Are you in the Seattle area? Do you want to see us at our
very first live event that is also a fundraiser for a great cause. We'll
be hosting a plant Parenthood Pride panel for Seattle Pride and Father's Day in support
of and at the Volunteer Park Conservatory on June eighteenth. We're so excited to
see you there. Yeah, take an information in the show notes and our
social media bios. We're going to be sharing plant parenthood stories to both from
our own lives as well as those of plant parents in the community, so
please send us yours to share too. You can send us an email with
subject line plant Parenthood Story to Plant Debty Podcast at gmail dot com. Thanks
and we'll see you there. Happy Pride, and we're live. This is
Plant Debty Podcast. I'm Matthew and I'm Stephen. This week we thought we'd
focus on a Stephen centric plant. Yeah, right, so me centric that
Matthews saw this plant surprise me with a gift of one, and I already
had it for like a year when you gave it to So we'll start this
episode in a place of strong agreement. Yeah, some people are just dead
stick plant people, and some plants are just dead sticks. If you don't
know what we're talking about, that might be because you're a tropical foliage plant
person. But the plant in today's spotlight is also one that appeals to me
because it's so weird and unusual, and we've seen them showing up in a
lot of our local plant shops recently, so you might get a chance to
find one of your own, even if they're classically considered uncommon in cultivation.
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So today we're talking about something called Bundle of sticks plant. What is it?
Why is it interesting? And Stephen, I think of you as a
classic dead sticks plant person model, So give me your thesis on these.
I mean, look at it. One of the most dead looking plants within
the dead stick looking genre. And before we get too deep into this episode,
I want to make it clear that we will be using the term dead
stick looking plant lovingly throughout the episode. It's not actually a dick. I
realize that may strike some of you from the other parts of the hobbyist strange,
and I understand. Yeah, and when we say that, we're talking
about plants that, in their completely healthy, thriving states, they look like
they're dead. They're often from harsh ecosystems. We're having broad foliage as a
disadvantage, both factors like moisture loss as well as risk of predation from herbivores.
Yeah. So, anyway, even on other dead stick looking plants,
there are often like tiny little leaves that you can see that appears sometimes,
or other recognizable features if you squint hard enough. But this one doesn't give
me any of that, and it makes it really interesting. To me.
Oh, we'll get back to that in a moment, because I do see
little leaves online sometimes really yeah, okay, But Sanentio marnieriatum is from dry
scrub forests of central and southwest Madagascar at fairly low elevations around sea level,
and this is where it imitates the appearance of dried up plant matter around them
in order to avoid seeming like an appealing snack for herbivores. It's often found
on sandstone rocks, growing in full sun or in the protection of bushes,
where it's kind of a scrambling stem succulent. It's greenish gray to purple or
alive brown, depending on the light. Covered in warty little tubercles with a
rubbery texture, but with no leaves to speak of. They're very all and
short lived. And I do see them a new growth of mine, but
they're super easy to miss. I'll send you a photo, okay. And
it flowers and they're actually interesting flowers. Yeah, they're very small, but
as a milkweed family plant related to hoyas and Serapegia, you might be able
to kind of get a general picture in your mind of what they might look
like. They're appealing and unusual. The petals are startrusse with a white corona.
The long, narrow petals themselves balloon out into a lantern shape where the
tips kind of come back to touch in the center. You just need to
look it up. They're hard to describe, but really cool. And then
as they age, the petals contort so they look like little five armed octopuses
and they're apparently honey or fru loop scented. Yeah. I did see universally
positive comments about the fragrance. Actually, so that's interesting today. Maybe these
are like little living diffuser sticks, you know, like those pots of twigs
that people have. It's a stretch, but my mind went there. It's
weird, but yeah, anyway, what are the recommended ideal growing conditions?
