Episode: 2
Title: The perfect desktop plants
Broadcast: March 9, 2019
Presenter: Trevor Cochrane

Indoor plants have really grown in popularity over the past few years, but have you ever wondered what the best plant is for you? Trevor has a few handy tips, as well as a few varieties to help you make some decisions.

• Not only do indoor plants bring a bit of green and life inside, but they also filter the inside-air, sucking up all the impurities and putting oxygen back into our living rooms.
• The trick to good indoor plant keeping is knowing what is suitable for your environment, and there’s a couple of indestructible varieties to choose from that will require minimal effort with plenty of reward – perfect for the black thumb!
• Mother-in-Law’s Tongue (genus Sansevieria) grows wild in South Africa, so it is perfectly adapted to the harsh sun like we have here. However, due to its toughness it is also grown very successfully indoors – it’ll survive on poor light, irregular watering and won’t require too much love and care.
• Here’s a fun fact: NASA completed tests in space on a selection of indoor. Mother-in-Law’s Tongue was taken on board the shuttles to ascertain whether they could survive and how effective they were in converting CO2 into oxygen. It was one of the top 5 performing plants in the experiment.
• The Fiddle Leaf Fig is another incredibly popular indoor plant, originating from Africa’s tropical regions. It has wide, violin shaped leaves and prominent veins. It stands upright, creating a lovely backdrop of lush fresh foliage – a feature for any office environment.
• The Zanzibar Gem or ZZ Plant is near on indestructible! It tolerates very poor light and dry conditions – an incredibly tough and resilient plant.
• Peperomia ‘Jade’ is perfect for the desktop, in the kitchen or on a windowsill, as it thrives on light and is hopeless in the dark. But don’t over-water it, as it’ll rot and die fairly quickly. And if you cut a leaf off and pop it in a glass of water it will drop roots within three weeks and be ready to plant as a new plant in six.