Latest / The Shed Organics Show / #26 - Keeping Our Houseplants Thriving | Brocc Rogers [literallyjustaplantguy]

Transcript

#26 - Keeping Our Houseplants Thriving | Brocc Rogers [literallyjustaplantguy] · The Shed Organics Show

0:00
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode
0:03
of the Shed Organics Show. My name is Jordan, and today we
0:08
have another fabulous gentleman by the name of Brock who is
0:12
joining us now. Brock is a wizard at plants that
0:17
live indoors and specifically tropical house plants.
0:22
Now, if you're anything like me, your house plants will be one of
0:26
the most neglected sets of plants in your house.
0:30
And Brock is here to share with us a few of the secrets in how
0:35
he gets his plans to look so, so good.
0:39
And please, as always, I'll be sharing some of the links for
0:42
all of his work in the description below.
0:45
So if you haven't come across him before, I highly encourage
0:47
you to go and check out those links.
0:49
Go and check out his Instagram and see what he is up to.
0:53
But we cover all things about environment, pests, feeding, and
0:58
then everything in between that you can think of.
1:01
And genuinely, I really, really love this guy.
1:04
I think he's a fantastic human being, just so happy and full of
1:08
life. And I can't wait for you to hear
1:10
this conversation. So without further ado, let's
1:13
dive straight in. Here is Brock, who is literally
1:17
just a blunt guy. Just to clarify, obviously I'm
1:37
looking at your Instagram and seeing like how much is based
1:41
around house plants and things like that, but do you have any
1:44
formal like horticultural degree or anything like that or botany
1:48
or anything like that? Just I don't like put you on the
1:50
spot or anything. No, no, no, I, I, I like that
1:53
question. I think it's a pretty important
1:55
one to ask in this sort of realm because I guess house plants
1:59
kind of fit like a little niche window in the horticultural
2:03
world where a lot of people are like quote UN quote experts in
2:07
like houseplant maintenance and care, but they haven't done any
2:10
formal training. I've done my set three in a
2:13
horticulture and then everything else surrounding that is just
2:18
like self-taught. I'd say that I sort of
2:22
specialize my knowledge in like the arrow aids, like tropical
2:26
plant realm, but through my career I've basically learned a
2:32
whole lot about trees, a lot about sort of your outdoor like
2:38
garden plants through like gardening and and just like
2:42
helping out my grandma and stuff with roses, you know?
2:44
Cool. And I really my dream is to do a
2:48
botany degree with potentially like APHD at the end.
2:55
Goodness. Me.
2:56
That's a That's a big commitment, man.
2:58
It is, it's, it's a huge commitment and it's something
3:01
that I think I couldn't squeeze into my life right now because
3:05
I've talked to a few people who have done, you know, the this
3:09
and PhD work and it, it's draining, you know, like, take a
3:15
lot out of you. Yeah.
3:16
The thing that's always scared me being in Perth, WA, is like,
3:20
we're not a tropical climate. I may end up kind of struggling
3:26
to find something that I want to dive deeply into.
3:30
Yeah, that's also like as you say, the horticultural botany
3:36
whatever. It's kind of got this set of
3:40
information that you can learn about all these different plants
3:42
and things, but it's, it doesn't necessarily lead you down one
3:47
specific path or another. You have to try and find that as
3:51
a, as a bit of a passion point or a research project or
3:54
something like that, right. So you're kind of trying to look
3:57
for, OK, where do I fit? But correct me if I'm wrong.
4:00
It's pretty easy these days to find so much information online,
4:08
whether or not you have to disseminate what's truth from
4:11
falsehood. But like, you could quite
4:14
happily go along and learn the majority of your plant knowledge
4:19
through experience and through learning online, watching,
4:23
listening, doing your own sort of study, right?
4:26
I fully agree and I think I was. I was actually against studying
4:33
for maybe the first of the three years that I was really into
4:38
thoughts and like learning and just sucking everything in.
4:43
But I eventually got to a point where I knew if I wanted to work
4:48
in the industry, it'd be a lot easier for me to just get at
4:51
least a certificate to resume. And and it was true.
4:57
Like it did make it a lot easier.
4:59
But yeah, I think the only thing that I found was very valuable
5:08
through studying horticulture was you get that practical
5:13
element. I mean, some people do it
5:15
online, which I think I understand.
5:17
But I personally really enjoyed having like my tutors there to,
5:22
you know, teach me how to prune properly, like in person and
5:26
like doing it in front of me and, and stuff like grafting.
5:32
And we did like a little bit of tissue culture flosking.
5:36
And I think that kind of stuff, you kind of want someone to be
5:42
there to watch you do it and also to show you how to do it.
5:46
It's a whole different like I think you know, one person I
5:49
look up to is Gary Vee. He talks about, he says you
5:52
can't read about push ups and it's very similar in the same
5:55
sort of, you know, the same elk where you kind of, yes, you can
5:59
see how someone's trimmed it online or something.
6:02
But unless you're actually there doing it and feeling how it
6:05
feels and OK, what happens if I accidentally get it wrong or cut
6:09
it wrong? Can I just fix it up or all of
6:11
these different questions that you want to ask based on what
6:14
you've just done and the feedback you want.
6:17
So really interesting. And obviously, like I've, you
6:22
know, stalked your Instagram, as I've told you, and I love that
6:27
you're into tropical plants. And as you mentioned in Perth,
6:30
right, it's not a hugely tropical kind of environment for
6:34
you, right? So basically a desert, I like to
6:37
call it. People say subtropical, but like
6:40
realistically, especially for me, I live in the city.
6:42
It's with the heat island effect.
6:45
Like, it's pretty much that here in summer.
6:47
OK, right. And I, I've got a little bit of
6:51
a sneak peek into this already, but can you talk us a little bit
6:55
through your setup in terms of looking after tropical plants
6:59
because I know you're using certain like environments to
7:03
create little micro climates and.
7:05
I can actually, like, bring you over to it.
7:07
To be honest, I might as well. Yes, let's do it.
7:10
You're in the flash. The Lucky The Lucky Video
7:13
viewers will be able to see your setup.
7:16
It's going to be a little bit hard.
7:17
Let me just expand my camera so I can see what I'm showing you.
7:21
It's going to be a little bit hard, but basically I've got
7:24
like this sun area of my house, which is like full Venetian
7:29
blinds, but that's behind me is a southwest facing window and
7:34
that's northwest facing window. Gorgeous.
7:37
And there's so there's a bunch of plots that I grow sort of
7:40
ambiently here and most of those are fair aesthetic.
7:44
And when my wife moved into the apartment, she kind of brought a
7:48
bunch of stuff. So we we set it all up in hot
7:52
room. But then my kind of pride and
7:54
joy is big shelf set up here. That's amazing.
8:00
Like. Is that enclosed?
8:03
Yeah, I'll, I'll stand next to it so you can kind of say yes.
8:08
I'm loving this interactive. Oh yeah, here we go.
8:10
Look at that. It's it's pretty much as tall as
8:14
I am and I'm about just under 2 meters tall.
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Goodness. So what it is, is it's like one
8:22
of those classic industrial shelves that's just like a metal
8:29
frame on top. And it's got the shelves that
8:31
you can kind of raise and lower to wherever you want.
8:37
I've got this one at the top and then there's.
8:41
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then one here and
8:44
under here is where I've got a lot of the drip trays.
8:47
Yes, clever. Or all the water.
8:50
There's two lights. They're actually aquarium
8:53
lights. Netley is the brand I used.
8:57
Really good, honestly. Yeah, yeah.
9:00
I think the reason I love them the most is because they've got
9:03
like a customizable spectrum, because fish need kind of like
9:06
changing spectrums with light, but it just means I can like
9:11
pump up my infrared light when there's not as much natural sun
9:15
coming through. That's a really cool feature to
9:19
be able to adjust. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just.
9:21
On and off. Your blue light is what's going
9:24
to get like stem growth. Your red light's what's going to
9:27
get big leaves and fruits. It's it's kind of just it's more
9:31
geeky than anything. Like I realistically just leave
9:34
it set at like the optimal range.
9:36
But if I wanted to, I could really like manipulate some
9:38
things. I'm going to be honest, I'm
9:42
actually in the process of upgrading real hard because this
9:46
thing has gotten to a point where it's kind of falling apart
9:50
a little bit. I've probably built it about 2
9:52
1/2 years ago, maybe even 3 now with my wife.
9:58
But yeah, it's kind of just wrapped in greenhouse plastic.
10:03
And then I put like, you can't really see it, but I put like a
10:09
reflective. Oh yes.