So our experience looking for care and full online felt hit or miss with this
one, as it sometimes does with the plants that we profile here. Matthew,
what did you find? Yeah? I found that there was not a
whole lot of high quality care written about for this plant from most of the
sources that we saw, but it is regularly noted as being somewhat rare and
cultivation but also fairly fast growing and easy to care for. And it's a
plant that's easy to propagate. Now, the instructions themselves seemed rather mixed.
I noticed that the most kind of commonly encountered advice seemed, let me say,
a little lacking or perhaps overly cautious or foliage plant centric like. A
lot of the sources say that they need a good amount of light, but
along the lines of bright and direct, can even tolerate some direct sun,
with some write ups suggesting to limit this to just the cooler morning sunlight in
an east window or something. Yeah. I found the same very mixed picture
when it came to light guidance for this one, so yeah, yeah.
Other sources specifically say that it needs at least six hours of direct sunlight a
day. Sources that I actually trusted, though, say that with its excellent
heat tolerance, it needs full sun to light shade for best results. But
it tolerates shade at the expense of a nice bushy form, and you don't
really get that purple and olive brown color that particularly makes this plant look dead.
That seems right to me. Yeah, this should make sense given that
it's a coastal succulent adapted to looking dead, and it's equatorial full sun to
partial shade ecosystems of Matta freaking Gascar. I don't think that we would ever
be able to scorch them with our sun here in Seattle, and I'd only
worry about two intense light exposure and some of the hottest and most sun scorched
parts of North America. Like I did see some people on Dave's Garden in
like Arizona say that they thrive in northeast exposure. I'm sure that's true.
Here. A south window is going to be great as a houseplant. I
think you're generally going to be safe giving them the most intense sun that you
can, provided that you acclimate them to it appropriately. Yeah. I think
the care story I'm going to get into is going to confer most of that
too. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. It also shouldn't surprise anyone that
it wants a well drained potting mix, typical of what secuments generally need.
But those trusted sources that I found myself gravitating towards suggested that they do like
some richness in their substrate, and that it's best to provide a complete fertilizer
with micronutrients and trace elements regularly during the warm months of active growth. A
secondly fertilizer with low nitrogen and high potassium content is ideal, either as a
liquid or slow released granules. Then they should also be watered pretty freely during
the warm months of active growth. I even read in some of these places
keep them warm and wet wild growing wet might be a stretch, but you
do want to keep them mostly dry and pretty cool during the winter when they're
not in active growth. Yeah. I kept seeing a no water in winter
suggestion for these too. So yeah, but I think that, like we've
noted in other episodes in the past, the concept of quote winter is or
like quote when they're not actively growing exactly, And if your plant is in
warm, bright conditions, even in January and it's growing, give it water.
Yeah. But yeah, like water freely when there's warmth, there's light,
they're growing, and then just back off dramatically if they're not actively growing
or if it's cooler, because you don't want to risk rods. They also
want fairly small pots and to be repotiti every two to three years or so.
Okay, So does that kind of check out with what do you thought?
Yeah? I mean that I feel like is a blend of sort of
everything I saw, you know, people growing on outdoors, indoors, the
south and the north. Yeah, okay, cool. So what have your
approach has been for this plant and how successful do you feel like it has
been for you? Okay, I will admit that when I got this plant,
I didn't look too deeply into care information. Actually that's a total outlier
for you. Then. Actually it does feel like I have to call that
out a little bit. But at that point in my plant collecting, what
I would typically do is find a plant in a plant store, put in
my hand, and then quickly google care information while I was holding it,
but still like kind of looking at it and seeming like I was just considering
it, you know, but someone else wouldn't get it while I was researching
Um classy right, Oh yeah, I actually did that with the hoya last
week, so I'm not judging. Yeah, exactly. Anyone listening, don't
pretend you don't know how this works. Okay. Anyway, as I was
usually in the specialty section where they only had one or two of each species,
like I had to Okay, I was gonna miss it if I you
know, some person was going to come. I don't know what are judging
your Yeah, yeah, I guess I have. I didn't one of those
feelings about this anyway. I gave a quick scan. The care seemed possible
without too much bother and I was busy with one of my crazy moves at
that point, so I just like gave this my best general cactus conditions.
