In 1976 Fay Ballard had just finished her first term at university and heading home for Christmas she was looking for a gift for her father who was the author J.G. Ballard. This episode is the story of that gift! It may have started as a small Yucca pot plant but almost 50 years on - it has a great story to tell.

For those of us of a certain generation, the Yucca plant will be familiar. Back in the 70's and 80's Marks and Spencer had shelves full of them. But why?

And along with the story of Fay's Yucca and the answer to the question why M&S were selling them, we have Colin Smith, who holds a National Collection of Yuccas. He knows so much about these plants and shares with us how to grow them.

Every month I will make a plant story but stories often lead to more stories and I end up publishing Offshoot episodes. So if you 'Follow' the podcast on your podcast app you will never miss an episode.

It also makes a real difference if you can spare the time to rate and/or review an episode after you have listened. Spotify and Apple look at these ratings and it helps to get the podcast promoted to other plant lovers.

Independent podcasts like Our Plant Stories depend on their listeners for help with the costs of making the podcast such as the hosting platform and the editing programme.

Using the Buy Me A Coffee platform you can make a one off online donation of £5 and that money will go towards making more episodes. Everyone who buys a 'virtual coffee' will get a shout out on the podcast.

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Can I dig into more plant stories?

YES! You can check out the website where there are lots of photographs of plants and how to grow instructions. Our Plant Stories website

You can also follow the weekly blog where you will get the behind the scenes lowdown on making the podcast and you could also contribute - readers have suggested gardens to visit, plants to feature, experts to contact.

Our Plant Stories blog

And you can follow more plants over on my Instagram account Instagram

Our Plant Stories is presented and produced by Sally Flatman

The music is Fade to Black by Howard Levy

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