Episode 261: Not Another Jungle with Tony Le-Britton
Tony Le-Britton at home with some of his plants. Photograph: Jason Ingram.
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##TRANSCRIPT
Jane Perrone 00:15
Need a podcast that sates your desire for house plant information, relaxing chat and general leafiness. You're in just the right place. This is on the ledge podcast, and I am your host Jane Perrone. And in this week's show, I visit Tony Le-Britton to find out about his new book, Not another Jungle.
Jane Perrone 00:42
I don't know how Tony and I have managed it, but we both have books coming out in the same month of the year, that being April 2023. Tony's book is out on April the 6th and mine is out on April the 27th. You may remember Tony from Episode 191, where I interviewed him about his rare plant collection, including some wonderful aroids. That was back in July 2021. And last year, he opened a houseplant shop in Northampton, and somehow found the time to write a book about houseplant care. So we sat down in the back room of Tony's wonderful shop, also called Not Another Jungle to talk all things, house plants and books.
Jane Perrone 01:36
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 01:53
It still doesn't feel real, even though I'm sitting sort of touching. It does feel really good, though. And you keep sitting stroking it as well. And it has been a parallel journey. And I've got to say, first of all, thank you, because you were a little, a little person to be there that I could reach out to and just ask questions, and we bounce and things back and forwards. And it was, it was lovely to have someone on that journey with me as well. And never we're not talking about your book, you've just given me an I've previously read it. And it's amazing. So...
Jane Perrone 02:25
Well thank you, you're bringing a tear to my eye. But I think the thing about books these days is that probably with the world of instant media, we kind of think that, we don't realise the amount of work that goes into these things. We've both worked incredibly hard on this. So tell me what, who is this aimed at? It's called Not Another Jungle, your everything you do is perfectly branded to Not Another Jungle, even down to the fact that the beautiful navy blue end papers are the same colour as your shop. But tell me about who this is for and what you were trying to achieve with this book. And are you happy with it?
Tony 03:04
I'm really happy with it and being completely brutally honest. It was peaks and troughs all through writing this book of being incredibly happy, incredibly proud to absolutely hating it. And I don't think people understand that journey you've gone on and how tough and draining it is to write. But it's been the most incredible thing and something I thought would never ever happen in my life. It's not even you know, some people say it's something I dreamed of it didn't even enter a dream to write a book because it was, I felt it was so inaccessible for for someone like me to write a book. But here we are, I'm sitting with my own book in front. And it was really about bringing together a book that looked beautiful that is feast for the eyes. You know, I use plant porn in a lot of stuff. And I think the way that a lot of these plants are photographed in the book is sheer plant porn they're beautiful like works of art, and then bringing in a bit of science into the world of houseplants because a lot of houseplant books are, are almost recycled information that's been out there for a long time it's sort of become the truth and become the way that you care for your plants. But actually if you start breaking some of those things down as I've done in the back with the myth busting, they don't make scientific, they don't make sense scientifically that you know, for instance, very low light houseplants or no light houseplants. They don't exist. But you go into a shop and you see these plants for the darkest corner or this shadiest spot and or homemade fertilisers that are covering the back as well.
Jane Perrone 04:49
Oh gosh, don't get me started on that. The bananas! The coffee grounds!
Tony 04:56
And, you know, it's difficult online to explain these things because there's so much information out there saying that this is the right thing to be doing that it becomes factual almost, fake fact. Whereas once you start breaking that down in 'Okay, so how much how much potassium is actually in a banana skin? How do the plants access that?' You pretty much can't in a house plant. So then you can start breaking things down. And once you've broken the, the non-facts down, you can say, 'Okay, well, how do we fertilise our plants?' So throughout the book, it's really about bringing together science and helping people understand why we do these things, not just telling people to do something, but really getting an understanding for your plants.
Jane Perrone 05:41
Yeah, I love the fact that you've got like actual diagrams. I was really, you know, I wasn't, I was expecting the gorgeous photographs, and the lovely aroids and all of that, but I'm really pleased that you've got, like, some serious, you know, a diagram. I just love that, you know, cell turgor, and things like that. It's just really good to have that in there. And I think in a way, it's, that's what I love about houseplants is that they are such an amazing combination of science, of art, of culture, and that we need to bring that into the way we look at them rather than as you say, sort of like these household remedies of stick a banana on the top of it. I mean, why don't you just want to buy house plants that, I mean, I, I love a banana skin. Don't get me wrong, put it on the compost heap. But not on your plants.