It was under my brightest indoor light and near an unobstructed south facing window,
so it got about as baked as it could have like here in Seattle,
and it did just fine. It came from a quality local grower in the
area, so I didn't change the soil from the nursery pot or anything.
It kept its more rugged gray, kind of more dried look, but it
still put on growth. Oh okay. Then I moved again, as we
do in this podcast, and it moved to a slightly lower light situation.
The south facing window part was removed, and it did just fine. Maybe
it got slightly greener looking, but not a whole lot. So you know,
my takeaway was like a little less light and heat seemed just fine for
it too. Yeah. Then I repotted it into a tall concrete monstrosity that
was probably formerly a candlestick. I can share pictures of it. Yeah,
I think we've heard about this vessel before. Yeah, I think I called
it the brutalist candlestick. Anyway, the soil mix was our typical succulent mix,
so a lot of grit, very little moisture retention. And this varnished
pot it was in isn't really helping it dry either, so it definitely dries
more slowly. It's not a pot that I would recommend for anyone who wants
to give a plant a perfect experience, but it is doing well in there,
and I use a dilute fertilizer with almost every watering, like I do
with my other succulents, and again getting a lot of new growth, and
I'm pretty happy with outlooks. Before I end this like life story of this
plant, I also dropped it kind of in the middle of this experience.
Oh yeah, I had it in this risky position on the very edge of
a shell for it. You know, it's stems could kind of trail nicely.
It tumbled off two stems broke. I grieved. I then dried the
cuttings for a day or two, jammed them, and the same pot as
my big dressina plant, figuring like, what the heck, maybe this could
have a little trailing section. I don't want to prepare a new pot for
this or whatever's going on. Yeah, and then one of them rooted and
it's growing. Now it's in a much lower light, much deeper pot with
another plant, and it just has a much greener look. But it seems
to be doing well. Okay, Well two things. I don't know why
you did just stick it back in the same pot to make it year Yeah.
But also I love that you just put it with your Drasina marginata because
that's also madagascom plant, so that's a nice little underplanting for it. I
do have no idea if their ranges overlap, but still we can pretend this
plant is a companion to like EUPHORBIAMLIAI pack a podium like a lot of other
really great madagas con succulents and cultivation. Yeah. I googled, but I
wasn't committed enough to find the original range map for the Drausina. So yeah,
I'm kind of pretending. In my experience the plant has been super adaptable.
I think that's kind of the takeaway from this story I've not kept it
in wet conditions, but I've given it about everything else. So this plant
may look unintuitive because it barely looks alive, but I think the care has
been surprisingly easy. Yeah, okay, what has your experience been. Well?
When we did our holiday plant swap for episode one twenty last year,
we were tasked with finding a plant that we thought that the other would particularly
be into, but that we were also interested in growing. So you picked
some ill fated Allocacia bambino for us, and I picked bundle of sticks plants
because you know, you're my classic dead sticks plant friend. And like we've
said, this is just one of those plants that epitomizes that I should have
expected that you already had it, but I don't know. For whatever reason,
you've never mentioned that plant to me. So anyway, that's my backstory
in my personal history. I bought a rather full four inch pot of it
at a local shop. I let it acclimate on my grow racks and then
go completely dry so that I could unpot it separate the individual rooted cuttings out
into two clay pots. I used to rather coarse, gritty, succulent mix
of rich potting soil slow released fertilizer and then a lot of pummus per light
and charcoal. It was pretty coarse. You got one of them, I
kept the other, and here we are. It's six months later. So
since I got it over the winter, I figured that it wouldn't want much,
if any water, but it did seem like it was growing, so
I wasn't quite sure how to balance that, and I just played it by
ear. It was on my brightest grow rack shelf. It started out rather
green, but then colored up to a more silvery gray with purple tints on
some of the stems pretty quickly. Okay, I read this online too.
