Faiaaz Muhammad

AUCKLAND

Living alone in his Papakura home, Faiaaz Muhammad is convinced he would not have managed the isolation of multiple extended lockdowns over these past two years without his houseplants. He has been in New Zealand since 2009, but the rest of his family are still in his native Fiji. “So I bought my first houseplant on Trade Me in 2020 as we went into lockdown. It was something to do,” he says. “I haven’t really counted how many plants I have now, but I’m pretty sure there’s more than 150 of them so far.”

They have brought him much joy and companionship, he reports, and were a great comfort when his mother passed away in Fiji last year. “I couldn’t go see her before she passed and I couldn’t go for her funeral either, of course. But taking care of the plants got me through that. It feels so peaceful to have them here.”

He moved the maidenhair fern outdoors where it now thrives, but the rest – hoyas, philodendrons, begonias and calatheas among them – are in every room in his home. They can expect more company, says the cabinet maker. “When they need more space, I just build a new shelf.”