10:11
Yes, all around it, just to bounce as much light in there as
10:14
I can definitely eat mats. There's eat mats all along the
10:20
bottom of it. There's a fan there and there
10:24
was a fan up here. But yeah, unfortunately it's
10:29
gone. I that was, that was my big
10:32
thing. I don't think I thought about
10:35
longevity or sustainability with this cause a lot of the wires
10:39
are actually built sort of through the plastic or under the
10:43
plastic. And, and so it's it's, it's
10:47
definitely not something I can just continuously maintain,
10:51
which is why I'm upgrading. I feel you.
10:53
So what's the like? Obviously it also looks like
10:56
your plants are outgrowing it in that space, but oh.
10:59
Yeah, it looks full. That's, that's, that's probably
11:02
the biggest, the biggest issue I have is that, you know, if you
11:08
create the most optimal conditions for a plant, because
11:12
it pretty much sits at, I don't know, 70 odd percent humidity in
11:19
there and I can keep it roughly around 25 to 35°.
11:27
Obviously I'd like to keep it under 30, but being a desert,
11:32
like I said, it gets a bit hot in summer.
11:35
I think that's one of the things not a lot of people talk about
11:38
with greenhouses because wherever you're going to the
11:43
tropical stuff, you don't have to worry about being in a
11:46
desert. But houses are quite hard to
11:48
cool down because they amplify heat quite well.
11:54
And by putting in like misters or like really good ventilation,
11:59
it's it's pretty tough to cool them down in summer.
12:02
And obviously I'm not going to put misters in there because of
12:06
the grow lights and everything. Yeah, that's difficult.
12:10
Yeah, I've, I've, I've been in a constant battle of the plants
12:15
grow really big, which is what I want, you know, that's why.
12:19
But then they kind of outgrow themselves and end up everything
12:25
ends up competing. Yeah.
12:27
One of the biggest things that I didn't think about, which I kick
12:32
myself a lot for now, but I think, you know, makes sense to
12:35
not think about at the time, is that once a lot of the big
12:39
anthuriums and philid entrance and yeah, it's pretty much
12:44
mostly just philid entrance and anthuriums.
12:46
And they're, once they grow to the point where they create like
12:50
their own kind of canopy per SE, I can't put any of like the
12:55
youngest stuff underneath that because they're completely
12:58
blocking the light. So that's been like a big pain
13:02
point for me because obviously you kind of want to get like new
13:05
plants to add to the collection. But I'm more so just stuck with
13:09
the plants I've got, which isn't a bad thing.
13:14
They're. Beautiful plants.
13:16
To like, not be constantly chasing the next cool plant or
13:22
like buying a new one, you know, and instead really just
13:25
appreciating and trying to grow the absolute best out of the
13:27
ones I've got. Yeah, that is something that we
13:30
all tend to do. I think just as plant lovers in
13:32
general is we just go, oh, that's so cool.
13:34
And especially house plants. I find that you, you probably
13:38
found this that there was a bit of a craze going on in in recent
13:41
years where everyone was just like, look, I just want to jump
13:44
on get a house plant. And there was just, you know,
13:47
you'd go get this one and that one and this one and that one.
13:49
And 99% of people's plants die quite quickly with house plants.
13:56
And they kind of just get neglected, including myself.
13:59
I'm going to be honest, they're the most neglected plants in my
14:01
house. And I've said that before.
14:03
I go outside and I put the most care and attention into the
14:06
garden and everything outside and go really hard with all of
14:09
that. And then I wander inside and
14:10
walk straight past the, the wilting piece Lily or the
14:13
whatever it is, you know what I mean?
14:15
So I. Fully know what you mean dude.
14:17
It's one of those things, but how?
14:21
Tell me how like somebody might look after or at least try and
14:26
have some of these cool plants that you have without going to
14:30
the extent of having some sort of humidity control, temperature
14:33
control, environmental supplemental I.
14:35
Think the biggest thing is always going to be light.
14:40
And it's what I tell people a lot when they're getting into
14:43
house plants is like get to know your windows in your house, you
14:48
know, like figure out the orientation.
14:50
If you've got N facing windows in Australia, like southern
14:54
hemisphere, you're like winning, you know.
14:58
But you know, if you're only stuck, it's like South facing
15:02
windows, you might have to sort of face the music and accept
15:05
that you might not be able to grow cool plants without
15:08
supplemental lighting. Because at the end of the day, I
15:12
think humidity is great for supporting those big leaves.
15:18
I like to simplify plants into they're actually just all giant
15:25
straws. And the concept is the higher
15:28
the humidity, the more moisture stays in the leaves and allows
15:34
them to support those big leaves as opposed to going straight
15:36
through them up into the ethos. I like that.
15:40
Yeah, it and that's kind of how I like simplify tropical plants
15:44
for people. But so if you want giant leaves,
15:51
you want the humidity, but you can get pretty big leaves just
15:55
with like decent fertilizer routine, really optimal
16:00
sunlight, and obviously keeping up with your water.
16:05
I think those sort of three are the most important.
16:08
And then temperature and humidity, like I think we all
16:11
know by now that when it gets cold, your tropical stuff's
16:14
going to like struggle. So you know.
16:19
You're right. And I had Michael the from the
16:22
Gardener's Lodge on the show. He has some pretty awesome house
16:24
plants in his house, but he's down in the Blue Mountains in
16:27
NSW. So he was telling me a couple of
16:29
things. One is that he said that to keep
16:32
some of your soil on the drier side, for a lot of house plants,
16:37
it tends to, if you're mimicking what's happening in nature, some
16:41
of these plants are climbing up trees, right?
16:43
So they're getting drip fed water and moisture down if
16:47
they're not sitting in a whole bunch of moisture all the time
16:50
at least. So when you get the plant and it
16:52
says on the label moist soil, it's not really what they want.
16:58
They kind of want slightly drier soil.
17:01
So that's one thing. Don't know what how you feel
17:03
about that. But the second thing he said was
17:05
that people often use bathrooms because they think that the
17:10
humidity is going to be really high.
17:13
And this was, I felt like this is a personal attack because I
17:15
have like plenty in my shower going, yes, this is exactly what
17:20
I want to do. I've got, you know, right in the
17:22
shower. That's the perfect place.
17:23
It's going to have all this humidity.
17:24
But it gets super like that. He says there's lots of swings
17:28
in humidity and temperature in the bathroom.
17:31
It gets really cold. It gets really hot and humid.
17:33
And it's not often the best place.
17:35
So how do you feel about those two points?
17:38
I love them. I think the first one is
17:40
probably that sort of next step to like once you sort of step
17:45
further away from like the environmental conditions.
17:50
I think I'd probably take it a step further to what Michael's
17:54
saying in the sense of it's not necessarily about keeping your
17:58
plant soil on the dryer side. It's more about like optimizing
18:02
their soil to a point where it only holds on to the moisture
18:05
that it needs. Clever.
18:07
Like, I'm a huge believer in just planting, yeah, sort of
18:13
tropical plants in like a chunky arrow aid mix, I guess is like a
18:18
buzzword that gets thrown around a lot.
18:20
But realistically, I break it down into all you need is like a
18:25
good pine bark, like chip base, some sphagnum Moss.
18:30
Some people like to use peat Moss, but I find peat Moss gets
18:33
a bit too like dense and spongy. Sphagnum Moss is like much more
18:38
light and like airy. But the big thing with sphagnum
18:41
Moss is you want to like cut it up so it's sort of in smaller
18:44
bits. Like you don't want to just put
18:45
big chunks of sphagnum and then just pearlite.
18:49
And those three things make like a brilliant base for pretty much
18:53
any plant that needs to be in like, well, draining soil.
18:57
And the reason it's great is because like you said, it 1
19:00
dries out really quickly and holds on to basically just the
19:06
right amount of moisture, doesn't stay like waterlogged
19:09
and it's like loose. So let's all those bigger, so
19:12
the thicker roots like grow and spread.
19:16
And then secondly, the bathroom thing.
19:18
I mean, I you pretty much summed it up right.
19:20
I think that the only other thing I'd say it's like the
19:23
biggest problem with bathrooms that a lot of people have is
19:26
like they often don't have windows, right, because no one
19:29
wants people looking into them while they're showering or
19:33
whatever. So and even if they do have
19:35
windows, they'll be like glazed super heavily.
19:38
So the lights never going to be as good as you'd get it in.
19:41
Yeah, we are lucky though. Our bathroom has a almost floor
19:47
to ceiling N facing window which is glazed so like I've got what
19:55
have I got in there orchids Antherium yes, I think there's
20:01
an antherium in there. I did have monserio de laciosa.
