Winter Cutting: Houseplants

Welcome to a special bonus winter cutting of plant sluts. It's winter, so the only gardening we can really do right now is indoors.

Look around your living room, you probably see a monstera, maybe a pothos. Definitely a sad looking fern. We treat them like babies, but today we're asking like, why the hell are they here?

Jonathan, what houseplants do you have?

Okay, well, you kind of laughed at me in one of the last episodes of the season that I have a citrus tree. That's my indoor plant that you just.

Bring in during the winter.

It's an indoor plant in the winter.

In the winter. Okay, okay. Winter houseplant.

And then it's an outdoor plant for the rest of the year.

Got it.

The short summer that we have here in Montreal, I also have some remnants from the divorce. So I have a dried up fern in the bathroom that's been sitting there, I think for probably like four or five months. It's just like sitting on the toilet. I can see it. It reminds me of like why it's there and. And like the. The kind of abandonment and neglect that I've given to the. To it.

Oh my God.

I also have some z. ZZ plants. I think they're called snake plants. I have a couple ficus that are fighting for their lives. A Norfolk pine and also, yeah, spider plants. What about you?

I have a lot of houseplants. I have. I have a flamingo lily, purple heart, rex begonia, lots of golden pothos all around. A baby rubber plant, Chinese money plant. I just got button Fernando Swiss cheese plant. I have prayer plants, one in the bathroom and I have string of hearts down here in the basement by a little window. Variegated philodendron, snake plants. We also have a ton of Christmas cactuses, which were things that Nathan brought to the relationship. But in the same way where I forgot how to cook once we got together, he no longer takes care of the Christmas cactus. That's my job.

Step plant baby.

Yeah. He also had orchids that he was really good at bringing back, but now that's my job as well. So I have two orchids and then I have this struggle pot that I made. And I remember I sent you a picture where it was just like all the plants that are not doing well either. I didn't have the right lighting. I don't know what it was, but I had this croton, I think it's pronounced that way that I had outdoors brought indoors for the winter. But it's in way too big of a pot. So it's Just a ton of dirt. So I just started sticking some plants that weren't doing well in the pot with it. So I put in some goldfish plant, inch plant, polka dot plants. I put a little piece of a spider plant in there. Probably some pothos. Yeah, just any. Any little thing that's not doing well, I just stick in that big clump of dirt. We'll just see, like, we'll just see what survives, how it does, if it'll flourish, if it all dies, who cares?

So I have to be honest, that I don't really know probably more than half of the plants that you mentioned. But I do remember that you had a lot of plants last time I went to visit you. So it's impressive, if not a bit of a show off.

I don't really have their names memorized. I just looked them all up on the plant ID before recording this, because I just called them that plant. That plant.

So cheater.

Yeah.

The whole question of today's episode, take me back. When did we start dragging the jungle indoors?

Yeah. So it started as a Victorian obsession. So 19th century London, as the empire is expanding, okay. Explorers were bringing interesting plants back, but they would always die on the ship, probably from, like, salt spray or lack of water. And so in 1829, the Wardian case was invented. It was a wooden glass box shaped like a small movable greenhouse that started being used to transport live plants, kind of like a cold box that you might have out in your garden. So once that was invented, they were able to bring plants to England and transport those live plants.

So basically it's a sealed glass terrarium that's on a boat.

Yeah, exactly. So the tropical plants could survive that voyage. And back then, maybe a little like now, they weren't just decor, they were like trophies. So having a plant like a palm from India, a fern from New Zealand, proved like you're super rich and connected to the Empire. Kew Gardens was kind of the mothership where the stolen goods were displayed before trickling down to the elite of London.

That's near London, right?

Yeah, I think it's in London.

Yeah, I've heard of it. You're gonna go visit it when you're there?

Mm, yeah, that's the plan. I want to see all the stolen goods and then I'll go to the British Museum. Just kidding.

And see another. Another bunch of stolen goods.

Yeah, I just want to go to England and see all the stolen goods. The one plant that could survive those dark, cold filled Victorian parlors was the cast iron plant or Aspidistra.

Okay.

It was like the original unkillable plant. Like, think of, like, snake plants now.

Ooh, I need that plant.

It's kind of like. It kind of looks like a snake plant, except it's long and green. But it does definitely have, like, a tropical feel. Compared to probably the native British plants, the history is pretty intense. But living in the US And Canada, why do we still always import these tropical plants for our house plants? Couldn't we just dig up local ferns from the forest and then keep them in our living room?