Tony 06:31
Not in a tea. Not in a tea to then pour on your plants. But, but I think there are so there are houseplant books or science books out there. But you know, it's a lot of information for most people to take in. It's fairly boring. There's not the pretty pictures. And I wanted to bring those two things together to make this science really accessible to absolutely everyone so whether you've whether it's your first house plant or you're an avid collector, there's something in the book for everyone and that's something I've tried to do through the whole brand Not Another Jungle you know on Instagram it's, it's a mixture of really easy care sort of information with some really interesting facts from you know, that people may not have heard of before in the shop. I try and have plants that are you know, super easy care maybe you know five pounds first ever plant for someone right up to plants that collectors are looking for. So it's trying to make the brand and plants in general just accessible to absolutely everyone and exciting for everyone as well.
Jane Perrone 07:32
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 08:09
It was just another thing to do. Initially, I was going to do the photos. Because I want to have that creative control because newsflash, I'm very controlling when it comes to having the book.
Jane Perrone 08:19
I'm literally wearing a badge that says pedant today so, you know, I sympathise.
Tony 08:27
But the amazing photographer Jason Ingram did the photos and he did the most amazing job and I think Jason and DK the publisher and me were a little worried about working with me you know me as a photographer working with another photographer. But as soon as we got together on the day, it just clicked. I had the joy of of being creative, of preparing all the plants, spending months or sometimes even the year before preparing that plant for this one photo and making it look really good and Jason really appreciated the fact that my eye could allow me to get something camera ready. So we just, I'd done everything prepared at all we put it in he gets to take the beautiful photographs.
Jane Perrone 09:11
It must've been the dream job.
Tony 09:13
It was really, that was one of my favourite parts of the book, were the photoshoots and preparing the plants for the shoot as well. I mean, it wasn't all smooth sailing because if you can imagine for instance the variegated Rhaphidophora tetrasperma, not many of them at the time weren't many of them around. For the book I showed how it stem propagate that so I have to have that plant ready in all different stages of the propagation from it being first cut to the shoot to it's first leaf. All for that one day. And same with begonia leaf cuttings, I basically had to make like 50 of them two weeks apart to make sure I had one in each stage of its development for the step by step. So it's a lot of work.
Jane Perrone 10:03
Yeah, that is a lot of work. I mean, what are some of the stars of the show? I mean, I suppose maybe it's something like this. You know, I've just turned to this beautiful. I like the way I'm on the the some of these pages, the profile pages you've made, you sort of turn sideways to have a portrait view of this plant this Anthurium magnificum, I can't even say it. It's so exciting. I mean, I just, I mean, you know, this is not my bag, but I can really appreciate the beauty of that leaf. How did you pick the plants for the book?
Tony 10:32
So it was a real combination between obviously what is looking really good at the time, I wanted to show a really wide variety of plant, not just our aroids, we've got orchids through the book, we've got beautiful begonia, we've got cacti and succulents as well. And it was, it's what's looking good, what's going to be really interesting. And each plant profile in the book relates the chapter that it's in. So some will relate to humidity or light or watering. And it just sort of helps tie everything together.
Jane Perrone 11:03
Well, I have to say it's, there's a lot of gorgeousness in here to enjoy. Were there, was there anything in here that you found really challenging to write about or anything that was particularly enjoyable, or you know, that you really got into that you were flying away with or where where were the peaks and the troughs?
Tony 11:24
So the peaks have to be the plant processes, for me. They're the parts in the book that I knew about, but just writing them and realising just how amazing the plants are around us and the things they're doing without us even knowing. And, and what I'm really proud about is that the people who've read this, so far people in the press that some of them might not even have houseplants. But they're really fascinated by the book, and it's making them stop and say, 'Wow' and then from that you get an appreciation from them. And maybe you want to get a houseplant, or you want to learn about your own house plants a bit more. And that's what it was all about. So they're the they're the peaks for me, because it's not only sharing amazing things, but it was also almost exciting me a little bit more as well. Because as you know, in when you have a lot of plants, it can sometimes just become a bit of a burden or just becomes a lot, right? And it just these little nuggets of really interesting things just inspired me and helped me plough on with the book as well.
Jane Perrone 12:27
Absolutely.