20:04
This was cheese. It's one of my one of my
20:06
favourites did have that in there and that was kind of just
20:09
took over the entire shower and it but my pot was so small so.
20:13
I was constantly having to feed it and I found that just like in
20:20
with my knowledge with other gardening things, if your soil
20:22
battery doesn't have enough space and biology to keep up
20:28
with the requirements of the plant, then the plant is going
20:31
to outpace the soil basically and you're going to constantly
20:35
be feeding. And I'd love to talk about your
20:39
feeding processing because you said a good fertilizer regime is
20:42
important. For example, a lot of my
20:45
background is in living soil growing food is kind of where I
20:50
come from. So I wanted to have a big enough
20:54
soil container so that there's enough soil biology in there
20:59
that's breaking down all of the nutrients that are in there into
21:02
plant available forms for the plant to uptake.
21:05
But if your root ball gets fills that entire container, there's
21:09
no room for the biology and there's no time for it to break
21:12
down that into food and and feed the plant.
21:15
So then you're you're stuck with folia feeding and liquid feeding
21:20
a lot of the time because it's like straight in, it goes
21:23
straight and uptake and straight away.
21:26
You can do that much more in my experience with indoor plants
21:30
because they you can keep them in smaller pots.
21:35
They're in this sort of well draining mix that you mentioned
21:38
before, so. Which is quite in a.
21:42
Yeah. Really, you know, it doesn't
21:44
have a lot of the microorganisms and the bacteria and the
21:47
mycorrhizal fungi to everything, Channing.
21:51
Can you, can you talk to me about that?
21:54
What's the difference then? How do you like?
21:57
OK. My first thought goes to would
22:00
it be better than to have all of these microorganisms and things
22:03
in the soil or not? Or are we not?
22:06
Is that not what it's like in nature?
22:08
It's definitely, it's definitely a pain point of mine, right?
22:13
Because I love permaculture. I love kind of that like circle
22:19
of life or cycle of life thinking and I try to be
22:25
sustainable, you know, like I don't love using really harsh
22:29
chemicals or pesticides. And especially I'm trying to be
22:33
more conscious as I get older and more sort of, I guess wise
22:37
about how I drain or dispose of those chemicals for like
22:41
waterway pollution. But I think the biggest thing
22:48
for me has always been if I'm trying to grow the plants to
22:56
like a level that I want them to grow to, you kind of have to
22:59
sacrifice a little bit of that micro organic ecosystem.
23:07
Because I just don't think I'd be able to get the same results
23:13
with my plants if I had them planted in like a more organic
23:18
mix. I agree.
23:20
I agree. And I was speaking to somebody
23:23
at a garden festival who produces some sort of succulents
23:29
and then they had some other, you know, cactuses and various
23:32
other things like this. And they were talking about how,
23:36
you know, I they said, oh, like we had a bit of a problem with
23:39
some slugs recently. And I said oh, what do you do
23:41
for the slug like problem? And then they just said, oh,
23:44
this chemical and stuff like that.
23:46
And then I was like, oh, OK, you know, do you like obviously
23:50
they're not being eaten. So you like, it's not too bad
23:53
because you, you don't, you don't have to worry about that
23:55
kind of stuff. And they said, yeah, you know,
23:57
it gets the best results. Like we get the best out of it.
24:00
And if you are growing for a specific outcome in mind, then
24:06
you're right. You can really target it with
24:08
certain feeding. I, I imagine that if you had a
24:14
more organic mix or a more organic soils and permaculture
24:18
style, whatever we're talking about, you would really have to
24:22
nail the environment and the conditions.
24:25
Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. So like in the jungle, a lot of
24:28
the plants that I grow pretty much grow in like leaf litter,
24:34
sticks, pebbles, bark that just falls to the forest of the
24:39
jungle, of forest floor. And then as you said before,
24:43
once they get to the out above that they're clinging to like
24:47
the mosses and the bark of trees anyways and just striving to get
24:52
up to that canopy. So, like, realistically, for me,
24:58
I don't think I'd ever be able to, like, recreate that in my
25:02
own home, although I'd love to. Like, man, it would be such a
25:05
dream to have, like, a huge glass house, like a massive sort
25:10
of terrestrial palegerium in my home.
25:14
Yeah, but I'm also not a quizquillionaire, so that's
25:19
gonna happen anytime soon. But you know, it would be
25:22
something that I'd love to try and pull off because I'd love
25:25
to, you know, get some, I don't know, frogs going and maybe have
25:31
some fish like in a little pond at the bottom of that and just
25:35
create like a little micro ecosystem.
25:38
That's so cool. But even still, getting the
25:41
balance on something like that's so tough, right?
25:43
You know, like, especially if, like you said, you kind of need
25:48
maybe birds for pests or you need like certain insects to
25:53
target other certain insects and it can get out of hand pretty
25:56
quick. Also, I think one of the biggest
25:59
things for me that I've experienced throughout my entire
26:03
plant journey is pests. And I think a lot of people do
26:06
come across them. And unfortunately, I'm not
26:12
blessed to have a space where I can do bugs for bugs or like get
26:17
the beneficial insects involved. Because one, I think my wife
26:22
would be a bit weird about me dropping like hundreds of
26:26
thousands of mites on us. And two, I think it would end up
26:32
being a bit of a waste of money because they will either die off
26:35
or escape. But I think when I do finally
26:41
have like a greenhouse on a like residential property, I'm in an
26:46
apartment here. So I think that'd be a time
26:49
where I definitely would use bugs for pests.
26:54
Yeah, let's talk, let's talk about pests because I think
26:57
you're actually in a situation where most people are with house
27:02
plants at least you know, and yes, you have this amazing
27:06
passion and you've taken it further to to go and develop all
27:10
of this environmental conditions and things.
27:12
But for your standard Joe Blow, who's just gone to Bunnings and
27:17
bought themselves or, or the garden center or store and goes
27:22
and buys himself a plant and they go, cool, I'm just going to
27:27
bring this home now. Talk to me about your pest
27:32
management process Then from a standpoint of like something
27:38
like fungus gnats or something like, I don't know, whatever
27:42
pests you find and how you go about that, the BIG4 for.
27:46
Me throughout my journey have been fast fungus gnats.
27:51
I feel like that's kind of everyone's initial introduction
27:54
to pests, which is also good because fungus gnats aren't
27:58
actually that bad for your plants per SE.
28:02
Yeah. I like to say that fungus snats
28:04
are actually more of a precursor to more serious like soil
28:07
moisture issues, because realistically fungus Nats only
28:11
kind of come up in really damp soil that's damp too long.
28:17
So I think if you do have a fungus snap problem, your best
28:21
bet is to start to improve your soil drainage.
28:26
Where like, I don't know how deep you'd wanna go down that
28:29
route, but I say to a lot of people, your best first step for
28:35
that process is just using parallelite in your soil.
28:39
Like if if you're not going to go down sort of the rabbit hole
28:43
I went down and making your own big DIY chunky soil mixes, the
28:47
best thing you could do is just mix pearlite through like a
28:50
premium potting mix. And I'm not going to sit here
28:53
and lie to you and say like that's going to be amazing for
28:56
your plants. Like it's not going to be as
28:58
good as like a proper mix, but it will do a better job than
29:03
just standard potting mix. So fungus gnats aren't
29:08
necessarily the hardest one to deal with because they'll go
29:10
pretty quick once you do have your soil moisture issues
29:14
solved. Do you use any traps or anything
29:17
for them? I did use the sticky traps for a
29:20
while and I think they are. They're just a bit ugly looking,
29:23
yeah. They're there's a company called
29:24
You Bloomed, which do like green ones, which I find are a little
29:29
bit more aesthetically pleasing, but.
29:31
Because I've got I, well, I've got like things like this, that
29:35
this is the bugs for bugs, blue ones.
29:36
But yeah, yeah. Got a new shipment and.
29:39
They're really good because fungus gnats are actually really
29:42
shit at flying. I don't know if he knew that,
29:45
but that's the whole thing. They don't actually fly, they
29:48
kind of just like drunkenly buzz about the soil and then land on
29:53
soil eventually and reproduce. So it's really easy to trap
29:58
them. I think you can also do like
30:01
neem oil, like soil washes and stuff to really just like get
30:06
get rid of them. But I think that fungus gnats
30:09
are pretty easy to get rid of. And then sort of the next tier
30:14
up was like mealybugs and spider mites.
