Daily details from the garden to bring you inspiration throughout the year
Plant love. Can strike at any time…
I’ve just been to a houseplant festival. It was billed in one of the London mags as one of the ten coolest things to do this weekend.
That’s not why I went. I went because the collaboration between the Garden Museum and Alice Vincent (familiar to many on Instagram as @noughticulture, as well as for her Telegraph arts and gardening columns) has a reputation for throwing up some particularly thoughtful events, where the premise often starts off with plants and then spins out into wider social issues, such as this talk last year with garden writer and historian Catherine Horwood and podcaster and garden journalist Jane Perrone.
I also went because it was a festival. For houseplants. Or more accurately, a festival with houseplants, for people who love them. It was a roaring success, with people queuing around the block in the rain for hours, and a fabulously enthusiastic and friendly vibe inside.
Twenty years ago this would have been unheard of. Twenty years ago, the best anyone other than some kind of super houseplant nerd would be able to find would be a kentia palm and a peace lily, sweatily wilting in their cellophane wrappers on some god-forsaken aisle in the big box store.
How times have changed.
You can listen to my interview with Alice, on episode 4 of the first series of the Gardens, weeds and words podcast, here.
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Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, blogger, podcaster, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking the image above.