Tony 12:27
And the troughs, I think some some of the troughs probably had to be looking at the myths and trying to source that really accurate scientific information to backup what you were saying. Because most stuff out there you search for, let's say, plants purifying the air. And everything that comes up is basically in support of plants purifying the air until you start delving deeper. And also trying to look at the studies and not just how someone else has broken it down. And how the information has been perceived. Like the NASA study, which is quoted all the time. Since then. It has been broken down by a lot of studies since. So, it's really interesting, but definitely a difficult one to find definitive answers on things that will really support what you're writing. Another big trough was the fact that we had a really hot summer. And the heat stopped some of my Anthuriums from going to seed. And we want it to show seed collection and how to germinate seeds. So the day before the photo shoot, I had to travel out to the Netherlands because I found one place I contacted Botanic Gardens in the UK, RHS gardens to see if they had Anthuriums at this stage, the fruiting stage because I had to have this photo. Everyone's like just leave it out. It's fine. And I'm like no. We have to show this. It's exciting. So I found one grower in the Netherlands that had one plant in that stage and they allowed me to borrow it. So I travelled over there collected this infructescence brought it back photographed it took the seeds out of it and then I had to ship the seeds back to them so I could continue growing them. So that was a real challenge. And obviously by the time I got back I think I arrived back in the UK at 6am after an eight hour ferry journey. And then we started shooting at eight.
Jane Perrone 14:28
I can say again, the hardest working person in house plants.
Tony 14:32
Had to get it for the book though. I had to.
Jane Perrone 14:43
More from Tony Le-Britton shortly but now I'm going to talk a little about my book, Legends Of The Leaf. Now the great thing about these two books, in my humble opinion is that they are really complimentary. They don't cover much of the same ground really because they're very different books, but I think the two of them together give you a really fascinating insight into houseplants. So I hope you'll maybe go out and buy both. But let me tell you, as I've been doing every week in the run up to the launch of my book, another fact from Legends Of The Leaf, this week's fact concerns Dionaea muscipula, the venus flytrap. And the thing about the venus flytrap is, it doesn't really trap flies. Well, not many, certainly when it's growing in its native coastal climbs in North and South Carolina, in the United States. Most of the things it eats, according to people who have done surveys of its traps, are things that dwell on the ground, beetles, spiders, things that crawl rather than things that fly, which kind of makes sense. When you see one of these in the wild, and you see the position of the traps on the ground, it does seem rational that things would be climbing into them rather than flying into them.
Jane Perrone 16:09
This plant though, is adaptable. And of course, if you grow it as a houseplant, it will eat plenty of flies given the chance. And indeed, also interesting to note that if the traps are submerged during times of flood, which can happen this is a low lying coastal area that Venus flytraps grow in, the traps can still shut on underwater creatures when submerged. So pretty flexible they are but I don't think I'm going to start a campaign to start calling them beetle traps or spider traps. But you know, the thought's there. So that's my fact from the book this week. And if you want to find out any information about this book, check out legendsoftheleafbook.com. That's legendsoftheleafbook.com, where you'll find all the links you need. Whether you're buying the book in Denmark, New Zealand, or the UK, or indeed America, you can find links to get the book, all the information about it is there.
Jane Perrone 17:11
And indeed, the ebook version is now available and should be in the inboxes of everyone who has pledged to support the book. The thing that isn't there currently, as I speak, is a page that is previewed in the book on my website. So there will be a page on my website, which references major academic papers and other sources consulted in the course of researching the book is not quite ready yet. I didn't know that the ebook would come out before launch date. So I'm a tiny bit behind. If you are finding that link. now, there won't be anything on it. But I promise you within the next few days that will go up. I'm working really hard on getting that finished and apologies that it isn't there right now. If you've got any questions about the book, obviously drop me a line. And I'll endeavour to help and answer it. But otherwise, all of that information will be going up very very soon because I know some of you love your deep dives into the topics covered in the book. But that's enough about me. Let's get back to my chat with Tony Le-Britton.
Jane Perrone 18:18
I'm sure I've seen this on your social media this super, super tiny orchid with this incredible really quite bizarre flower Corybas caudatas. This is something you seem to be particularly fascinated by. I know it's been in your socials. I mean, I'm looking at that and thinking, yeah, it's okay.
Tony 18:37
No. No. Take that back.
Jane Perrone 18:40
I mean, I'm not a great orchid, sorry, Tony. I'm not I'm...
Jane Perrone 18:45
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.
Tony 18:45
I feel very attacked.
Tony 19:16
So that was never supposed to be in the book.
Jane Perrone 19:19
Okay.
