting is that?
Reshma: I really want to make that happen, if possible. It should be so commonplace. I think everybody should be growing Jewel Orchids! The world needs more Jewel Orchids!
Jane: Yes, I think that's a very good, positive note to end on! Thank you so much.
Reshma: Thanks, Jane! I really appreciate it.
[music]
Jane: Thank you to Reshma and if you've missed any of those Latin names, then please do check the show notes at janeperrone.com for all the details about Ugly Plantling and the plants we've talked about today. If you're a Patreon subscriber, you can listen to an Extra Leaf interview with Reshma, that goes into much, much more detail about the fascinating world of tissue culture and how Reshma is trying to bring an ethical and sustainable approach to her business via the medium of tissue culture. That's all for this week's show. I'll be back next Friday. I hope you'll join me then. Bye!
[music]
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 Komiku and The Encouragement Stick, by Doctor Turtle. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.
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I talk all things jewel orchid with London-based grower Reshma Lobo aka @uglyplanting and I answer a question about combination planting in expanded clay pebbles.
Ledge End and Superfan Patreon subscribers can listen to An Extra Leaf 81, where Reshma and I discuss tissue culture of jewel orchids in more detail.
Anoectochilus roxburghii 'Hayata'. Photograph: Reshma Lobo.
Check out the notes below as you listen…
Reshma Lobo decided to turn her passion into jewel orchids into her business uglyplantling.com selling rare jewel orchids propagated via tissue culture.
What is a jewel orchid?
A jewel orchid is a member of the Orchidaceae family, but unlike many of the orchids we grow, they usually establish on the ground rather than growing in trees; and they are grown for their stunning foliage rather than the flowers.
They grow throughout the tropics and subtropics, but not all species are suitable for growing in homes (see below for a list). The sparkling foliage that looks so beautiful under glass is a form of camouflage for these orchids when they are growing in the wild: look at “in situ” pictures of orchids and they can be hard to spot.
Anoectochilus kushuensisxsiamensis. Photograph: Reshma Lobo.
Jewel orchids aren’t usually grown for their flowers, which tend to be really small, but if you are interested in seeing more, there’s a good selection here.
The jewel orchids we mention in this episode are…
Anoectochilus roxburghii and three cultivars called ‘Dreamcatcher’, ’Hayata’ and ‘Light Form'
Anoectochilus burmanicus
Anoectochilus lylei
Aspidogyne querceticola (also known as Platythelys maculata)
Goodyera malipoensis
Ludisia ‘Lightning’
Anoectochilus koshunensis growing in the wild. Photograph: Ko-Chu Yueh on Flickr.
Jewel orchids grown in a glass vessel make an easy houseplant display. Photograph: Reshma Lobo.
Jewel orchid care
Jewel orchids are suited to indoor growing because they like temperatures that match most heated homes: around 18-20C.
Most species need a high humidity environment, so are best grown under glass: this can be a simple wide-bottomed glass vessel with a lid made of clear plastic, clingfilm (saran wrap) or even sticky tape.
Ludisia discolor has thicker stems and can cope without being in a terrarium, provided the room has reasonably moist air (a kitchen or bathroom is good - get a hygrometer so you can check out the most humid areas of your home).
The forest floor offers a damp, airy substrate for jewel orchids to grow in, as shown in the image above: Reshma grows her jewel orchids in living sphagnum moss, but you could also use any airy substrate. Reshma uses food grade hydrogen peroxide diluted with water to clean the moss before planting, but rinses twice with water before using it.
In terms of light levels, remember they are under-storey plants that grow under dappled shade conditions. Light of around 50-80 micromoles is fine (you can download a light sensor app for your mobile to check this).
Jewel orchids love being watered with rainwater, but you can also use distilled water, reverse osmosis water or filtered water.
Lots of work is going on to establish tissue culture protocols for jewel orchids: here’s an example.
Question of the week
Laura wanted to know if it’s possible to plant several different houseplants in the same container of leca, aka expanded clay pebbles. The main factor on matching plants in any grouped planting is light: so to give an extreme example, a cactus won’t do well with a fern. Even if yo do a god job of matching plants with similar needs, the likelihood is something will outcompete the rest sooner or later. To make breaking down the grouping a bit easier, you can keep plants in individual pots and simply sink them into the leca.
I also mention the ‘pot et fleur’ - a grouped planter with a small tube - glass, metal or plastic - submerged in the substrate and filled with water so you can add a cut flower to the arrangement that you can switch out regularly. This is an idea that’s been around for decades - you can see examples in Dr David Hessayon’s Houseplant Expert books. For an update on this idea check out this article from Gardens Illustrated.
Have you made a pot et fleur? I would love to see it! Do send me a pic at the address below.
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!
LEGENDS OF THE LEAF
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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 The Encouragement Stick by Doctor Turtle.