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Not Another Jungle: Comprehensive Care for Extraordinary Houseplants

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Tony: Yes, well, first of all, when it comes to actually choosing the plants, I'm a lot more aware. I think outdoor gardeners will say, "Okay, I have this soil, I have this light, this aspect and this is what I want to achieve. So therefore I'm going to go and look for this kind of plant," whereas indoor gardeners see a plant that they like and they try and make it work in their home. We all do it, I still do it, but I'm a bit more aware of that. So I'm definitely more aware of what conditions I have in my house and which plants I can grow successfully. When it comes to pests, I'm really relaxed about pests. I know pests are such a huge cause of stress to a lot of people but I have pests in my collection, I will always have pests in my collection and I'm really just about managing them. In the garden you never ever seek to exterminate things, you, obviously, do have predatory insects out there and there's a bit more of an ecosystem, but if I can just act as that predatory beetle - I don't dress up! Jane: Help me out here. What's the current thinking with the whole Deliciosa, large form, small form, Borsigiana? Can we put that to rest now, or is it still, kind of, it depends who you listen to? Jane: Well, it's looking good on it, I have to say. I always forget the name of this. Is this Schefflera? Is this Amate? Tony: There is an answer. There are a couple of different answers. So there is Mosaic virus in Adansonii, but the absolute majority that you get are this form of Monstera, that we don't actually know is adansonii. We think it is,but it's not an Adansonii that's known. We think it's actually some sort of tissue culture freak that's happened. There's no evidence and there's no record of it first being brought into cultivation, so we don't really know where it came from or what it really is. But that particular plant, for some reason, is incredibly hungry and it shows signs of that very readily in the leaves. So you get that patination and, usually, after a good fertiliser and a little bit of extra light it recovers. I know some people do get really scared. The best thing if you have any worries, just separate it from the rest of your plants. Mosaic actually isn't that easily transmitted between plants. You've really got to be cutting and using the same tools on multiple plants, but if you have any question, just separate it and figure it out.

Jane: These are really thirsty. These are so thirsty. I find all those forest cacti drink enormous amounts of water. Tony’s desert island plant: Anything from the alocasia family as they produce big leaves which you can shelter under and you can eat the tubers! Jane: The price tag is really quite meaningless, isn't it? I suppose it reflects the fact that the plant is very rare and therefore it's desirable.Tony: So actually, they are not the Obliqua that everyone knows. The Obliqua everyone knows is down below there. That's Monstera obliqua and that is Peruvian form. So that's down there. There's quite a few of those dotted around, actually, because they create runners. I have maybe 50 runners, which is part of my giveaway at the moment. But these here, I have around nine different species or subspecies, or, sorry, correct term, complex of Obliqua and the majority of them don't fenestrate at all. The actual, original Obliqua described had no fenestrations whatsoever. In fact, the one everyone knows as Obliqua is most likely actually not part of the Obliqua family. Jane: We could spend another hour talking about your beautiful vegetable patch and beautiful garden. This is like something at Hampton Court or something! When are you coming to Hampton Court or Chelsea to design? Come on! Am I getting an exclusive here? Tony: No, absolutely not. It's really strange. A lot of people online look at my collection and they think that I just buy everything. That's not a smart way to do it and it also takes the joy out of it. I think the most wonderful thing, for me, is swapping with someone. Sending them something like this, this I got yesterday from someone. I sent them one of my variegated Adansonii, they sent me this Aurea one and we didn't pay a penny for it. 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.

I realised that Tony Le-Britton was houseplant obsessed when I interviewed him some years ago for a feature. Anyone who puts a greenhouse in the spare bedroom of their garden-less flat has to be fanatical about growing. This isn’t any ordinary houseplant book. In fact, there is nothing ordinary about these extraordinary plants. From growing his own collection, Tony Le-Britton of Not Another Jungle, shows you how to grow and care for the world’s most sought after plants.Tony: There's several things. There's so many things, in fact. I love the way a lot of them grow. I love the way, for instance, Alocasia and Anthurium, I love how the leaves change and evolve from when they first emerge. So, the Anthurium start so small and they change colour completely and they're glossy and gorgeous and then they just expand exponentially into something which looks completely different. The Alocasia: the volume of them and the size that they can achieve. The other thing is definitely the feel they give. I love that jungle feel. I like to feel immersed in my plants. You can grow them up a height, so you have to go under them in the kitchen, have them so you have to walk through them and brush against them. They can withstand a bit of a battering, of me clunking through, or stumbling through, after too many gins, and they don't mind it! They don't mind it at all. Also, just their availability. The majority of stuff in the house is from Facebook Marketplace, garden centres, cuttings from people. They're really available and will thrive in your home. I'm really not looking to have anything in the house that doesn't do well because it just becomes a pain. I don't want to look at a plant that isn't doing well. I want to look at plants in all their glory. Then the last bit about rarity, you're so right, you're so right! I do love unusual, different things because sometimes I get bored of seeing things, especially with online. I was at RHS Wisley yesterday and they had a Melanochrysum there and my eyes were just huge. Jane: I'm hearing you. Let's head out to the greenhouse, shall we? Let's go and explore that. We could literally be here all day! Jane: It's really nice. I think this should be your gateway plant into growing more Gesneriads! I know you have got some Streptocarpus, but I feel like there's more Gesneriads you need to get into!

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