Actually, there's really no such thing as a native Canadian house plant. So, you know, in Canada, I can't just, like, pick something up out of the forest because it's dependent on a dormancy period. So basically, temperate. Temperate plants, which are plants, you know, that go through the different seasons, they actually need a winter. It's part of their whole, like, life stages. They usually need about, like, three or four months of the freezing cold to sleep and to continue their, you know, their winter their whole life. So if I were to bring in a plant, it would basically get something like insomnia, where they'd. They wouldn't be able to go dormant. They get exhausted, and eventually they die. Our homes are basically tropical caves, about 20 degrees Celsius. Really not that much light, mostly steady temperature. And it kind of mimics the tropical rainforest floor.

Okay. So a Monstera feels at home in your living room because it thinks it's under that jungle canopy.

Right.

We're living in a kind of manufactured eternal summer with our temperature settings of our homes. But is there any exception to that?

A lot of the cacti and succulents are native to the U.S. southwest. So I guess technically you can consider that a native plant that you can bring indoors. And the reason why they survive in that is because our houses are, like, super dry from heating them. So when you heat them, you know, it lowers the relative humidity and they don't really mind the dry heat. Right. It's the only time, really, that, like, the great quote unquote, indoors matches the great outdoors, basically.

Yeah. And air conditionings also serve as dehumidifiers in moist climates.

Oh, yeah, that's true.

Okay, so we live in these sealed boxes. What about in the global south, like, Vietnam? Is a house plant just, like, called a plant?

Well, it's interesting because. And this is. This has been my experience is, like, places like Hanoi, for instance, there's really, like, a blurred line between in and out. Think about a lot of the kind of architecture In. In the Global south, there's a lot of, like, open windows, there's courtyards, there's balconies. Sometimes, like, you're living in a place where you don't have, like, a. A very sturdy or clear door that kind of creates an indoor and an outdoor environment so you don't have to trick the plant. The air inside is basically the same humid air as it is outside, you know, and it comes with all the bad things, too, like all the mice and spiders and all those other things, too, that come in. And some of the stuff that I was looking at, like, it. It's really. Doesn't seem like it's really an aesthetic thing in. There's a lot of, like, functional and spiritual things that come into play. So think about, like, feng shui and, you know, the idea of, like, a money tree. So you would get a money tree and put it in your home to help, you know, create energies that, you know, I don't know, that help you pay the rent and not necessarily to match the carpet. There's the lunar new year in Vietnam called Tet. And there they bring in, like, actual living, blooming trees. So usually it's like a peach blossom. Sometimes I think it's also plum. There's also kumquat, which is like a citrus tree that you would bring in for. For luck and not dead pine trees like we do, you know, during our Christmas holidays.

I love my dead pine tree. Is it changing at all with globalization, do you think?

Really the big villain is air conditioning? Um, so, you know, as other places in the world, like these tropical areas where we actually sourced all of these tropical plants that we've brought into our house, so as they get richer, they start using more and more air conditioning. And, I mean, it's so fucking hot and humid in a lot of these places that, like.

Yeah, it makes sense when it's getting hotter, right?

Well, yeah, and with climate change as well. Yeah, you're right. With climate change and also just like, the increasing urbanization and the mineralization of what was, like, permeable and forest forested areas, it just gets, like, hotter and hotter. So suddenly, like, a house in Hanoi is just as cold and dry as a home in Montreal in the. In the winter, let's say. And they can't really grow these, you know, native jungle plants inside anymore. So we could call it something like the mollification of the world in a certain way is that these indoor spaces, it's really just one single climate, and there's only a certain collection of plants that can survive in that kind of climate.

Yeah.

And you could say, like, the snake plant. It's part of this. The same, like, unkillable plants that you can find in malls and these indoor environments from, like, Brooklyn all the way to Bangkok.

Then there's like, the Instagram effect. If you're listening to this, you might be on Plant Instagram or Plant TikTok. We're kind of getting influencers showing us, like, the clean, minimalist aesthetic and what plants go along with that and kind of trading cultural plants for, you know, that global beige look. But then there was also the COVID house plant. Bloom. Bloom. There was the COVID house. The COVID house plant boom. Where, I mean, we all had our Covid, you know, hobby. Mine was tattooing. What was your sourdough or what did you do?

What was mine? Yeah, I don't know, honestly. But at the beginning, I was watching, like, really trashy television until I just started feeling really bad and gross about my life.

So you.

I guess it would be gardening. I mean, it's really guard. Like, I was really gardening a lot, but in the winter.

Tv.

Yeah. I'm so embarrassed to say. Like, maybe it was just tv.

No, that's fine, because that's so different than your usual thing. You already had a sourdough starter. You didn't need to do that during COVID Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

So lots of house plant shops have popped up to after that boom. Especially. I've noticed in Salem, where I live, there's, like, five just houseplant shops, and I have no idea how they make that much money and who's running for houseplants. But you've seen, like, people are super into, like, rare plants and very variated plants. And there's that plant con where people, like, show off their house plants and switch them, and they really love them.