Tony 19:19
But miraculously, its flower opened on the day of the shoot. And the Corybas caudatas is an extremely rare orchid, which my wonderful friend Rogier had bottled it to hold aside and gifted to me a while ago. And he has it and not many people around the world have it at all. In Peninsular Malaysia where it's from, it's thought extinct. There were subsequent trips out there to try and find it and it's never been found again. So I love rare things and I know people shy away from saying I like it because it's rare. A part of this plant's fascination is its rarity, you know, it's incredibly rare. And I grow this on my windowsill in a sandwich bag. And that is what fascinate that's the fascination, also just trying to be successful, but it's so rare and I know Kews been gifted some of this before and it unfortunately died and trying to be successful with this plant, trying to propagate it. That's a huge, not only responsibility, but challenge. And that's why I'm fascinated with it. And then when it flowered for the, for the on the day of the shoot, we were like, 'We have to get this in'. I want to share it with people and show it to people.
Jane Perrone 20:33
Yeah, absolutely.
Tony 20:34
Right. It has a huge reaction on on Instagram, it went viral the first time I posted it, because not only does it have the most fascinating flower, it's incredibly small, but its leaves look like anthurium leaves, you probably can't see it in that picture as it's laid really flat. But they have that sparkly veining through the leaf and the Anthurium sort of heart shaped leaves as well. So yeah, that's a fascination. It's not the only corybas I have. Now I have a few corybas. And it's the challenge for me.
Jane Perrone 21:04
I'm looking at 90 plus percent humidity here on the care information, I'm thinking, yeah, that's going to be a challenge.
Tony 21:11
Sandwich bag.
Jane Perrone 21:12
Well sandwich bag yeah, absolutely. But you must be doing something, you know, like the fact that you're growing that and Kew's failed. Maybe it's just that, you know, Kew's got a lot of plants, you've got a lot of plants, but maybe on a scale that when you can keep particular, yeah, you're gonna take particular care of it.
Tony 21:29
So I think, well, the reason it's been successful for me is because I forgot I had it for a long time I stopped. I got it from I can't remember how many years ago, but I got it a while ago and I grew it from tiny little few tiny little leaves in the sandwich bag. Rogier said don't experiment with it, just leave it in a sandwich bag and put it somewhere that's very low light, and not too warm. Because I think a lot of people think Malaysia's warm, let's put it in the warm and they just rot, they melt.
Jane Perrone 21:39
Oh okay.
Tony 22:01
My spare bedroom that I never go in. It's full of boxes. It's on the windowsill there. It's really cool. It's been down to less than 10 degrees. And in Peninsular Malaysia, it grows on limestone. And the water where I'm from in Northampton is incredibly hard, it's limestone. And I think that really helps.
Jane Perrone 22:21
Ah there you go now those are the top tips. I mean, this is illustrative of the fact that, you know, an easy plant for one person will be a super hard plant for another person. And, you know, I guess this is part of your work with a book and also the shop is when somebody comes in trying to elicit from them well, you know, what is your house like? Because, you know, even within the UK, there's so many different kinds of types of houses and conditions. When you have somebody coming into the shop, or when you're guiding somebody through the process of buying plants. You know, do you find that, presumably, that's a fun thing to do for you, because you can...
Tony 23:00
Oh I love it. I love being in the shop, it's, I think I, if I could just be in the shop all the time, which to be fair, I pretty much am.
Jane Perrone 23:08
You're open seven days a week. I mean yeah you are.
Tony 23:10
I mean, at least five days a week, but I you know, sometimes I have to go away and do all the work and what have you. But I love being in here. I love interacting with customers. And I've loved for the last year seeing people coming in who've either fit my favour or people who failed with houseplants before or it's their first houseplant. And seeing some of these people actually collect houseplants now and be really successful with them is so great. And we talk about sustainability. And that's one thing that we focus on, but probably from a different angle than a lot of people. I think people look at substrates and look at pots and things like that. Our method of being sustainable is making sure someone leaves knowing exactly how to care for that plant. And making sure that they take a plant home that's going to do well in the home that they have where they want to put it. That's half the battle. And if we can make sure people are able to care for the plants, they're not going to kill them and then have to replace them. And for me, that is the most sustainable thing. Then it isn't a single use product. It's something that will last for years and years. And we try and we don't have any care labels in the plants. You might have noticed when you're here any care plants that come in with care labels, they're removed. But actually the growers that grow for us, they know that we don't want them it's a waste of plastic, but also it's usually full of rubbish. And we instead like to talk to the customers get them to describe the room even show us pictures or videos. Find out what way the the window faces when the direct light comes in. And then we'll show them plants that are suitable and then you get to choose the ones you like. Because I think a lot of people choose houseplants just based on what they like look off and try and make it work in that little corner. But as you know that that that's a recipe for disaster.
