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Nurturing Nature Indoors: My Houseplant Journey

Why I Can’t Stop Collecting Houseplants

There is something wonderful about bringing nature into your home. The fact that we give flowers – arguably nature at its most beautiful – to friends and loved ones both to celebrate and to mourn speaks volumes about the effect that the natural world can have on our psyche. 

So today I want to talk about houseplants. Am I a guru? Certainly not yet – but I’m on my journey to plant knowledge and have discovered how much tending plants aids tranquillity and mental wellness.

My love for plants did not come naturally. I spent my early adult years moving from flat to flat in London, more interested in the latest technology than nurturing greenery. Even until my mid-twenties, I had not considered the benefits of keeping plants. Some say they are the new pets, others that millennials can’t afford a house, so they buy house plants instead. But I think what I wanted was to reconnect with nature in the middle of a concrete jungle.

Houseplants in a London Flat

When I first moved in with my future wife, we filled our London flat with over 50 houseplants in a year. In my mind back then plants were a part of the furniture; something nice we’d pick up while exploring London (and its many plant shops). Of course, we quickly found that most of the plants didn’t like being mostly left to their own devices, and we lost most of the non-hardy plants within the first year.

Lessons from a Plant-Filled Flat

Houseplants in London
Houseplants in London

However, my perspective shifted when a friend invited me to see his House Plant Garden. Mike lived in a one-bedroom flat which was filled to the brim with thriving plants of all shapes and sizes. Plants grew from every corner and shelf; some had even made their way onto the arms of his sofa due to lack of space! Mike was clearly taking a much better approach to his plants than I was. For the first time in my life, I developed plant envy and began to collect even more plants and take better care of my collection.

Mike gifted me one of his spider plant babies (Chlorophytum Comosum), a wonderful starter plant. Non-toxic to children and pets, this plant is prone to developing plantlets – tiny versions of itself which hang neatly along the mother (spider plant babies). I’ve grown several new spider plants from my mother plant which itself was once one of these babies.

Mike once found two large snake plants (Sansevieria) outside a plant shop in central London while travelling on a bike. “They are £16 each – do you want one?” he asked. “Yes”, I replied without hesitation, keen to add a ‘large’ plant to my collection but unable to visualise it in my mind. Mike then cycled across London with two large snake plants somewhere on his person. The logistics of this still don’t quite make sense to me, but somehow he managed. That was four years ago, and the snake plant, now about 3.5 feet tall, sits proudly as a jewel in my current collection. It is currently about a foot bigger than when I bought it, so I can only estimate the age of the plant to be a few years older than that – snake plants are notoriously slow growers in the plant community.

Around the same time, I picked up a Monstera Deliciosa from the local B&Q. This ‘Swiss Cheese’ plant can be found amongst most plant collections if people like big green pretty leaves – they are easy to grow and look beautiful as they mature, putting out gorgeous fenestrations. It’s lucky they are such hardy plants because my Monstera plant has been through thick and thin, and spent a year or so pretty unhappy with next to know growth, too much sun and not enough water before I managed to (pretty much) revive it when I moved. These days the plant is a lovely mature specimen with wonderful fenestrated leaves and sits proudly in my living room in full view when watching TV. 

Another plant that holds a special place in my heart is my Rattlesnake Plant. Recently reclassified (so not a Calathea), the rattlesnake plant or Goebeppertia Insignis as it is more formally known was marketed to me as a ‘Living Plant’ because the leaves open up during the day and close at night, an evolutionary quirk that makes this plant seem even more alive. While I lost the original rattlesnake plant from Kew over a particularly hot summer, I replaced it and have grown the replacement to maturity, propagating it twice earlier this year into three plants total. That way I can have the same gorgeous plant spread over three rooms in my house!

Rattlesnake Plant

Challenges and Triumphs of Plant Care: Watering, Pests, and Propagation

One area which has evaded success thus far is carnivorous plants. Several times I have brought one home, only for them to die, be they pitcher plant or venus fly trap. But I’m preparing to make another purchase soon, having recently learnt how I need to recreate the swampy condition they will thrive in, and I can use them as a natural way to deal with some of the pests attracted to my living room by the abundance of plants.

Over time, I’ve learned some valuable lessons in plant care. A tip I’ve found great success with is avoiding tap water and the dreaded chlorine within. While some hardy plants don’t seem to mind, finicky ones like Calatheas (and Venus Flytraps) suffer from the chlorine soaked up by their roots, leading to patchy spots on the plants or even death. This is because Chlorine is toxic to plants, and can damage the roots – there are even many farmed crops which don’t like chlorinated water. A better option, the best in fact, is to try catching and using rainwater. If this is not possible and tap water is the only option, either add something like Ecothrive’s Neutralise to your tap water to remove the chlorine or wait 24 hours with the water in the watering can for the chlorine to dissipate. Plant roots also soak up nutrients from the soil so remember to feed regularly in warmer months. Tip: if you maintain a healthy soil it will be host to microbes and beneficial elements for your plants. Your plants will thank you for this.