And, like, Facebook groups. Right. Of, like, trading clippings and that kind of thing.

Recently, I had a friend come over, and she brought me, like, four clippings from her house plants. Just, like, when she got here, I was like, yay. I feel like they're as popular as ever still.

So as a true houseplant slut here, Jeanette, what would you give any kind of, like, advice for me and others who. Who maybe have some issues, neglect issues or other issues in taking care of houseplants? Yeah.

First, like, you know, don't blame your houseplants for your breakup. You know, you can still water them.

No projecting.

I guess I'm just projecting. Yeah, stop projecting onto your houseplants. So the big thing that gets people in trouble is watering. So you only want to water when the topsoil is dry. So I always have dirt on my finger because I'm sticking it in my. In my plants to see if the top inch is dry. And if you can bottom water, that's gonna be the best to avoid. What to avoid?

I don't know. You went from, like, sticking your finger into your plants to, like, bottom watering. I don't know. It just sounds so. Plant sluts.

Yeah. Because fungus gnats are really annoying. They're kind of like little gnats that are like fruit flies. They almost look like. And if you have wet soil out for a while and if you get any fungus gnats in your house, then they're going to explode. So you want to make sure you, you know, you don't over water. I'm a chronic underwater, but on purpose to, like, until the plants, like, begging for water. I'm like, fine, I'll give you a little. Because I don't want the fungus gnats. You also want to make sure you reduce watering in winter. So if you're listening right now and about to water your plants, you know, slow it down. Never go by those guides that are like, this plant needs to be watered once a week. You know, make sure you're touching the soil and seeing if it really needs it.

So you really don't like, water all your plants on a regular schedule. You just kind of like, finger them and figure out if they need to be. If they're thirsty. You finger them to see if they're thirsty?

Yeah, yeah. And then you can also tell by the leaves. If the leaves start curling a little bit, they're probably thirsty. Yeah, I don't do it on a regular schedule. I probably, once one needs it, you know, I might need a lot to water a few of them, but I don't have a schedule.

Are you the kind of person that waters them from. From. Oh, I guess you had said, like, you. You bottom water them?

I try them.

And you put them in the bath?

Yeah, I try to bottom water, but I don't. I'm not really set up yet to totally bottom water the plants. So I actually still top water. But what I do to avoid fungus gnats is I put mosquito dunks in my watering can. And mosquito dunks have these nematodes that eat the fungus gnat larvae.

Okay. So these are, like, little things that you, like, put into the. Like, they're like discs or something.

I think I've Seen. Yeah, yeah, they're discs. You would put them in like a. You can put them in a bird bath. You can put them outdoors if you have, like a fountain, because it keeps mosquitoes from breeding. And it's also non toxic to animals. So I put that in my watering can. So I always water with mosquito dunks to try to, you know, mitigate the fungus gnat problem. And there's also little fly catchers you can put in to catch or just to check if you have fungus gnats by. Because they'll fly into it. Those little yellow.

Yellow.

Yeah. Sticky traps.

Yellow flags. Yeah, you can get those on, like, online retailers.

Unnamed online retailers.

Unnamed online retailers.

Or your favorite local plant shop, I'm sure, has them, too.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Or like a hardware store, I guess. Like one of the big box stores. Like the big box stores probably have them.

Yeah. Be careful getting your plants there, because I was gonna say you definitely wanna quarantine new houseplants two to four weeks. You know, even if you did get it in a cool little local shop, I would still quarantine it, but because it could have fungus gnats, it could have other things like spider mites. Mealybugs. Yeah, you just don't want to get those pests onto all your plants.

What are mealybugs? Are those the ones like. Oh, no, that's scale, I'm thinking.

Yeah, there's also scale.

Those are like the little dots that you find that look kind of like. Not pimples, but like little scabs.

I'm always scared I have spider mites because, like, little spider webs. But then sometimes I think I just have spiders. So I'm not sure if I have spider mites or spiders. One thing I do if I think I have spider mites or spiders on my indoor plants is I will take them outside and dust it with diametritis Earth.

Jeanette, we went over this one. Diametaceous. What was the actual diametric?

Earth.

No, I don't think that's it.

Diatomatous.

Hold on. Please have patience with us while we. Diatomaceous. Yeah, diatomaceous earth.

Diatomaceous earth.

Diatomaceous.

All right, we got this, guys. We're going to go into season two with diatomaceous earth.

Yes. So we need to get that right.

Yeah, I'll dust it with that. If I think especially, like, I brought in my lemon Meyer tree and I dusted it to make sure that there wasn't anything like that on it, because I'm not worried about Pollinators in the house that I'm killing or anything. So I just liberally.