I don't really get the purple part, but you know, I'm gonna go
look. I feel like I get much more intense purples and other succulents,
so maybe this just doesn't stand out to me on this plant. Well,
I think that it might have been other things than just light exposure. So
I would let it dry completely before giving it, just enough water that some
would collect in the saucer below. It's a super well draining mix, so
you know, the water drains into the saucer really quickly before the sub street
is in any way fully moistened, and so then any excess water that had
collected was then fully absorbing too the pot Within about a half an hour,
it never got what I would consider a thorough watering, and this is when
I started to notice the color gradually going darker purple, and that some of
the tender tips began to wither a bit and then dry up. So I
started to figure that I was actually just underwater it while it was trying to
be an active growth. I gradually kept increasing the water frequency, and I
ended up swapping the typical terra cotta plant saucer to a slightly deeper dish,
so that when I water there's about a half an inch to even an inch
of water. Sometimes the drains into this little saucer and then the plant sits
in that, but the medium absorbs the rest pretty quickly. It's never actually
sitting in water beyond that watering. And I've noticed that the plant has been
doing significantly better with these much more thorough soakings and then kind of like absorption
periods. I still let it dry most of the way between watering, but
even under the same light, this purple has faded back to more of a
silvery green and the plant looks significantly more plump, and now they're into the
warmer months. Like this room right now is eighty two degrees. I'm watering
it pretty often, so it's just dry at the surface, and I'm using
a pretty weak concentration of that Schultz brand Succulent fertilizer at most waterings. It's
putting on a good amount of growth at the moment, and I could definitely
increase its light if I felt like getting more vivid, kind of dead stick
coloring. Okay, yeah, I think I hear what you're saying. It's
more of like a mother of thousands thirsty purple. Maybe that's happening. Yeah,
yeah, I've noticed that on some of my aloes too. Okay,
challenges for this one, I haven't had any particular challenges, but I do
think a broad challenge is just telling how your plant is doing. With this
one, it's playing dead. Yeah, so it doesn't give you a lot
of the typical cues you'd expect. Generally speaking, I would say that well
watered plants look greenish, normal to thirsty look grayish too. Thirsty will look
like very skinny and twiggy, I would say, and maybe purple like you're
saying, Matthew, Yeah, you might see dried up new growth like dried
tips at the very ends of the stems as a challenge. You know,
it's not like you're going to get punished when new growth drives up. Really,
it just seems to zoom when the water was back again. So it's
more about learning how to read this than like warning you about this punishing misstep
that you could make here. So if that makes sense, yeah, that
was exactly the learning curve that I had to get over recently myself. It
really doesn't seem to be an issue if you underwater them too much when they
want water. It's not like it ruins the appearance of a plant to have
new growth aboard it already looks dead. So it was just that I wasn't
sure how to read this plant's growth cycle, Like the new growth doesn't look
conspicuously fresh unless you're actually looking at it closely. From what I found,
I would suggest that you just kind of learned to inspect your plant regularly closely,
so that you can learn to tell when it's an active growth and then
just water it when it's doing that. It's not that tricky. Yeah,
agree, Okay, pest. Wise, I did have mealy bugs in the
one you gifted me. I already had the plant in my collection, so
I didn't fight for it. Started to break that to you for the first
time on air, But you know, I think our plants look the same
anyway, so oh no, Yeah, it must have come with mealy bugs
because I had someone mind too, And that's not the fault of the shop.
That's just a common thing with me is I found. I did find
that it was really easy to treat them because there are so few nooks and
crannies. They're just like lumpy little sticks. So I sprayed the plant off
really well in the sink and then doused it with insect settles soap spray,
and I've not seen them come back, but my plant is young. This
was very easy to manage. I would worry much more about pests on a
huge, mature tangle of dead looking twigs hanging out of a basket or something.
