Green inspiration

Kylie Klein-Nixon meets a Christchurch plant lover who has turned her passion into a thriving business.

Hannah Guzy has always adored plants. With more than 50 dotted throughout her home, and hundreds more at the Christchurch shop, Flourish Foliage, she’s growing a green empire, with deep roots. She talked to us about her five favourite plants and the ones she’s still longing to propagate:

HANNAH GUZY

I’ve got so many pots in my house, more pots than plants often.

I do bring my work home with me. I can’t imagine what home would be like without my plants now. It would be very bare. I don’t know how many I have at the moment – I haven’t counted them – but probably around 50.

I’ve got to the point where I’ve started culling the ones that I don’t really love, bringing it back to just my favourites.

I don’t take the ones I don’t want any more to the shop, but they do tend to end up with someone. So unless they have lost their will to live, they will be re-gifted.

I firmly believe that everyone has got their plants, the plants they can do and plants they can’t, you just have to find your own balance.

Personally, I really enjoy low-maintenance plants. Trailing plants, too, tend to be my favourites. I’ve got a few hoya that I started collecting a few years ago, and a little Philodendron cordatum that was from my great aunt, who was 99, and that’s grown a lot since I inherited it, so it’s really special.

Others I love are plants like the Ficus robusta – the rubber leaf plant – because they are so incredibly easy. There are a few that I’ve got for some friends that are special to me, too.

The houseplant boom is definitely a trend, but I’m hoping it’s a trend that will stay. Like I said, imagining your house with no plants is really odd now. Plants soften the home and bring such a nice natural feel to it. With the focus on health and wellbeing these days, I think indoor plants and greenery will last.

From reading the 1989 Nasa research on plants, I think you need quite a large volume to clean the air. But, something is better than nothing, right? Surround yourself with snake plants, you’ll be away!

I like the idea of living walls. I think if you have the space for it, and you are able to maintain and look after the plants, it’s a wonderful idea. Plants are so personal, it’s like art: people like certain things more than others, it just comes down to personal preference, really.

The ideal starter plant depends on what you like, really. In different categories there are different good starter plants.

I mentioned the ficus rubber plant before, and I think that they’re fantastic because they are something that grows easily with minimal care and become quite majestic.

Then you’ve got the retro-cool snake plant, which is super easy because you cannot overwater them to kill them.

And then you’ve got things like pothos, or philodendrons, the easy ones. That can be a really satisfying trailing plant.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/STUFF Right, Guzy is particularly fond of trailing plants, like this philodendron. Middle, Guzy enjoys sharing her love of plants with her customers. Far right, a string of turtles, a philodendron and a ficus, some of the most coveted and popular houseplants.