Supermarket sweep for houseplant shoppers

Keep a beady eye on the plants section when you do your weekly shop – you may snag a bargain, says Alice Vincent

Last summer, Monty Don made a proclamation that made me feel a bit of a failure. The Gardeners’ World presenter and golden retriever wrangler poured scorn on supermarket plants, calling them “mass produced to be as cheap as possible”.

He’s not wrong, you see. Supermarkets do indeed sell plants – and quite bog-standard ones – extremely cheaply. But supermarket plug plants were a crucial part of my gardening education: when garden centres and nurseries are inaccessible and terrifying to rookie urban gardeners, Sainsbury’s pelargoniums will have to do. And they overwintered beautifully.

What’s been happening lately, however, is that supermarkets have grown canny to the houseplant phenomenon raging up and down the country, and started to stock accordingly. Sometimes – such as when I spotted a gust of air plants (Tillandsia) shoved into jam jars or succulents painted in lurid colours – this is little short of travesty. But at other times, it’s a revelation.

Such events have unfolded in recent months. First, news spread through houseplant Instagram that Wilko in south Wales was stocking 2018’s answer to the much-coveted fiddle-leaf fig – the ficus ‘Audrey’ (Ficus benghalensis ‘Audrey’, otherwise known as Bengal fig), a variety that most plant shops around the country haven’t yet clocked. What’s more, they were stocking it for a reported £8. This, mere months after Wilko had introduced a £6 Monstera deliciosa to their stock.

“The best sales are coming from green foliage, cacti and succulents,” says Maxwell Asare, Wilko’s garden buyer. What’s more, he says, demand from new, younger customers hungry for low-maintenance houseplants has seen the range expand to include bigger cacti, and a range of succulents sold in glass, tin and terracotta containers.

Further shock waves were sent through the community this week when it emerged that Aldi was selling fittonias, maidenhair ferns and tradescantia for 89p a pop – about the same as a tin of soup. What’s more, Lidl was selling large (4-5ft) fiddle-leaf figs for £12.99. This is a plant that, a year ago, was retailing for £120 – when you could get hold of one. Not surprisingly, Lidl’s buyer says: “This indoor offering has gone down very well with customers, particularly in more central city locations.”

That’s if you’re lucky enough to snaffle one – when I checked out the horticultural goods on offer at Lidl’s Brixton branch on Sunday afternoon I was met with a smattering of extremely sad pansies. As Houseplant House blogger Laura Jenkins advised in February: “If you see something you like… I would recommend buying it immediately.” Not that I could accommodate a childsized Ficus lyrata – they are so demanding of the right kind of bright, indirect

HANDLE WITH CARE Succulents such as sweetheart hoya (far left) are often found by the checkout – but they may need some TLC