30:17
Mealybugs suck, but I think in a similar sense to fungus gnats,
30:21
there pretty easy to get rid of. You just have to be a bit more
30:26
vigilant. And I think the biggest thing
30:28
that a lot of people miss with mealy bugs is the fact that the
30:33
powdery, waxy, mature mealy bugs that you can see on your plants
30:39
are just like the surface of the infestation.
30:42
You know, they've got like the insta nymphs and crawlers that
30:49
could be all over your plant, but you just can't see them.
30:51
So I think a lot of people just kind of like wipe off the
30:55
mealybugs where they find them, but then they come back.
30:58
So I think if you do have mealybugs, you got to really
31:00
like douse the whole plant. If you are going to go down a
31:03
spray method or I sometimes say with mealybugs you can actually
31:07
get away with just high pressure water hose and just fucking.
31:12
Yeah. Whole plant and really blast
31:15
them off. But, you know, it's like, for me
31:20
as like a bit of, I don't know, like a seasoned veteran, I guess
31:24
I'm not so precious about like, losing a bunch of leaves if I'm
31:28
dealing with pests. I know some people especially,
31:31
you know, when I was first getting into it, you're a lot
31:34
more cautious. I remember I used to like, pull
31:37
pots, plants out of their soil, like very gently.
31:40
And now I'm just like, yeah, yanking over the shoulder, you
31:44
know, because I think at the end of the day, like you, if you
31:49
know what you're doing, they're like, they're always going to
31:52
grow. I get a lot of people asking,
31:54
this is a small tangent, but I get a lot of people asking me
31:57
about like, how do I stop my, you know, the first leaf that
32:03
grows out of a propagation from, like, fading away.
32:06
I want to, like, keep them all. And I'm kind of like, rough.
32:08
That leaf is going to be gone in like a month.
32:11
You know, if you're growing this part to maturity, that's that's
32:16
stem. Think of that as low as stem.
32:18
You know, that might even be under the soil in like a year.
32:23
So true. Yeah, so true.
32:25
So I think I think a lot of people get sort of stuck in the
32:30
now of plants. And and like the funniest thing
32:33
I think about plants from a human perspective is that like
32:38
they live these insanely vigorous lives, you know, like
32:44
plants will out. Like all the plants I have in
32:46
this room, if they were in the jungle would outlive me maybe
32:51
four to five times if they were, you know, wow, poached and
32:55
didn't have to deal with anything else.
32:57
Like if they were just left to grow, like they would just grow
33:00
for hundreds of years, you know, if not thousands.
33:03
Some, some like they don't really even know because we
33:07
haven't had the technology around for long enough to know
33:11
how long these philodendrons could just keep growing for, you
33:14
know, like it could be hundreds if not thousands of years.
33:17
So I, I think that's pretty interesting anyway.
33:20
It is. It is.
33:21
Back to pests, then you've got spider mites.
33:25
That's where things start to get really challenging, I think
33:29
because spider mites are tough. They're pretty Hardy and I think
33:33
now I guess in like 2025 we've seemingly got some pretty Hardy
33:43
like chemical resistant spider mites in the air.
33:47
Just I think over like I want to say maybe 50 years now of just
33:52
getting blasted by chemicals. Like that's just how evolution
33:56
works. And, and the cool thing with all
33:59
of these pests is that their generational structure is so
34:02
much quicker than ours that like they're evolving so much faster
34:05
than we could ever like keep making new chemicals for them.
34:10
So I think spider mites are pretty resistant and a lot of
34:15
people just think like, oh, neem oil or white oil or like a
34:18
Bunnings pesticide or get rid of them.
34:20
But I honestly haven't had any luck with any of the sort of
34:25
base level pesticides with spider mites.
34:27
They'll always kind of come back eventually or you'll like miss
34:30
one. Yeah, well.
34:32
So for spider mites, I now pretty much solely just use
34:36
abimectin, which is like a miticide chemical.
34:42
As I said before, I would love to use.
34:45
I think the bug is Personalis. Yeah, I think so.
34:49
Personalis is like a beneficial mite that eats spider mites and
34:53
I think pollen when there's no mites available to eat.
34:56
But it's just not doable for me. So I just smashed the chemicals
35:01
and if you're vigilant you can do a light spray when you first
35:04
spot them and abamectin is pretty strong like it.
35:08
It keeps them away for at least a couple months, which is cool.
35:12
True. And like you would have to like
35:16
if you keep ahead of it, you can really just get away with doing
35:19
really minimal use. Do you have to use anything like
35:24
that breaks the tension so something like a soap or that
35:28
can help it stick to the leaves or how worried are you as well
35:32
about the burning of leaves under the light when you're
35:35
using some of these sprays that's.
35:37
A really good question. I, I purposefully time my sprays
35:42
just before my grow lights turn off.
35:44
So and, and if not, I'll just turn my grow lights off for the
35:48
rest of the day because that obviously is the downside to
35:52
using any sort of chemical based pesticide.
35:55
Like there's always going to be I think they're called
35:58
surfactants or something like oil based substance in them to
36:03
yeah, like make them stick or absorb to the foliage,
36:07
especially because I use a lot of the sorry, I grow a lot of
36:10
the like volutinous, like velvet textured parts, which are velvet
36:17
to be hydrophobic. So you you you need those kind
36:22
of absorbing chemicals. Most of the stuff I use now has
36:28
them built in. So like added.
36:33
So yeah, it's more just making sure you get the coverage right.
36:39
But that's another pack of the shelf, right?
36:41
Like I can just spray in the shelf and I just make sure I'm
36:47
PP Ed really. Well, yeah.
36:50
But no, I don't. I don't find that I need to add
36:52
anything. To it.
36:53
Cool. Yeah.
36:54
I just thought about neem because I like with neem, I'll
36:56
add in a little bit of Castile soap or something to to get it
37:00
to stick sometimes. But same thing I'll be doing it
37:03
as the sun's going down. So we're not getting any of that
37:06
burn. Same with if I'm using any
37:08
essential oils or anything like that.
37:10
I don't want those on the plants or it's certainly not on the top
37:13
side of the leaves when the sun's coming out.
37:15
And I think measurements as well, you know, like when you're
37:18
using these like strong, like abamectins are pretty strong
37:21
chemical you, you can overdo it like real easy.
37:26
I think it's like 1 mil to 1 litre of water.
37:30
Goodness, it's not much I I like.
37:33
I totally agree with that point because like I used to pour
37:37
fertilizers and, you know, pest sprays like I was, you know,
37:41
your best friend's bar person, just free pouring shots.
37:45
Like, I was just like, yeah, more than marrying, you know,
37:48
just. Like you think like, oh, use a
37:50
stronger and it'll definitely get rid of the pest, but it's
37:53
like, Nah, it's gonna cause chemical burns.
37:57
It's gonna, it can actually like, like stress your plant out
38:02
and slow it down real hard 'cause, you know, you're
38:05
basically just like poisoning it, I guess.
38:08
Yeah, Yeah. You're adding too much
38:09
environmental stress like for for whatever reason.
38:13
OK. Is there any?
38:14
You said there was 4, so we're on, Yeah.
38:16
So the last one, it's the bane of my existence, and that's
38:20
thrips. So these the the blue ones don't
38:23
work the thrips traps. I mean kinda, but strips are
38:28
crafty, man. They're like they're like the
38:31
little like plant assassins of the pest realm one, because they
38:37
can fly, but two, I just honestly like I haven't
38:42
researched trips, right. I haven't done like, you know, I
38:45
don't work in a lab, but I reckon these things are smart,
38:47
man. I reckon they, I, I personally
38:52
think that if you try to use just sprays to get rid of thrips
38:58
that they will sense the spray is like bad for them and they'll
39:03
like go and hang out off the plants and like wait until the
39:06
plants are like good to eat again and then come back.
39:10
They're also like, I think smart enough in the sense that they
39:14
could be like, but he missed a spot here.
39:17
We'll just hang out here and then like, start spreading out
39:20
again, you know, he. Missed a spot?
39:22
Once again, this is just in my experience, I don't have any
39:25
science to back this up, but I swear to God they are evil man.
39:30
And thrips can eat like nothing I've ever seen before.
39:34
You know they can. They don't actually strip
39:38
foliage entirely like caterpillars do, but they kind
39:41
of shovel away like the surface layers of your leaves, and you
39:46
can see it in that poop, man, like the little larvae of
39:49
thrips. They'll drop these huge little
39:51
black balls of poop that are like bigger than them.
39:55
Bigger they are, yeah. And so it's it's crazy like
39:59
these things are ravenous and they're really hard to get rid
40:03
of because they can fly and their life cycle is super short.
40:08
It's like 7 days. So goodness, I'll.