And I'm not going to name names because I don't want to appear that
I'm calling anyone out or shaming them. But a fantastic and well respected plant
fluencer did a video about this. One took down the hanging basket that they
had and noticed there were mealy bugs on theirs. So this is probably just
a pretty common issue for the bundle of sticks plant and it's not really going
to significantly ruin your plant. Just be careful to not let the bundle of
sticks become a pestilence and keep it out from mealy's. Yeah, it could
be hard to notice because it looks kind of distressed at all times, right
in the best way, of course. As I said, Yeah, at
least mealy bugs look cottony and white, so they stand out against it.
I would be really bothered if I ever noticed scale on this plant, however,
because with the warding tubercles that are all over the stems. Honestly,
how badly infested would a plant have to be before you actually noticed scales as
a problem. Yeah, I think your first side would be that everything around
the plant was sticky. Yeah, and I don't imagine this plant is fleshy
or tender enough for them to be tempted. But you know who knows knock
on what? Yeah, I don't know. Okay, have we enjoyed growing
this plant and would we replace it if it died? Yeah? This is
a weird and cool plant, and it's one that I actually really like to
show up, in particular when people get a plant tour a fight home.
Really you, yeah, is this with you? People like it? And
it's been super easy so far. It's very durable, it's very forgiving,
and I'm especially feeling that way now that I have a good routine with it
now. It also seems like the claims that they are fairly fast growing are
accurate, which is nice and honestly sort of unexpected for a plant that looks
so visibly tormented and traumatized. Yeah, since mine is actively putting on new
growth. At some point soon, I want to take some cuttings stick them
into pot to let the whole thing fill in more. And then someday I
dream to see a flower and smell that honey fruit loops And yeah, I
agree with all of that. I certainly would replace mine if it died.
It's just so simple and unique to me. And you know, it's life
cycle is one that kind of takes you by surprise a few times per year,
like it might give me new growth coming straight up out of the soil,
or it might grow a new little link on its like floppy twiggy vine
portion, or sometimes like the new growth points or whatever, or like the
ends of these little links. Anyway, they look more or less nabby,
kind of depending on water, I would imagine. Yeah, and now that
I have one in more of like a sort of normal home lighting setting with
less light, I wonder if I'll get some flowers at some point too,
because it's kind of near the window, and maybe there's some seasonality that it
will get. Yeah. So really, if you like the look at all,
there is no reason to say no, because it's just like so easy
to cultivate. Yeah, you know what, I probably would have just bought
my own pot of this if I knew how much I was going to enjoy
it, and especially knowing how that plant swap went in retrospect, I eat
sort of disastrously. I kind of wish that I kept the whole quantity of
my old sticks that I started with and just had a fuller pot to begin
with. It was actually the first time that I ever saw it in real
life, and I almost ordered it online a few times before that. But
over the last couple of weeks, I have been out to almost all of
our local plant shops and nurseries, and I've seen it available at basically all
of that. Yeah, I've seen it a lot too. Yeah, and
it was both in tall four inch pots like the woman I bought, as
well as six and changing baskets. Honestly, there's a pretty good chance that
I buy another one pretty soon. It's because it's really neat and I would
love to have a big, full specimen of this sooner than later. But
I also like the really scant, delicate little presentation that I have mine in
a pot. It's just surprisingly charming and appealing. Yeah, it's just really
unique. Yeah. So are there any final thoughts that we want to impart
on plant parents interested in giving this one a try? Yeah? I mean
I think if you like the look of it, just go for it.
Also, I realize that's a big if, honestly, because it's kind of
a strange look. But it's easier than it looks like it would be,
so have no fear. Yeah, and this is a pretty cool plant.