That makes sense.

Fill it with that.

And also I have, like, I have seen or heard of, and I have. I mean, I've done this, but not specifically for. For pests, but you can put them out in the summer and a lot of the predators will, you know, eat or, you know, like, lay eggs and, you know, eat all your, like, spider mites and all that kind of thing. Because, like, on an. In an indoor environment, if you have, you know, like a spider mite, it can end up really being a problem because you don't. They don't have their predators around. Right. Because it's like an enclosed environment. But when you put them outside in the summer, it kind of like deals with that in that way.

Yeah. And then you just want to be careful of bringing anything back inside around your other plants.

A lot of those pests are also effectively taken off by just spraying the leaves with water.

Yeah. And I've also seen spraying them with alcohol. Isopropyl alcohol. Isopropyl alcohol? Yeah.

Just like rubbing alcohol.

Yeah, just. There you go. Spraying it with rubbing alcohol doesn't really affect your house plants. It shouldn't affect your house plants. I mean, you might want to try it out on a little bit before you go crazy. I've also seen people do it with hydrogen peroxide, which they say is a little more gentle.

What about just like black soap or something like that?

Black soap. Is that the.

Oh, that's like the French. The French. You know, like, I thought that was.

The thing from that episode where we were talking about where the girl was skin cancer.

Black solve. Yeah, black solve. No, like, black soap is like that. I don't know. It's. It's common here. It's like from France. It's true that they all seem like it's from France, but it's like a type of olive oil soap and you mix it with water and spray that.

I use the Dr. Bronner's Glycerin Soap and spray that as well.

Yeah. Because that shit is not good for your skin, to be honest. It's so like drying.

I don't know.

It's so drying. Yeah.

Yeah. One tip for houseplants is if you're going to go get a houseplant, well, first of all, don't buy other people houseplants. But if you're going to go buy yourself a house plant, I'll tell you why. You have to know where you're going to put It I have been in the situation where I go to the store and I'm like, oh my God, it's so pretty. And then you see the lighting requirements and do you really have that open window that gets enough sun? Do you have a table or a plant stand in front of that window? Because you don't want to have to, I don't know, you don't want to have to like rearrange your life around this plant you brought in. You'd rather have it fit where you want it to fit originally.

That makes sense. So buying like a houseplant for someone is probably really inconvenient to them.

Yeah. Because they might not have like, oh, do I have a bright indirect window that has like a shelf that I can put a plant on? Unless it, you know, it's one of the low light, low water snake plants. And I guess you can, you know, give those away to your mother if.

You know, like I guess your friend or your mother in law's house intimately and you know that there's like a specific spot.

Sure, yeah.

It would go well.

Yeah.

I'm just saying I, like, I've been buying my mom house plants for like Mother's Day every year and like other holidays. So when you said that, I was like, oh no.

Does she find places for them and do they survive?

Yeah.

Good.

Yeah, my mom's surprisingly good. I, I don't know what that surprising. That's like a loaded statement. Like, what do I think about my mom that it's surprising that she can take care of a plant?

It's just.

I'll talk about that in therapy. No, it's just that it's a late coming thing. Like I don't think she really took care of plants previously. And then all of a sudden like nowadays she has all these Christmas cactuses that all seem to bloom majestically at the same time around Christmas.

You know, that's what we have going on right now in our house. And I don't know about you if you've heard of Christmas cactuses, but I feel like every Christmas cactus I meet is at least 30 to 100 years old from someone's grandmother. They live forever and like people pass them down through generations. So we have some like 30 year old Christmas cactuses here.

Really? Wow.

Christmas cactuses. There's some tips I have for those. If you have a Christmas cactus, when they're growing, their leaves grow in little nodes. Like you can kind of tell the difference between a leaf on top of a leaf, like a string of leaves and after it hits three leaves, you want to trim it because then it will. It could potentially split to make it bushier so you don't have just long, like branches of Christmas cactuses. And then as it starts getting cooler and winter's coming around where you want it to bloom around October, I think you want to stop watering and that, that gets it to bloom. And it also needs a regular light cycle. Like it needs to have 12 hours without light. It helps it flower if you have it on a good schedule, so not somewhere where you're flipping lights on and off.

I guess that's why it's called Christmas cactus, because the days are like. The days are shorter.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And that's when it. That's when it starts. Yeah.

We also have an Easter cactus, and I think it's just one that blooms a different time.

All right, so next time you water your pothos, remember, it's not just a plant. It's a survivor of a Victorian obsession. A hostage in your climate controlled cave, and a symbol of how we've turned the whole world into one big air conditioned waiting room.

Yeah, this has been fun. I don't think we'll look at our snake plants the same way ever again.

Bye, sluts.