40:12
You know, lay a bunch of eggs and then those eggs are eating
40:16
your plants. And then I think the biggest
40:18
thing with thrips is they normally, and once again,
40:22
further evidence that I think they're pretty smart.
40:24
They hang out on the undersides of leaves and they don't kind of
40:28
go on the surface of the leaf until they're like don't have
40:31
anywhere else to be. So normally your plants are kind
40:35
of looking good until it's like really bad.
40:38
And then you check the undersides and they've already
40:41
stripped the entire underside and it becomes this like
40:44
muddled, rusted, like brown kind of shade.
40:49
So Fitz rips I actually use emit A clop rib which goes under the
40:56
commercial name Bug killer from Rich.
41:00
Grow, Yes. Seen that one?
41:01
Yeah. The problem like bug killer does
41:05
have a bit of like a negative stigma behind it because it is
41:10
pretty like bad for the surrounding environment.
41:15
So I only use it indoors. Any water that I kind of have
41:24
from it I try to recycle. I'll talk a little bit about my
41:28
sort of water recycling later, but I am trying to be really
41:33
cautious of not just like dumping that water down the
41:36
drain because it is pretty bad. And the other thing I say that
41:40
anyone who's thinking of using bug killer is you like probably
41:44
shouldn't use it outside. I think outside I'm a big
41:48
believer in if you've got a pest problem, grow more flowering
41:54
plants. If you've got, you know, a water
41:57
problem, like use better drainage or use mulch.
42:02
You know, like I think when I am gardening outdoors, I try to
42:06
keep everything as organic as possible.
42:09
Cool. I like that thought because in
42:11
inside you're almost playing God by setting up the environment
42:15
that's it's not meant for. So you're kind of constantly in
42:19
these little battles and you're right.
42:22
It's like if you've got it outside, you may as well let it
42:24
work for you. Not even like try and work
42:27
against it. 100% and oftentimes if you're patient it, it works
42:31
out man. Like I remember one time I had
42:34
an aphids problem on I, I grow an oak tree out of my balcony.
42:39
I had an aphids problem and my mate was like, oh, you're gonna
42:42
spray it? I was like, Nah, that will be,
42:44
there will be ladybugs here in a couple of days.
42:47
Like don't even worry about it. And then with a matter of days,
42:50
there was ladybug larvae all over it just.
42:53
Yeah, I literally just posted a reel about that 'cause I had my
42:57
eggplant covered in them and I was and I found a ladybug latte
43:00
on it and I said I'm gonna leave the.
43:02
Coolest insects, man. The coolest insects with the
43:05
orange? Sort of.
43:06
Strips. Yeah, I like.
43:08
When I first figured that out, I was like, are you serious?
43:10
That turns into a lady. Yeah.
43:12
It wigged me out. There's a, there's a native
43:15
Australian species of ladybug that actually has lava that look
43:21
like mealybugs and they're called mealybug destroyers and
43:24
they've got a white little fuzz. Google them, Google them after.
43:28
They're so cool, man. I've seen a couple of them in my
43:31
garden and, and those guys are like, they will eat mealybugs,
43:36
dude. They're.
43:37
Like if you ever. Wanted an example of like the
43:42
perfect natural juxtaposition. It's ladybugs because they are
43:47
these like beautiful, often portrayed as like really cute
43:51
and like loving insects in like animations and stuff.
43:55
But bro, those things are killers, man.
43:57
Like they will they will go and just eat like hundreds of mealy
44:03
bugs or fits and just they just chow on them.
44:07
Dude. They're just like I'm anyway.
44:10
That's so good. I love that though.
44:11
That's. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:12
I, I, I love it too. I, I'm a big, like, ecology
44:18
nerd. Like I really love the
44:21
relationships between like insects and plants.
44:25
Can I can I ask you a question about that?
44:27
Little bit of side tangent because I am fascinated with
44:29
this as well. Have you come across the work of
44:32
Philip Callahan? There's a book called How to
44:35
Tune Into Nature. Oh, I think I have heard of the
44:38
book. Man, I haven't So good it goes.
44:41
It's to do with he's the author of that book.
44:44
It's to do with infrared signals from plants and how the bugs and
44:50
the moths and all of these things have these incredible
44:52
antennas on their things. And an unhealthy plant will send
44:57
off an infrared stress signal to the insects and insects, as are
45:00
decomposers and garbage collectors come down and wipe
45:03
out those plants. 100%. How much, how much of that have
45:08
you heard about before? It's so true and I think it's
45:11
one of the biggest things that I had to kind of come to terms
45:16
with, as we've talked about a few Times Now, growing these
45:20
tropical plants in like, I don't know, temperate desert,
45:26
basically, it's like they're not happy.
45:29
And when plants aren't happy, that's when the pests come.
45:32
You know, a lot of people kind of keep getting pests
45:34
infestations and go, Oh my God, I've got a black thumb.
45:38
I can't like I can't deal with this.
45:40
And it's like, well, it's not actually your fault.
45:42
Like these plants are actively sending out stress signals to
45:46
the environment that are attracting pests to them.
45:50
So that was one of the big, I guess, kickers for me to set up
45:56
The shelf was just, I was just like, I'm so sick of dealing
46:00
with pests and trying to, like, grow these plants outside of
46:03
what they want. Like, I might as well like, I
46:06
want them to grow. I've, you know, dragged them
46:10
probably, like halfway across the world at this point.
46:12
Like, I might as well like, give them a cushy environment to live
46:16
in, you know? Yeah, Yeah.
46:18
I totally agree. I'm a big, big believer in that.
46:22
Like, we've only scratched the surface on how alive plants are,
46:29
you know? And I think that's the kind of
46:31
stuff I would love to look into when doing like, PhD research or
46:38
like thesis research, you know? Have you ever read Peter?
46:44
I think it's Peter Wallaban's book The Life According to
46:50
Trees, I think. Oh, maybe not life according to
46:56
trees, but something about how the trees are all interconnected
46:59
underneath each other and how they then can communicate to
47:02
each other. Secret Life of trees, maybe
47:04
that's what. Life of trees.
47:05
Maybe that's one I've. Read The Hidden The Hidden Life
47:08
of trees. Oh, we're there.
47:09
We're there. Yeah, I have read that I've.
47:11
Read both of his books, Peter Wallabang.
47:14
And yeah, it's, it's that kind of thing.
47:17
It's like he's the one who actually inspired me to think
47:21
about plants with that. Like a day for me is like a
47:30
second for a house plant, you know what I mean?
47:32
Like a week for me is like a day for a house plant.
47:35
A month for me is like a day. They're on plant time, aren't
47:39
they? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
47:40
You know, so a lot of people get stressed about like little
47:46
kinks, you know, like brown leaves or yellow leaves.
47:49
And I'm just like, like, it's all right.
47:52
Like it'll, it'll come back, it'll grow.
47:54
Like it'll change, you know? They're just, it's just living,
47:57
you know? Yeah, very true.
47:59
Can I touch on a lot of the plants that you grow are
48:05
climbing plants and I've used various different things in my
48:13
time to train plants up. Monstera or or any, well, so
48:21
many different ones really. But what are you using for your
48:26
Moss poles? Because the Moss poles that
48:29
you're using, right? How do you create them?
48:32
Are they homemade? And what considerations should
48:36
people will be thinking of? Because a lot of people will
48:39
just get the plant and they'll just let it hang.
48:40
And it's like, well, these plants are meant to go up.
48:43
Yeah. How much does that matter?
48:46
OK. So I think it definitely
48:49
matters. I think you can, you can trail a
48:53
lot of the plants, obviously. I think the thickest stem
48:58
monster is and like your philodendron irubescence and
49:02
stuff that have like a trunk almost that that's kind of where
49:07
you need to really think about letting them climb.
49:12
I think the era of the totem pole has kind of faded out a
49:15
little bit though. Like I think it's more about
49:18
support than it is about the totem pole.
49:23
I'm assuming you've probably seen like Sydney plant guy.
49:27
Yes, yes. Super famous on Instagram now.
49:31
He, he's like the God of the Moss pole, you know, and, and
49:36
like, I fully respect him for it.
49:38
I think he does it incredibly well, but he keeps those, he
49:42
keeps those things moist like all the time, you know, and if
49:48
you've ever grown things on sphagnum Moss poles before, like
49:52
that is a mission dude. Keeping that Moss damp almost
49:58
24/7 is like, that's like a full time job almost, especially if
50:05
you've got like. Some sort of mesh around the
50:08
outside obviously to allow the roots to penetrate they that's
50:12
allowing all of that moisture just to come out of all
50:15
different. Widgets and and that's what I do
50:18
I so I make my own Moss poles and they're pretty much the
50:22
exact same as his bar. He uses a metal like micro sort
50:30
of chicken wire fencing to to wrap his Moss.
