Hello and welcome to On the Ledge, the podcast that keeps your house plants perky, with the added

bonus of banishing existential anguish for a minimum of 30 minutes.

It's hot as Hades here in the UK this week, and for that reason, I'm keeping things to the

point this week because my podcast

recording studio is stiflingly hot and I can't have the fan on while I'm recording because I'd

send myself and probably you to sleep with all that white noise. So I'm sitting here literally

with a flannel around my neck, a damp flannel around my neck and a damp flannel around my feet

in an attempt to stay cool. There's a mental image for you. The things I do for you, podcast listeners,

but don't feel too sorry for me because, you know, this show is just so much fun to make. And in fact,

particularly this episode.

Because I'm dedicating episode 104 to a plant that I have fallen head over heels in love with,

the strawberry saxophage, or saxophageous stolonifera.

And I'll also be answering a question about the ZZ plant cultivar known as Raven.

So why am I dedicating a whole show to a single species and one that's far less ubiquitous than

other plants I've devoted a whole episode to such as the spider plant. Well, as I said,

there's only one reason and one reason only, and that's because I absolutely love it. So,

deal, people, I'm going to be talking about the strawberry saxifrage today. And I hope by the end

of the episode, I will have convinced you that this is a really great plant.

It's one of those species, like the Ratsdale cactus and maybe the African violet and

possibly the Ming Aurelia, that transports me straight back to the late 1970s, early 80s,

when I could usually be found wearing a pair of Nike knock-off trainers,

brown cords and a pudding bowl haircut. Yes, I basically looked like Will Byers out of Stranger Things

...