Marnie Chesterton

I've got to say, either of you green-fingered or are you adept at killing houseplants and can tell us how to do it?

I once killed a cactus, so we all know how hardy those plants are.

Wow, that is advanced-level plant killing.

I know because Michael has a farm that Michael knows how to look after plants.

Give Michael all your points, all the gold stars.

All the gold stars to Michael.

Well, another thing to bear in mind is that I'm constantly talking about these amazingly long-lived plants.

So I'm thinking of redwoods that can live for thousands of years.

And we talk about them on science shows because they are outliers and it's so majestic that something can live to 6,000 years.

A cherry tree...

will usually live to about 40 years.

There are some things that are just short-lived.

You know, plants sometimes live for a year and that's their actual lifespan.

So I will give our listener Liz one final word of comfort, which is that in the Royal Botanic Gardens queue, home of some of the most amazing plant scientists in the world, and these people can...

do these amazing feats of plant breeding.

And I said, have you ever killed anything?

And one of the guys looked at me and he says, the secret is that in order to learn how to grow any species, we have killed that species at least twice.

Thank you, Liz, so much for the question.

And thank you, Dr. Naomi Fraga, for the answer.

Listeners, have you got a question?