50:35
I just use a plastic like PVC garden grid fence, but exact
50:41
same deal. I just wrap it up and Bob's your
50:44
uncle. I think once again, call back to
50:48
the shelf. Like if you can keep that
50:50
humidity high, it saves you a lot of stress.
50:56
But you know, if your humidity is down in like the 30 percent,
50:59
40% range, which it kind of hangs out around there in Perth,
51:05
WA, they're just going to dry out in like, honestly, like less
51:10
than a day, you know, like water.
51:12
And then you're kind of dealing with the balance of do I wet my
51:17
totem pole? But then the water's obviously
51:20
going to go down to the roots. So then I'm watering my plant
51:22
every like couple days, which isn't good for the plant at all,
51:25
like no matter what anyone tells you.
51:28
So I think Jan's got like Yan, I think it's Yan.
51:33
So yeah, he his whole thing is like, I'll plant my plants in
51:38
really small pots at the bottom of the totem pole.
51:42
And then his big focus is actually getting that root
51:44
system to grow into the totem pole, which is also my big
51:48
focus. Like that's that's what I want
51:50
to do. But I think yeah, it it's
51:55
definitely one of those things where you do have to be like
51:57
watering the totem pole every two to three days.
52:01
How do you feel about, like a drip system that goes down
52:04
through there? I've used like these, you know,
52:06
you can get the water bottle and just sort of put a thing in it.
52:09
Yeah. Personally, I've never done it,
52:11
but I'm about to start doing it in my new shelf that's going to
52:15
be my sort of like upgraded watering system.
52:18
Cool. Going to kind of show you, but
52:21
hey, actually originally tried to put drippers into the shelf.
52:28
I don't know if you can see them all sort of along the back and
52:33
there's a little PVC. Oh, yes, yes, yes.
52:36
Poly pipe back there but I didn't think about gravity at
52:40
all. I, I bought this like $200 like
52:45
garden feature pump of water at the bottom of the shelf to sort
52:49
of keep it out of the way, but then realized I had to push
52:53
water up about 2 1/2 meters to get to the top to then drip
52:57
down, which, yeah, water gets pretty heavy after you're like
53:01
trying to push it that far. Yeah.
53:03
With a little. Oh yeah, that was that.
53:06
Was a fast. That was a fast.
53:07
And it sucks because I've rigged all of the polypipes through the
53:12
shelf, under all the plastic wrap.
53:14
So I couldn't, couldn't actually.
53:16
Yeah, I couldn't go back and, like, change where the reservoir
53:19
was without, like, taking it all apart.
53:22
And I just gave up. I gave up on having an automated
53:26
watering system, which that's always the dream.
53:29
But one day we'll get there. Yeah.
53:31
So one thing at a time. Yeah, in the new shelf I'm.
53:36
I'll give you a quick gaze. I basically bought that a bit.
53:39
Wow. So I bought two of these big
53:44
sort of steel shelves and they're way nicer.
53:48
They're gorgeous, man. It's got glass and.
53:51
Sort of magnet doors and I'm in. The process of like rigging them
53:55
up completely to be the next generation of shelf and there's
54:00
a few steps I put in place to make them a little a little more
54:07
sustainable longevity oriented than the original 1.
54:11
But it's just been a labour of love 'cause I'm so busy with my
54:15
full time job that and just like life, right yeah.
54:19
Think that's, that's one of the biggest things I'm always gonna
54:23
balance is like I'm never going to sacrifice like a social life
54:28
or time with my partner or when I do potentially have children,
54:32
like time with my kids to just be like watering my fucking
54:36
totem poles every day, you know what I mean?
54:40
Like, I, I want to, I want to have my plants growing, but I
54:44
don't want like, I'm not going to sacrifice myself to keep them
54:48
that way. You know, that's a really
54:50
important point. Yeah.
54:51
Well, I think that's what a lot of people miss.
54:54
When they see guys like Sydney plant guy and like Pat power to
54:57
him. Like I I freaking love this dude
54:59
I fangirl over from Heath. But to get your like
55:03
philodendrons growing leaves that big like that's a lot of
55:06
maintenance and care and effort and like, Oh yeah, like some of
55:10
the ones I've seen. I'm like home my.
55:12
Goodness, they're like enormous dance and the the folk your
55:17
every day would be focused in living and breathing those
55:20
plants to get them that way. Another I don't know if you know
55:24
him. I follow this guy called
55:26
Sheffield made plants on YouTube.
55:29
He does a lot of indoor he's in from the UK and from Sheffield.
55:33
I don't do a lot of YouTube. Hey, that's OK.
55:36
I. Don't know whether he's on
55:37
anything else, it's just. Where I find him and there's a
55:39
lot of indoor plantings and his house is full of indoor plants
55:43
and it's not so much on the tropical side or even though
55:47
there are some, but he's in the UK.
55:49
So how do you, how do you make a tropical plant?
55:52
Oh man, work over there in UK. It's tough.
55:55
It's. Yeah, so.
55:57
One thing he talks about though. That I do remember is when you
56:01
don't buy your plant that you've chosen from the store, he likes
56:06
to go and pop it somewhere completely different in the
56:08
house, hopefully in a similar kind of environment, but
56:13
somewhere different, just to watch it for a bit and let it
56:18
stay in its initial pot. So you're not immediately going
56:20
and moving it from the store to home, giving it transplant
56:23
shock. You're putting it in into the
56:26
space and he's monitoring it for pests.
56:29
He's monitoring it for like, you know, how the water's draining
56:33
out the soil. What how it goes through the
56:35
shock of moving it and things like this.
56:37
Have you got any kind of tips or something for when someone comes
56:41
home with that plant that they've just got?
56:44
I think that's like the best thing you can.
56:47
Do is just quarantine a new plant for a minute because like
56:52
with pests and I think pests are like the biggest one in that
56:55
situation. Like I said, you probably won't
56:59
spot them immediately unless you're like rigorously checking
57:03
all the leaves, checking every. And even still, like I think you
57:08
know, as I said, strips will plant their eggs in like the
57:13
soil or they'll like Taco Manda like little crevices in the
57:17
plant that you just won't be able to find.
57:18
And so quarantine super important.
57:21
I think like somewhere in the house that's just away from your
57:26
plants, obviously I think with thrips, as I said, they can fly.
57:31
So it's a little bit like, you know, yeah, that's so scary.
57:36
I, I will quickly call back to what I was saying before because
57:39
I, I didn't sort of finish that train in the bug killer from
57:45
Rich Grove 4. Thrips, I think is, is just a
57:49
godsend because it is a systemic pesticide that you use as like
57:55
pellets on the soil surface and that goes into your plant and
57:59
basically makes it like poison for the pest.
58:03
So I've just found that with thrips that can fly and that are
58:08
like really hard to combat, instead of trying to sort of
58:13
spray like a lot of things online or say like spray every
58:16
seven days and then you can like beat the thrips life cycle.
58:19
It's like, Nah, bro, I don't want to spray my plants with
58:22
chemicals every seven days. If you can just make the plants,
58:25
like poisonous for the past and you're kind of going to win the
58:30
battle, as sad as it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
58:34
But yeah, quarantine's important.
58:37
I think I'm a big, big believer in like, don't just repot your
58:42
plants as soon as you get them home.
58:44
Yeah. I like to think that you could.
58:46
Well, for. For.
58:46
Me at least, I leave them in their plastic pots and put them
58:49
in a decorative pot so you can then pull them out and go and
58:51
water them outside. You're not constantly having to
58:54
break apart this nice pot to try and get it 100%.
58:58
I I'm all about that. I think it's the best way to
59:00
grow plants. Like I even sometimes say, get a
59:07
really big decorative planter, like bigger than your plastic
59:11
plant pot and then put your pot on top of like an upside down
59:16
drip tray or like a brick in that planter.
59:19
So then you can just water it in there and you don't have to sort
59:23
of worry about it sitting in water in that planter.
59:25
And that'll create a little bit of like a humid environment as
59:29
well. Obviously, you know, you could
59:31
potentially end up with mosquitoes or whatnot, but
59:35
that's going to do your do your due diligence.
59:37
Yeah, that's that's the price you pay.
59:40
I think we missed it, but can you touch on your?
59:43
Feeding, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm a I'm.
59:46
A growth tech, Growth technology, Lava GT Foliage
59:52
Focus is like my jam. I do use root zone as well,
59:58
which is another one of their products.
