NOTES FROM A SMALL KITCHEN ISLAND

No wonder sales of houseplants have blossomed recently. As we care for them, we care for ourselves

When Barcelona’s opera house reopened recently, it wasn’t to the usual first-night crowd. Artist Eugenio Ampudia installed 2,292 houseplants to hear the UceLi Quartet play Puccini’s I Crisantemi (the chrysanthemums). Ampudia said he’d been inspired by nature during the pandemic, saying: “The plants in my garden grew faster. And, without a doubt, I thought I could now relate in a more intimate way with people and nature.”

Ampudia isn’t alone. Not so long ago, houseplants were the preserve of ancient aunts, funeral parlours and launderettes, but they’ve enjoyed a luscious revival in the past few years – and that has accelerated as we’ve all been at home recently. Online sales have blossomed. Since garden centres reopened, there’s been a ficus frenzy. Homeware company Amara reports a 79 per cent increase in the sale of indoor planters compared with this time last year.

It is hardly surprising. When so much feels out of our control, and when access to the outside has been limited, the appeal of creating our own indoor green kingdoms is strong. Each new bud and leaf feels like a victory. As we care for them, we care for ourselves.

I live in a built up corner of London and all around me I see evidence of other people’s desire to grow, to #greenupyourgaff, to use the favoured Instagram hashtag of Nik Southern, the plant dynamo, who runs fashionable plant emporium Grace & Thorn.

As I walk my dogs – the very best cover for the nosy – one of my daily pleasures is peering through windows of other people’s homes to see what they’re growing, each tendril and blossom a visual gift to those whose names the grower will never know.

Many of us live in smaller and smaller places, with little or no outside space, and sometimes in rented accommodation with strict rules about redecorating. Plants are an instant way to make a place feel like home. They give us something to nurture, and are the decorative flourishes we can take with us when we move. I have spoken to young friends who get together to swap cuttings and growing advice at weekends.

There’s evidence, too, that growing plants makes people happier and healthier. In the 1980s, Nasa’s clean air study showed that plants absorb dust to help with allergies, gobble up toxins found in furnishings, paint and cleaning products and help combat the perils of centrally heated dry air – some palms can add up to a litre of complexion-boosting moisture to the air each day.

As with all things, plants go in and out of fashion. Sitting on my desk are two of the hot houseplants of the moment, a Chinese money plant (Pilea peperomioides), with its tumble of glossy green disc-shaped leaves, and a blue star fern (Phlebodium aureum), all cool, elegant silvery fronds. But my heart really belongs to pelargoniums – sometimes called geraniums – both the scented varieties with their delicious names (hello, Lady Plymouth, and a good morning to you, Lady Scarborough) and their country-house-style decorative cousins. I recommend fibrex.co. uk, home of the national collection, for a great selection by mail order.

And then there are plants I love and yet can’t keep alive, such as the everso-fashionable fiddle-leaf fig. I have given up feeling guilty about this. The clever interior landscape designer (plant person, to you and I) Ian Drummond once told me that as a young florist working with Dutch growers it surprised him that they treated plants like cut flowers – once they were past their best they simply ditched them for something else.

So while I love a little nurturing and the challenge of bringing something back from the (almost) dead, I’m not afraid to admit defeat.

Just as I no longer struggle on to the bitter end with books I don’t love, I feel no guilt at giving up on a plant once it has given up on me. If nothing else, it makes room on the shelf for a brand new specimen.