Southland

I came late to the houseplants party. I'm not sure why I failed, for so long, to notice the beauty of fruit salad plants and rubber trees.

Robert Guyton finally jumps on the houseplant bandwagon.

I’ve probably seen hundreds of them in the homes of friends and foyers of hotels but somehow missed their significance. Now that they’ve caught my attention, I’m smitten. I see now their appeal, especially to people who have no outdoor garden. People need plants, and houseplants – even unprepossessing spider plant and water fuchsia – can fill the role usually taken by chrysanthemums and roses, requiring human care and attention and providing in return, beauty and the vibrancy that happy, living things emit.

The stimulus for my newfound interest in jungle plants was the jungle, that of the Amazon especially. When I saw the images of flame and smoke eating into the rainforests of the Amazon Basin, I was struck by the need to connect better with those great forests. While I knew I couldn’t keep a sloth or chameleon in sympathy with the rapidly disappearing jungles on the other side of the world, I could grow plants from there.

Visits to garden centres were a setback, as the price of these warmth- and shadeloving plants is high, and the range restricted. I browsed the Web and discovered a community of experienced growers and traders of indoor plants. They certainly knew their stuff and were canny indeed about the value of and the demand for the more unusual and hard-to-get plants. I found myself once again priced out of contention.

While visiting my brother-in-law one day, something I’d done on innumerable occasions, my attention settled upon something I must have seen many times before – the lovely, leafy “pot plant” that spills over the edge of the kitchen bench the way its kin must tumble from their perches in their jungle-tree homes. I’d not registered before the existence of this plant, nor the several others he had placed about the kitchen. Dave kindly loaned me scissors and granted permission to snip. Those cuttings are now sitting in Agee jars, half-filled with Southland rainwater, on the window-side edge of my dining room table, rooting like crazy.

I’ve spotted luxuriantly leaved jungle plants in all sorts of places since then.

I’ve taken snippets wherever I got the OK from someone on-site. It’s a wonderful way to grow a rainforest.

Now, when I enter a bank, library or council office, my eyes scan the greenery, quickly assessing the stock and opportunities for sampling. Then I look into the eyes of whoever is sitting behind the desk to determine how inclined they might be to share. So far, everyone’s been very generous and kind.

I have learned though, that not all plants are suitable for the get-a-cutting-quick method of propagation. Rubber trees, for example, require air-layering to strike roots and pieces of palms have to come with some roots in order to grow at all, which is not an impossible ask, if the person in charge is patient and generous.

A houseplant-loving woman in an op shop suggested that I look to our native plants too.

I’ve since added pseudopanax and cordylines to my collection. Kawakawa too looks like a contender and while gardeners from the north might think it common, we deep south growers don’t see it in our cooler gardens and find the heart-shaped leaves quite intriguing and exotic.

I’ve bought books too. A wave of interest in houseplants must have passed through the country some years ago, because op shops everywhere have substantial books on the topic with single-digit prices on them; just the sort of price tag I like. I’ve bought all I need to identify and successfully care for every pot plant known to humankind.

Of course, poring over those books has created a desire for more houseplants, many I’d never seen before. There will come a time soon, I know, when others living in this house with me are going to ask questions about limits, but there are several rooms here that I’ve not even begun planting, so I’m not too concerned yet. If questions and complaints about my quasi-jungle do start to roll in, I’ll plead that I’m only doing my bit for the Amazon. ✤

Robert with his growing collection of houseplants.