1:00:00
But root zone is super organic based.
1:00:04
It's it's like a seaweed synthesized kind of compound.
1:00:08
It's pretty stinky and it's that's what I was going to say.
1:00:11
How smelly is it to have? On for your indoor plants, Yeah.
1:00:14
So root zone is pretty smelly. And it's it's also very prone to
1:00:19
like fungus, like spores. It can create mold and fungus.
1:00:28
Not, not that I want to trash the product.
1:00:30
I actually think it's an incredible product, but I've
1:00:33
kind of shifted it to be an outside product as opposed to
1:00:37
inside. And then I just use foliage
1:00:40
focus inside. I also use magnesium.
1:00:45
Yeah, I also use magnesium as well, just as a supplement.
1:00:49
I just find it keeps foliage strong, keeps plants like
1:00:53
shooting leaves quite regularly. It's a great trace element.
1:00:59
Believe it or not, I've never ever ever.
1:01:02
And this is probably going to sound crazy, people might judge
1:01:04
me for this, but I've never done APH test on like any of the
1:01:09
plants in my shelf cabinet and I've never really done any like
1:01:15
fertilizer testing per SE. Well, if you're if you're having
1:01:20
a medium that's fairly. Like devoid of any kind of
1:01:24
nutrients, then it's whatever you're sort of adding in.
1:01:27
And if you're going through experience and watching the
1:01:30
plants, then you're kind of understanding how healthy they
1:01:34
are. And not like, I know that the
1:01:37
most ideal soil pH is 6.4, same as our microbiome in our gut
1:01:42
needs to be 6.4 and the plant needs to be 6.4.
1:01:46
But does that mean that I go and test myself in the plants, in
1:01:49
the soil? No.
1:01:50
But you know, you can kind of make assumptions based on
1:01:54
certain things. Like I know if that's a heavy
1:01:57
clay based soil, then I might need to use some things to
1:02:00
balance out the acidity or the alkalinity.
1:02:03
You know, it's just you, you kind of get to know these things
1:02:05
without having to go in and do it 100%.
1:02:09
One thing that I. Do really?
1:02:11
Like at the moment is like a calcium portfolio feed for the
1:02:17
strength and resilience of plant cells.
1:02:19
And this also goes for something like silica as well.
1:02:24
So silica and calcium really, really good for the plant cell
1:02:28
walls stops them being attacked by insects.
1:02:31
So if you can use a some sort of silicate or a like there's,
1:02:37
there's an AG sealed product, which is really cool.
1:02:40
You can just spray that on. That's really awesome for silica
1:02:42
or even just include like rice holes in your soil, mix that
1:02:46
breakdown to become silica, nice food, leaves, things like this.
1:02:51
And then yeah, like a calcium like for your indoor plants,
1:02:55
it's probably a little bit easier to find a calcium spray
1:02:57
because there there's a lot of inorganic options that you can
1:03:00
use for that. But it's like just boosts the
1:03:03
strength of it and the strength of the plants and these types.
1:03:07
I've heard a lot about silica I think.
1:03:09
Silica's kind of popped up a little bit in like the indoor
1:03:12
like arrow world and growth tech actually does silica product
1:03:17
that I've been thinking of trying out Cool.
1:03:19
I would try it out man cuz it's like the.
1:03:21
Silica is what's gonna really give that strength for those big
1:03:24
leaves and then holding themselves up when they're
1:03:27
vining up something. Yeah, which is really, really
1:03:30
cool. But that's just what I'm kind of
1:03:32
nodding at the moment. I'm genuinely.
1:03:35
Yeah, I'm in my next. Order I'm gonna get some silica
1:03:39
to play around with that's cool is like aside.
1:03:42
From the products that you're using, are there any other
1:03:45
products or just simple go to's or things that you could use for
1:03:49
feeding that people might my biggest one.
1:03:53
That I use for any of my sort of outdoor plants or any plants
1:04:00
indoors that I'm not going to liquid feed every like couple
1:04:04
weeks is just the Osmicot orange bucket, which is just like a
1:04:11
premium pots and planters blend of fertilizer.
1:04:16
You can get it from Bunnings. Oh, I like online and honestly,
1:04:20
it's it's so good, man. Like a slow release, right?
1:04:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just use it.
1:04:24
Like once every couple. Months, if you really want to,
1:04:27
you could probably get away with using it like once every like 4
1:04:30
to 6 months, you know? But yeah, that stuff's really
1:04:33
good. The only thing you find in
1:04:36
Australia, like if you are getting your fertilizer from
1:04:40
Bunnings specifically, is that they don't really have any.
1:04:45
Like in America you'll get lots of the general fertilizer will
1:04:49
be like 10, ten, 10% nitrogen, potassium.
1:04:54
Whereas here our phosphorus levels are always going to be
1:04:56
like a little bit lower, which honestly, I've never like, I've
1:05:02
never, ever looked at my plants and been like, oh, I need to get
1:05:05
like a phosphorus supplement to like keep it balanced.
1:05:11
And phosphorus, if I'm not mistaken, is like cell strength.
1:05:16
And it's all about this strength.
1:05:18
Yeah. And.
1:05:19
Like auxiliary. Bud shooting and stuff.
1:05:22
And so I've never I've never thought like I need more of
1:05:25
that, you know, yeah, you're right.
1:05:28
And like. It's more, it would be more of a
1:05:32
problem in mixes that don't have any of the biology in there
1:05:35
because a lot of the biology in the soil is then going and
1:05:39
freeing up some of that phosphorus, making it plant
1:05:42
available and that kind of thing.
1:05:45
How do you, how do you diagnose plant problems?
1:05:51
So let's not, let's move away from pests maybe because pests
1:05:55
are relatively simple, you can kind of inspect, but in terms of
1:06:00
nutrients and how much of that do you actually do?
1:06:04
And when you're looking at it, what sort of things are you
1:06:08
looking for? So I think.
1:06:10
Like I'll probably stick to MPK and I'll like dabble a little
1:06:16
bit in micronutrients, but nitrogen super easy.
1:06:21
I find. Like if your leaves are
1:06:24
stagnating in like like realistically plants should be
1:06:28
putting out a bigger leaf than the last one almost every time
1:06:32
until they're like trees and then everything kind of
1:06:35
stabilizes a little bit. But you know, if you're growing
1:06:38
veggies especially and you're growing like big leafy greens
1:06:43
and your leaves aren't progressing in size every single
1:06:46
time it puts out a new shoot or whatever, then you're probably
1:06:51
lacking in nitrogen. And then like a couple of other
1:06:54
things there, like if you see your leaves like pale or like
1:06:58
looking just not as yellowing and stuff, and like probably
1:07:03
nitrogen, potassium, I think potassium's mostly for like the
1:07:09
early stages of growth, I'd really think.
1:07:12
And then obviously, like if you're growing fruits and flour,
1:07:16
like potassium's important. But.
1:07:19
Yeah. I don't think there's anything
1:07:20
that I would be like actively looking for, for potassium and
1:07:25
phosphorus. Like we said, I think phosphorus
1:07:27
is like a defensive element and also just like new growth
1:07:33
shoots. I think phosphorus you could
1:07:37
probably diagnose in the same way you'd diagnose nitrogen,
1:07:41
like with a similar kind of perspective.
1:07:44
But like as I said before, if you're noticing your nitrogen's
1:07:49
low, you're pretty good to just do a balanced fertilizer.
1:07:54
And like, unless you're like a farmer and you're, you really
1:07:58
have to like know what you're doing or you're growing like, I
1:08:01
don't know, cannabis or something that really needs like
1:08:04
a strict structure of when it's fed and what it's fed.
1:08:07
I think you could pretty much always just go for like a
1:08:10
balanced option or like if you're growing veggies and
1:08:14
herbs, you know, it's, it's probably a good idea to keep
1:08:17
tabs on like what you're feeding it and when.
1:08:19
But yeah, for the most part, I think bounce fertilizer is an
1:08:23
easy way to go. You're right.
1:08:24
Yeah, especially for the house plants and things.
1:08:26
As we say that are just mostly in feeds, Yeah, yeah, for sure.
1:08:32
Micronutrients, I think one of the biggest ones would be like
1:08:37
your magnesium or your iron and that'll normally show up in like
1:08:43
an intravenal chlorosis kind of, but which is just yellowing
1:08:48
between the leaf veins. I'd pretty much say if your
1:08:54
plants are growing like, like they're still growing well, but
1:08:59
the leaves are showing like yellow veins or yellow like
1:09:04
spotting on the leaves and you can't see any pests and you
1:09:08
know, you're like watering it at the right time and it's getting
1:09:12
decent light and there's no immediate issues, That's
1:09:16
probably a good sign that it needs a feed.
