OAMARU

- Confessions of a not-so-secret houseplant hater.

The thing for millennials to do is to gift houseplants. Usually, these plants would come in an overly twee pot or a wicker basket, and they would have thick shiny leaves which gleamed in the corner of the room. But wouldn’t you rather the-thingto-give be marvellous, like a silver shoehorn? Or a pan solely for making risotto in? Or lilies which only live one day a year, and then they are gone?

Alas, houseplants are en vogue despite my irrational dislike. Every second house I visit has them proudly displayed, as if they are ancient Greek statues or a rare magnolia. Yet what stands out most to me is their sheer banal ordinariness. The fiddle leaf fig tree, one of the most common offenders, has glossy leaves which look almost artificial and reminiscent of a 1980s resort.

The variegated monstera sells for thousands on Trade Me, solely due to a genetic mutation which causes the variegation. Either someone is using variegated monstera as a sophisticated money laundering scheme or someone is genuinely spending thousands on placing a monstera with a genetic mutation in a corner of their abode, and perhaps their friends will come around and say, “Oh! A variegated monstera! How rare! How fine a specimen!”

Variegation is not particularly rare in plants – holly leaves often have it, as do the leaves of the red clover (Trifolium pratense) – nor is a mania for a certain type of plant. Victorian plant hunters (in typical coloniser fashion) brought back rhododendrons by the shipful from Asia. Plant hunting became so competitive that one might be visiting a neighbour’s estate and they would proudly show you a rare rhododendron, sitting replete by itself, as if to say, “Here, look at this plant! What a fine plant it is!”

At least with a rhododendron you plant it outside, in the soil, in the ground. Houseplants are barely plants which sit around blankly in little pots probably painted in some shade of “millennial pink” and require the barest attention; they are plants for people who do not like gardening.

Gardening is about getting filthy and dirty and snagging yourself on thorns and working with the soil. It is about responding to the seasons and trying things and very often failing. The houseplant removes all this.

There is barely any risk of failure with a houseplant, in all its smug glossiness. It will be the same day in and day out, and the only excitement to be had is by another leaf unfurling in all its banality.

And yet my dislike goes even further – houseplants have rapidly become a class signifier. “Nice” people have houseplants. People with ethically sourced leather couches and linen dresses and books by New Yorker-endorsed authors. They are a signifier of people who are “into” plants and eat free-range chicken from Farro Fresh. A typical ficus will set you back $69.99 at a certain big box outlet – this is not gardens for the people; these are aesthetics for “nice” people. Do these people know a monstera will root easily in some water from a cutting? Have these people heard of seeds? Who are these people?

So when I see houseplants displayed with pride, as if a feature, I feel vaguely embarrassed for my own generation.

The older generation of gardeners I have learned from are adamant outdoor gardeners. They take cuttings whenever they can (sometimes with the attitude of asking for forgiveness later) and divide their plants and grow from seed and roam about their garden noting the subtle changes day to day. And so the static display of ugly, bulbous, shiny leaves in the corner of a room does nothing for me. Nor does the “jungle in a room” aesthetic. Leave the jungle outside! The jungle is perfectly fine outside!

I enjoy bringing outdoor pots from the garden inside while their blooms are at their peak for a spot of colour. I enjoy doing this with night-scented stock and tulips in particular. The late American horticulturalist Bunny Mellon was fond of bringing her lime trees indoors.

Why not make use of the flowers one has growing and simply cut some and arrange them in a vase? People often seem horrified of cutting blooms from their plants as if the plant will protest – yet plants are there to be used.

Or why not go to your local gardens, if you don’t have a garden of your own, and pick up some fallen tree branches and arrange an ikebana? And if one has soil, why not plant something out there? And leave the ficus to the realms of a slightly embarrassing segment of history. Pretty please. ■

I have never particularly liked houseplants. My ex and I used to have several, which I would dutifully water with a kind of latent resentment. They were inevitably gifts from friends.