Jane Perrone 24:55
Absolutely, it is a recipe for disaster. We've all been there. We've all been there. Well it's, I'm really excited that this book is come to fruition and is there anything else you want to tell me about it before we end this interview? Is there anything else that we need to immediately turn to on, I mean that the cover we should talk a little bit about the cover. The cover is nice and very you.
Tony 25:22
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.
Jane Perrone 25:33
Yeah where's the pictures of you?
Tony 25:36
There are two. I think there might be three.
Jane Perrone 25:38
Oh I think I've seen one I think I've seen one at the back.
Tony 25:39
There's the one at the very back. With the dogs. So I was like, okay, we've got to have that in. I've got to get the dogs in. There's one at the front. Which was taken after I just got off a flight from the Amazon. So I looked horrendous.And somehow that made it in.
Jane Perrone 25:58
Oh, that one?
Tony 25:59
That one. It's from the site.
Jane Perrone 26:00
You look very sincere there.
Tony 26:02
I was falling asleep. Just wiping down my...
Jane Perrone 26:07
You're looking at, you're wiping down that plant with great love. That's all I can say about that picture.
Jane Perrone 26:12
And you're not wearing a hat. Tony you're not, I can actually know what your hair looks like now.
Tony 26:12
It was.
Tony 26:16
This was the thing is I said, I don't want to be in the book. And then they almost forced me that okay, well, we want you on the cover. And I kept saying no, no, no, no, no, they took a few cover shots. And I just stressed I don't want to be on the cover of this book. This book is about plants. I don't want it to be a sort of influencer sort of lifestyle book. This is a serious houseplant book to really learn from. And so I just, although I do social media, I hate having my photo taken. So I really wanted to keep them to a minimum. That's one thing to know. And the cover is we came back to Not Another Jungle, after going round and round in circles. And the cover, I'll post some behind the scenes online, it was really fun when we did it. A lot of those leaves have little fishing wires on them, and there's me lying on the floor, pulling the leaves into the perfect position. And just trying to get this shot. I hope that the publishers have the photos of me just lying on the floor showing the the absolute glamour that goes into the picture.
Tony 26:24
Well, that's a great metaphor for the overall amount of hard work that goes into producing a book like this. So congratulations and tell us when it's coming out and presumably available in all good bookstores.
Tony 27:37
That's right. If it's not, it's not a good bookstore. But no, it's available. It comes out on the sixth of April, and next Thursday, but it's available right now to pre order on Amazon, there's a link in my bio that takes you to the best place in your local area to get it from, you can get it pretty much all around the world. So yeah, go and grab one, please. So it's really now it's just not about whether this book sells or not. It's not. It doesn't make any difference to me. But I know the huge amount of work that went into it from everyone else and the whole team. It was a huge team effort. And I really want it to be a big success for them more than me.
Jane Perrone 28:19
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 Perrone 28:45
Thank you so much to Tony Le-Britton and check out the show notes at janeperrone.com where you'll be able to find out more about the book and how to get hold of a copy.
Jane Perrone 28:57
And if you're a Patreon subscriber at the Ledge End or Superfan level, you can enjoy an extra chunk of chat with Tony in an extra leaf number 109 which is out now. We talk about running a houseplant shop, house plant trends and why we both love flowering houseplants. That is all for this week show. I am taking a week off next Friday. That's April the 7th 2023 Because it's holiday time. It's the Easter holidays. So I'm taking next Friday off. I'll be back on April the 14th. So I do hope you and yours have a restful couple of weeks and I'll speak to you soon. Bye!
Jane Perrone 30:23
The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, The Road We Used To Travel by Komiku, and Overthrown by Josh Woodward. All Tracks are Licenced under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.
This week I travel to Northampton to meet Tony Le-Britton and talk about his new book, Not Another Jungle.
This week’s guest
Tony Le-Britton runs a houseplant shop in Northampton in the UK and is known for his Instagram account @notanotherjungle.
His book Not Another Jungle is out on April 6 published by DK. You can find out more and order a copy here.
Patreon subscribers at the Ledge End and Superfan level can listen to Tony Le-Britton talking about running a houseplant shop, flowering houseplants and more in An Extra Leaf 109, available now.
The tiny orchid Tony mentions is Corybas caudatus, which came from Rogier van Vugt at Hortus Leiden. You can watch Tony’s reel of this plant here.
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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.