1:09:21
You know, because I think another thing that is important
1:09:26
to think about from like the plant perspective is where the
1:09:30
yellow leaves are now that it's hitting winter, a lot of plants
1:09:35
will start to sort of like ditch the lower foliage senescence and
1:09:40
stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
1:09:42
Senescence just a natural part of like the plants life cycle.
1:09:46
But if you're getting yellow leaves towards the top where
1:09:50
like the new growth is forming, then it's like, well, that isn't
1:09:54
really natural or not. That's usually nitrogen, right
1:09:57
for the top new. Growth and then can be other
1:10:01
problems further down, lower, Yeah, it's all about sort of
1:10:07
how. The plant uses certain nutrients
1:10:11
and the transportability as well, like the.
1:10:14
I'm I don't know a. 100% off the top of my head.
1:10:18
No, that's all good. That's just like this is some a.
1:10:21
Big part of what I'm really trying to dive into more at the
1:10:24
moment is figuring out the utilization of certain minerals,
1:10:28
what overdoing certain minerals can do.
1:10:31
So like for example, overdoing nitrogen in the soil can lock
1:10:35
out certain minerals and these types of things where I'm trying
1:10:39
to trying to learn that. But it's cool to understand it
1:10:42
for the difference between vegetable gardening and and
1:10:46
farming, as you mentioned, and then having something that's not
1:10:50
edible and it's indoors and it's being liquid fed pretty much all
1:10:54
of its nutrients in a liquid format.
1:10:57
So it really does change things quite a bit.
1:11:00
So you're right, you can just go for a really balanced kind of
1:11:03
fertilizer and things like this. Man, before we wrap up, do you
1:11:10
have anything that you kind of wanted to touch on that you
1:11:14
think people might like a common misconception or a common issues
1:11:18
or problems or questions that you get quite regularly that you
1:11:22
don't think that we've touched on in terms of house plants?
1:11:26
No, honestly, I think we've covered.
1:11:28
Like a really nice spectrum of topics regarding house plants
1:11:32
and like what I do amazing, amazing, amazing.
1:11:36
Can you? Point to people where to find
1:11:39
you and what what's coming up for you.
1:11:42
And apart from these fancy new cabinets that, yeah, they might
1:11:46
be trademarked, they might be selling some.
1:11:47
Some of. Brock's awesome cabinets.
1:11:49
That would be a dream. Hey, selling like cool.
1:11:51
Little greenhouse shelves, That would be awesome.
1:11:55
So biggest thing for me is I would love people to check out
1:12:00
what I do for a living, which is I work for a company called
1:12:05
Plant with Willow. I was talking to you about it
1:12:09
before. I'll throw the links in the
1:12:12
description. Yeah, little, little.
1:12:14
Sensors that you. Where's the logo?
1:12:16
I'll do a little nice. Give me a Give me a 32nd
1:12:19
rundown. On what it is so basically
1:12:23
little. Sensors you stick in your house,
1:12:25
Plants at home next to an app on your phone tells you when your
1:12:29
plants need water, if they're getting enough sunlight or not
1:12:33
enough sunlight, if it's too hot or too cold, if the humidity is
1:12:38
too high or too low. And also there's a bunch of like
1:12:43
guides and like articles and videos on the app that'll kind
1:12:49
of help you out with a lot of the stuff we've kind of talked
1:12:52
about today and that you can talk to me through.
1:12:57
I like we've got a subscription model where if you pay for I
1:13:01
think it's like $4.50 a month, you can kind of talk to me once
1:13:05
a month about sort of any plant problems.
1:13:08
Bargain horticulturist in residence.
1:13:10
Yeah, I think it's pretty. Good as far as like a
1:13:12
subscription prices go. And yeah, I just, I pretty much
1:13:17
run the horticulture side of that company and I love it
1:13:21
because it's like I get to work in the tech industry, which is
1:13:24
really exciting and cool. And I work with sort of
1:13:28
artificial intelligence to help my workflows out.
1:13:31
But I still get to appreciate and experience what I'm
1:13:36
passionate about, which is plants and nature and the
1:13:39
organic world around us. So now it's beautiful.
1:13:43
That's awesome. Then obviously I've got like, my
1:13:45
personal Instagram, which is literally just a plunk guy.
1:13:50
And so I laughed when I found that.
1:13:52
It's so good, yeah. It's so funny because people
1:13:55
always. Ask me like what's my Instagram
1:13:57
handle and I say literally just a plunk guy and then they look
1:14:00
up just a plunk guy and then I can't I can't find it.
1:14:03
I'm like no literally is is part of the title handle which every.
1:14:09
Time I'm like why? Did I do that?
1:14:11
But the story is that when my wife and I first sort of met, I
1:14:18
was a bit of like a breath of fresh air for her.
1:14:20
And I mean, she was for me too. But I think I would do nice
1:14:25
things for her. And she'd be like, oh, that's
1:14:26
amazing. Like, no one's ever done that
1:14:28
for me before. And I'd be like, I'm literally
1:14:30
just a guy. Like, I'm literally just a guy.
1:14:33
I love that man. And.
1:14:34
So yeah, that's kind of where that name came.
1:14:36
From Beautiful and Otherwise, yeah, I'm here in Perth, WA.
1:14:41
There's not a lot of people in Perth, WA doing cool like social
1:14:46
media esque plant stuff. I don't know if that's like
1:14:51
everyone's happy just not posting their entire lives on
1:14:55
social media, which is totally cool, don't get me wrong.
1:14:58
But yeah, I'd love to grow more of a community in WA for the
1:15:05
stuff that I do because I feel like it is a bit niche still,
1:15:08
whereas over E it seems like it's way more probably.
1:15:13
It's very easier to grow plants over here.
1:15:15
Yeah, I mean, it is. It is, it is.
1:15:18
I bet it's like. 60% humidity over there right now for you
1:15:22
just yes, it is just chilling very nice.
1:15:24
I mean it is a. Bit cold, I mean the jumper, but
1:15:27
it is, yeah. We're very blessed.
1:15:29
It's finally cooled down over here, man.
1:15:31
Like. It only probably a couple weeks
1:15:34
ago started dropping down to city of 10s at night.
1:15:37
But yeah wow. So that makes life difficult for
1:15:40
a tropical. Plant man.
1:15:41
But anyway, yeah, well, yeah, I got my shelf.
1:15:43
So like. Everything's pretty crazy still
1:15:45
in there, but yeah. And there we have it, everybody.
1:16:05
What a. Fantastic gentleman Brock is and
1:16:09
I'm sure you'll agree. He has wealth of knowledge to
1:16:11
share and can also share some really relatable stories and
1:16:16
insights which I really connected with and I'm sure you
1:16:20
did as well. His happiness and enthusiasm for
1:16:24
what he does is really obvious and it radiates through the
1:16:28
conversation and I really enjoyed that and it gives me a
1:16:31
lot of energy to talk to such positive individuals like Brock.
1:16:35
So please go and check out his links they.
1:16:38
Are all in. The description below including
1:16:41
the link to the amazing plant moisture meter that you can find
1:16:45
as well that Brock works for. So all of that will be in the
1:16:48
description. Go check it out.
1:16:49
Wonderful product, wonderful human being and I highly
1:16:53
encourage you to follow along with his journey exactly like I
1:16:57
will be doing. So last things from me, remember
1:17:01
beginner and intermediate organic growers guide are live
1:17:05
on the website. So if you want to jump into
1:17:07
organic growing and want to know the first few steps, then
1:17:10
there's a free beginner's guide there for you.
1:17:13
And if you're ready to level up and go to the intermediate stage
1:17:16
and want something a little bit more in depth, well actually
1:17:19
quite a lot more in depth, then you can level up for a very
1:17:22
small price and get that intermediate growers guide.
1:17:25
I put a lot of effort and energy into putting that together and
1:17:28
sharing as many of my my tips and tricks as I could.
1:17:31
So hopefully that is one that you can go and grab yourself as
1:17:35
well. Remember finally, please, if you
1:17:38
can give this show a rating or drop a comment.
1:17:42
It seriously helps us spread this to more people around the
1:17:46
world and help inspire and empower more people to get into
1:17:50
the garden and enjoy nature and what it can offer us.
1:17:55
So that would be a huge favor you could do for me if you
1:17:57
enjoyed the episode. Otherwise, I very much look
1:18:00
forward to seeing you on the next episode.
1:18:03
Bye for now.