After many years of
being seriously uncool, house plants seem to be back in fashion. My
son, more in tune with the zeitgeist than I (after all he lives in
Clapton in east London – Clapton-the-new-Brooklyn (but hasten to
add is NOT a bearded hipster) has started to pack his windowsills. A
few trendy looking books have started to appear as well, usually in
furnishings and accessories outlets that don't generally sell books,
which is always a sign that something is 'on trend'.
I have long been
puzzled by the lack of interest in house plants, particularly amongst
dedicated gardeners. So many really good plantspeople seem to suspend
all interest once they step inside the house. I am always slightly
surprised that a lot of good gardeners and plantspeople don't grow
their own veg, but then not everyone is a foodie and growing things
to eat is very time-consuming and requires a lot of organisation, so
I more or less understand that; to turn from weeding the Arisaemas to
nipping down to the local supermarket to busy some packeted veg. is
understandable. But not to grow anything inside? I am genuinely
puzzled.
For myself, and I
think for quite a few gardeners who started in their teenage years,
the first plants we grew were indoor ones. Tropical stuff, cacti,
orchids, insectivorous things, kinda adolescent slightly nerdy
things. Most of us then soon moved outside, but the love of plants on
windowsills or atop cupboards has never left some of us.
Those who started as
'outside gardeners' don't often seem to be able to make the
transition to keeping plants inside. One reason might be the sheer
artificiality of keeping plants growing in what is, after all, a very
alien environment. The quality of growth that it is possible to get
from plants growing in the ground is so much more difficult to
achieve from indoor plants. House plants are incredibly dependent on
their owners and keepers for their most basic needs. Many plants also
respond to seasonal changes, primarily to temperature, and since we
humans seem happy only if we are kept at around 21ºC
that limits possibilities. Small failures build up, and if
things go slightly wrong, we are then stuck with a below-par plant
which given the shortage of spaces to grow plants in most houses, is
always on view. We are then constantly confronted with evidence of
our own failure as gardeners in other words (and the horti-social
embarassment).
The hard fact is that
there are not very many plants which grow well inside. Light levels
are generally too low; dry air is also often a factor that affects
plants badly. Succulents do well, but only if they have really good
light – so unless you have extensive sunny windowsills there is not
much habitat for them. The range of houseplants which was developed
during the 1960s, the high point of house plant history, was a pretty
limited one. Essentially it built on what I call the 'aspidistra
concept', the very idea being one which has been one of the factors
which has limited interest in them over the years anyway. It was the
Victorians who really were the pioneers in growing house plants,
despite the fact that their homes were infamously dark, with big
extremes of temperature and polluted (coal smoke pollution inside and
out was horrendous in the 19th and much of the 20th
century, making today's worries over diesel exhaust seem almost like
minor niggles).
Aspidistras survived
the grim growing conditions of the Victorian home, along with a
limited range of other, it-has-to-be-faced, rather dull plants. They
grow incredibly slowly, with very long-lived leaves. They are as near
to static and plastic as plants can be. The aspidistra is a plant of
deep shade, where resource inputs are low, so it grows immensely
slowly. Ivy (Hedera helix) will survive similar conditions, and of
course if conditions are right, can move pretty fast, but if poor can
just survive, for years; not surprisingly it too was common in the
Victorian home. Much of the 1960s house plants were visually more
exciting but in many ways not much better, many being tropical forest
floor plants – happy at 'our' temperatures, but able to survive for
long periods without growing much: Philodendron, Monstera,
Aglaeomena, Anthurium – all tropical Araceae. If they do start to
grow their new growth is often weak and unattractive. They are not
really living plants, in the sense of something which grows and
develops.
I did do a house plant
book once – a long time ago. Unfortunately all packed up, which
given my current peripatetic status is going to be the story of my
life for some time from now on. So I can't share pictures, but will
try to do so in a future blog. In researching the book, we did find a
few people who had examples of the kind of plants I have been just
discussing, but which had been cared for well and had actually grown
pretty spectacularly. There was a Rhoicissus which had colonised the
hallway of a substantial north London house (actually part of the
family) and an enormous Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa) in a
Liverpool sitting room (ditto, belonging to the late Tony Bradshaw,
the botanist and ecologist).
The static nature of
much of the conventional house plants flora must be one of the main
reasons as to why few 'real gardeners' can be bothered with them.
Plants which grow more vigorously, in particular those which flower,
generally need more light than we can give them, or many of them. An
exception might be orchids, which are relatively common as house
plants now, all but unknown as such forty years ago. And of course,
gesneriads: Streptocarpus, African violets, Achimenes. Small,
relatively quite fast growing, not needing too much light (good
indirect is best) and often usefully dormant for part of the year,
gesneriads are an amazingly diverse and fascinating family. Their
slightly hairy foliage and compact size give them a sort of cuddly,
teddy bear quality too. When I'm in my dotage, I shall surround
myself with them in the old folks home.
Our houses are
actually very badly designed for plants – another problem facing
the 'home' gardener. There were some attempts in the 1950s and 1960s
in Sweden, a period and a place for particularly bold re-thinking of
the domestic environment to create houses with small integrated
growing spaces. The only one I have ever actually seen was, I think,
at Beth Chatto's, a modernist 1960s design. I have often had the
fantasy of designing a house around growing spaces for plants: light
in just the right places at just the right amount, small planting
beds strategically placed. There is a disadvantage perhaps to having
too much vegetation around: the dead leaves, flowers, occasional
insect pests, all add to a confusion of housework and gardening. I
suspect it was this dislike of 'mess' which so restricted the use of
plants in the conservatories of the 1980s conservatory boom.
Victorians loved conservatories but had lots of cheap labour in the
form of servants to attend to the cleaning, picking up and primping.
So, its good to see
house plants as 'back' but I can't help feel that we could do so much
more.
Thanks to my son,
Kieran Bradshaw. for the pictures.
3 comments:
One of the first things I noticed when I came to England years ago was the lack of house plants on windowsills. Walking along rows of houses and not a single house plant! In Germany it is quite normal that you see windowsills packed with plants when you walk down a street. There are also a lot more small shops dedicated to selling house plants in town centres.
I am probably one of the few gardeners who has surrounded herself with indoor plants at home. I am quite lucky that I live in a house without central heating as every room has a different temperature which suits different plants. The warm dark living room is home to Streptocarpus and Christmas cacti, the colder but bright and humid kitchen has an ideal climate for my orchids, clivias, spider plants and orchid cacti and the cold sunny bedroom houses some cacti, living stones and other succulents. I also have a few Hippeastrum plants.
One of the most indestructible plants I have is a Dendrobium kingianum orchid which I have in my care for over 15 years now It flowers reliably every year in late winter and needs hardly any care apart from a bit of water once a week. Spider plants are also very fool-proof.
My own love of gardening started with a cactus and as I sit in our conservatory (Where we live, eat and entertain visitors) I can count forty house plants including an at present fruiting calamondin orange and a flowering bougainvillea
Unfortunately for the general public house plants are really just 'cut flowers with roots' and are considered expendable.
Yes ! ....and bring back Anne Swithinbank too ! I love the so called house plants .Loving all your photos :)
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