Hello and welcome to On the Ledge podcast.

I'm your host Jane Perrone, feeling perky now that the crocuses have popped up in my lawn

and I don't have to mow it.

So that means I can spend more time with my houseplants.

We're back with Mark Preston this week, epiphytic cacti expert,

and he's telling us all about the other members of the Ripsalidae tribe.

That's Lepysmium, Hataura and Ripsalus.

And he also answers some of your questions about propagating forest cacti and also growing them from seed

speaking of which it's very nearly time for the on the ledge sew along so i'd love to hear from you

about what you want to hear in our on the ledge sew along 2019 launch episode do you want to know practical stuff about sewing seed?

Ideas about where to get your seed from? What kind of house plant seeds are easy to grow?

Let me know exactly what you'd like me to cover and I can add that to the list.

And question of the week is a hunt for a very unusual plant that looks a bit like a butterfly.

But without further ado, let's crack on with my interview with Mark to find out more about this

incredible family of forest cacti. I began by asking Mark about Rip Salas, those mistletoe-like plants that have become so popular

in the last few years, and I want to know if the care regime for these plants was the same

as the holiday cactus we were talking about in last week's show.

They are in many ways. One of the problems with them, I guess, is that a number of them will not

flower until the plants have got to quite a size. And so finding places for them in a house

can be tricky. But if you have somewhere where you can actually let them hang down

and just do their thing, then I think they're really nice plants. And I'm very pleased that

they've come back into popularity. One of the problems with them is that the naming is often

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