We've not really dwelled on how cool the texture is, and I really just
want to highlight that it's super rubbery and kind of tactile with these warty little
knobs. Yeah, and I think that the form is surprisingly nice in a
hanging basket, considering that we usually think of things like spider plants or the
second strings of things trailing aeroids, hoyas, or lipstick plants for hanging pots,
you know, things that have leaves in their lush. But Sinantium merni
arianem is just amusing to me as a hanging basket because it's just like this
overflowing cascade of rubbery naked twigs. It's like an anti joke of plants,
you know. And seriously, it's so unusual and almost comically anti foliage that
it really does seem to be something that even non plant parent find amusing and
as much of a novelty as plant lovers like us. Yeah, and you
know, water in a bit more than you'd think, but it probably won't
punish you either way. So that's like, I guess a little parting advice
too. Yeah, if it's warm and sunny, don't let them fully dry,
but don't worry about neglect because they'll deal. Yeah, totally. And
I also feel like the prices are really good on this plant. Yeah,
they are around here for sure. Yeah, and also online. Yeah,
any historical, botanical or cultural information about these that you'd like to share.
I am going to start the section off by asking why do we like these
dead looking plants? Why do some people like these? Generally because some people
do not understand this at all, Like we said, just like how I
don't understand you know, loving a monstera obliqua for example. Yeah, there's
like deadlooking plants, and then there's also caterpillar devoured plants. That's true.
You know, now that you said that, maybe it's becoming more appealing to
me. Okay, I didn't need that anyway. For me, I get
like rugged survivor feelings when I look at this. I feel like that's,
you know, novel. It's not typically plant like, even though I know
there are you know, many other plants like this. I also kind of
love when people are like, wait, that's a plant about a plant.
I have so not quite over that. And like I said a few minutes
ago, the growth can be surprising. It's not like a plant that will
grow upward and new leaves will unfurl from precisely here on the plant at roughly
this clip, and you know all of that. It's just a lot more
kind of unexpected to me. Yeah, same, I love a plant that
has some strange characteristic as much as appealing characteristics, and this being a Hoyer
relative but also a plant that literally mimics dead vegetation is really interesting. Yeah.
Anyway, botanically, what did you find, Matthew. Yeah, so
there's not a ton of really good horticultural information about these online, and not
even a lot of good botanical information, but like we said, they seem
to be getting more popular in the commercial plant trade lately, and as far
as I can tell, this is by far the most commonly grown species of
a really cool genus. Sinantium is in the Episina slash dogbane family, along
with Hoya, is a dnaum string of heart. It's plumerian all that,
and it's in the milkweed subfamily A Sclepiadidia, and some of the Sinantium are
called swallow wards, which is a common name that is shared with several plants
of the genus, also related genera, and also plants and other families.
They get this name maybe because of their toxicity or because of historical medicinal use
of treating tonsilitis. As far as that emology, Sinantia means to choke a
dog, and some are called strangling vine and not to scare anyone. Though
I guess a dog could nibble on this thinking it's a stick, but I
think it breaks way too easily to strangle anything, at least the species we're
talking about. Yeah, I don't think that your dog has anything to worry
about. They might be a little toxic to pets or children, but there's
unclear toxicity going on here. But regardless, there are some really cool species
in the Sunantium genus, and many of them actually have ornamental hoya like flowers,
and some of them even have modestly appealing foliage. Though there are other
stem succulents like the Bundle of Six plants modestly appealing. They are not quite
like Calistophila, but they're nice and the flowers get really cool. So the
genus was originally described with about four hundred species, and it had a pretty
wide global distribution in tropical, subtropical and even some temperate regions of Africa,
Asia, Europe, Australia, and even North America. But obviously, as
we always say, there has been reclassification and some of these species and chipped
into other genera, while many of the old World species remain in Sinantium they
were also joined by some species of other historical genera. However, North America
seems to have a few species that are still in the Sinantium placement from what
I can tell, and Sinantium liave a aka the blue vine, milkweed,
climbing milkweed or honey vine is actually a food source of the monarch butterfly caterpillar.