Aside from soil, some plants can also thrive hydroponically. The pothos plant, also known as Devil’s Ivy can thrive in this way. I have a pothos which has thrived in a closed container, the same water keeping it nurtured (albeit small) for several years. It remains in my collection today. I also have a much bigger Pothos plant in my collection, a gift from my Auntie. Pothos plants can quite literally take over the room if you let them, and I have been impressed with its rapid growth post-fertilisation over the summer months this year.

Pothos Plant Devils Ivy

A better way of watering houseplants involves placing the plant pot on a saucer filled with water so the soil and roots can uptake the water. This watering method is superior to regular watering, but may not be an option if you have your plant directly planted in a decorative pot. Direct-planted houseplants may be considered the hard option when maintaining houseplants because free-draining pots can not only be watered from the bottom but will stop any saturation at the bottom from open watering. But if you follow a watering schedule and use a moisture meter you can ensure your plants get the right amount of water, whatever their potting arrangements. 

Terracotta pots can leech water from your houseplants, so plants in terracotta pots tend to need watering more often, as you may have noticed from your garden. You can use the porous nature of terracotta to your advantage by adding a terracotta spike to your houseplant pot and putting an upside-down bottle of water in it. This will regulate the soil moisture so may be a good option during extended trips away from home in warmer months. 

Owning houseplants may attract pests, particularly if the soil is continuously moist. I’ve had fungus gnats which seem to like moist soil. They’re generally harmless to established plants but can become a nuisance in the home. Bottom watering and misting less can help with this, and you can get sticky traps, but they may catch non-pests. To clean them, I shower my plants in the garden to keep foliage clean, which can help deal with pests, but also because I read that dirty leaves can interfere with the plant’s ability to photosynthesize.

Tradescantia Mundula Lisa

Propagating plants is perhaps one of the most fun parts of this hobby. About a year ago I bought a Tradescantia Mundula ‘Lisa’, apparently the most mislabelled Tradescantia in existence. Propagating this is a breeze, and cuttings will root even if you simply lay them on the soil. 


One thing I find particularly rewarding is giving plants I’ve grown for free from cuttings from my collection to friends and family members, like when Mike gave me a spider plant several years ago. The warmth that results from growing and giving something beautiful is truly a wonderful experience, and may even be necessary if you get as involved with propagation as I have. 

From London to Greener Pastures

The summer months have been much kinder to me in my current location than they were in London. Our London flat was particularly hot all year round, and plants struggled to cope; however looking back, it’s clear that with a better water regimen and a moisture meter, my collection would have fared much better. 

I’ll admit I’ve made mistakes with my plant collection. Once when burdened with a longwinded house moving process, I left several of my struggling plants in the lobby of the flat in the hope they’d be adopted and better cared for. A few were snapped up, but most remained, and thankfully re-joined the remaining plants in my collection, leaving London with me onto greener pastures where some of them began to thrive again.

Houseplants Needing Care

I am very fortunate in our current space, which has a well-lit conservatory and several rooms in which plants seem to thrive. I’m now back to more houseplants than ever, and the number keeps increasing as I propagate new plants. 

However, this new space is not without its challenges. At the end of 2023, a new rabbit joined our family. And I hadn’t considered that rabbits eat plants! Something I’ve learned is that rabbits are seemingly impervious to plant toxicity, or at least eat new plants in small enough quantities to test the toxicity before further consumption. So, dear reader, I’ve had to rabbit-proof my entire plant collection as well as erect more fencing in the garden. 

My current collection of houseplants is as diverse as it has ever been, and I am not far from my next milestone of 100 houseplants. I have run out of plant space time and time again, only to find new ways of organising and purchasing new storage options to keep the collection tidy. They are slowly taking over the house room by room, and I have no intention of slowing down.

Current Plant Collection

As I reflect on my houseplant journey so far, I am reminded of all the incredible learning opportunities and growth, both figuratively and literally. The plant growth itself may be hard to notice when staring at plants daily, but it becomes apparent when looking back at photos of my indoor garden. 

As I get more confident with houseplant management, I expect to add more ‘hard to look after’ plants to my collection and some rarer phenotypes, as well as further developing my propagation skills, and maybe even working on a breeding programme to create my own phenotypes.

The Snake Plant from Mike now several years old

Do you have any houseplant stories of your own? Or perhaps you’re curious about a specific aspect of plant care? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below! I’d love to hear from you and continue this plant-filled conversation.

Tyler 

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Tyler

Tyler

Tyler is a Digital Marketing Specialist, Researcher & Writer. He enjoys writing and creating content spanning a diverse range of subjects. Houseplant addict.

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