Episode 67 part one: Senecio rowleyanus aka string of pearls
On The Ledge
Jane Perrone
4.8 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 1 October 2018
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s trailing plants week! We’re looking at seven iconic trailing plants across the week, in bite-sized daily mini-episodes. First up: string of pearls, aka Senecio rowleyanus.
See full show notes for all seven plants here: https://is.gd/il5mtB
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, hello and welcome to episode 67 of On the Ledge podcast. I know it's only a Monday, but there we go. We're bringing you something |
| 0:22.6 | different this week. It's trailing plants week on On the Ledge. And every day from Monday onwards, |
| 0:29.9 | I'm going to be bringing you a mini episode of the podcast focusing on a different trailing plant. |
| 0:36.2 | And we're starting today with, well, I think it's one of the most iconic trailing plants there is. |
| 0:42.2 | Senecio Rowlianus, or the string of pearls, or string of beads, as I've also seen it called. |
| 0:49.8 | I think it should be called string of peas, because to me, those little green globes look rather like the things on my dinner plate. |
| 0:56.8 | Except of course they are held together with the finest thread-like stems, |
| 1:01.7 | which is why if you've ever bought one of these plants mail order and had it delivered, |
| 1:05.6 | you will spend some time trying to unravel the stems without breaking them. |
| 1:12.9 | But let's delve a little bit more into the background of this plant. The Sinesio genus is about a thousand strong in terms of species |
| 1:19.8 | and they come in all shapes and sizes and not all of them are succulent. Sinesio Rolianus though |
| 1:26.1 | is native to a very, very small part of southwest Africa. |
| 1:30.8 | And in its native habitat, it grows along the ground. And wherever that stem can, it will root |
| 1:36.5 | into the ground. And that's a key point here, because if you want to propagate this plant, |
| 1:41.7 | it is very easy to do. You can just take off a string from your string of pearls and lay it on the top of some very gritty compost and it will root in absolutely no time. |
| 1:51.9 | I tend to take a little strip of the pearls off one end of the stem and then bury that stem in that gritty compost, which really helps to start the routing process going, |
| 2:01.7 | but it will also root along the stem wherever it's touching the compost. Why does it have these |
| 2:06.7 | globe-like leaves? Well, it's all about dealing with the desert conditions in which it grows. |
| 2:12.7 | Less evaporation happens when you've got a perfectly round leaf. It can store lots of water, |
| 2:17.3 | but there's not |
| 2:17.9 | much surface area actually exposed to the air through which evaporation can happen. |
| 2:23.3 | Examine your string of pearls really closely and you may notice there's a darker strip |
... |
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