There are also two European species of former members of the Sinantium genus vincent
Toxicum nigram and Rosicum that have become nauseous weeds in North America. Oh great,
are there any rare or prestige forms of this plant? I looked,
I didn't see anything, but I did see a seller online selling a gray
form in quotes. I did think that was kind of misleading, you know,
as we explained earlier about like how this color just changes based on water
and stuff. So I would just ask questions if you find anything like that
online and you are interested, Yeah, that's straight up seems like a character
stick acquired by growing conditions. Yeah yeah, But anyway, that's the end
of my botanical stuff. And Stephen, I have one other question that I
want to ask. If someone is interested in dead stick plants. This one
seems to be one of the absolute mustabs and one of the easiest defined.
But do you have any other recommendations for species that people should log into if
they like this whole dead plant vibe. I recently got what I considered to
be like the other a common dead stick plant, But I don't think you're
growing that one. Yeah, a good question. I think this is kind
of a genre. But when you ask me like that, it's honestly kind
of hard to like list a ton of species for some reason. Right yeah,
I think there are several euphorbias that easily qualify to me, like Keyphobia
plata clata. I think that's like the other most commonly available dead looking stick
kind of plant right now. No, yep, and that is the one
that I would recommend. I just got one last weekend. As a matter
of fact, it is also a madagascin plant from dry scrub, so it
has evolved to mimic a dead plant too. Now, while this sinantium is
a trailing vine, Uphobia plata clauda is more of a shrubby upright stems,
succulent with grayish or pinkish brown kind of flattened stems modeled with silver. They're
kind of warty looking. And the one I bought a flowering, but the
flowers barely even register. Yeah, it looks a little more like a dead
bush to me than like a bunch of twigs. Oh yeah, I agree.
It also looks a little bit more alive, at least as I've seen
it. Like, I'm less convinced by the deadness mimicking colors. I think
I've seen this one in person a few times and it didn't really speak to
me, at least when I was seeing it. So so, yeah,
there are nuances within the dead stick looking plant scene, Okay, I guess
we're finding. Yeah, and I think that some people might disagree with you
that it doesn't have the same level of dead stick lookingness. When I posted
the Sinantian Merni area and I'm on Instagram over the winter, a few people
were like, oh, if you like that, one, Euphorbia plata clauda
is even more dead looking. Okay, I don't disagree with them. I
think it's super duper a personal call to me. I think they look equivalently
dead. But I also think that the euphorbia is just kind of serving the
esthetic of being fully deciduously dormant, like some sort of really coarse, thick
garden shrub in a cold climate region winter. And I can see two like,
if you have a bright green bundle of sticks plant, like you're caring
for it that way, then yeah, maybe it looks more alive. Ye.
Anyway, like you said, there's there's nuances and degrees of dead stick
plantness clearly. Yeah. So my Plata Clauda is from the same grower as
your original Bundle of sticks plant, actually, and it's the only time that
I've ever seen it in real life. I've seen a lot of photos of
them online, and I'm very glad that I snatched it up because this is
another plant that I've almost ordered online a few times, and kind of like
what you were doing when you bought your bundle of sticks plant, I was
looking for the shopping baskets in as plant store. I just walked past the
succulent table and like snatched it up and was like holding it while I was
wandering around the store to find a basket because I simply had to have it.
And I learned from that time that you snatched up the last few four
Bobisa that I could not risk having that happen to me again with this plant.
Well, see, we're still growing as plant parents, aren't we.
I'm proud of you, bet you ya. Thanks on that strange note.
In this week's after show, we ask ourselves the question why couldn't we find
vibrant plant parent communities online? But people passionate about dead stick looking plants?
So is this all in our heads? And what did we find? It
said when we tried looking for them? Yeah? If extra bante like this
sounds appealing, head over to patreon dot com slash plant Debty Podcast and check
out our official patron level. Anything else that we want to cover today?
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