Putting the spotlight on the biggest issues in gardening today
Digging deeper
*BIT.LY/HOUSEPLANT-SALES-GROWTH † BIT.LY/HTA-HOUSEPLANT-IMPORTS
House plants are set to turn a deeper shade of green as a new wave of eco-savvy growers pioneer more sustainable ways to fill windowsills with jungles of greenery. Sales of indoor plants at garden centres shot up by over 50 per cent during the pandemic compared with sales in 2019, according to figures by market-data researcher Statista*.
Last year, the UK’s windowsill gardeners spent a whopping £500 million on house plants. But an HTA survey† of garden centres found that nearly nine in 10 house plants (87 per cent) are imported, usually in peat-based compost, giving them a high carbon footprint.
Even outlets that have pledged to supply plants without peat are struggling to find house plants that are grown peat free. The National Trust is still trialling peat-free suppliers, while the Royal Horticultural Society, about to open a dedicated house-plant store at Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, can’t promise it will be peat free until next year.
However, a new generation of growers is springing up to change all that. Leading houseplant supplier Double H now has a peat-free wholesale arm, The Horti House. “There’s definitely a shift,” says managing director Andy Burton. “It’s not just about peat – people also want British grown.”
The Horti House imports its house plants as baby plug plants from Europe, slashing transport emissions compared with shipping mature plants. The plugs are raised in peat-based compost, though once they’re potted up into peat-free compost and grown on the amount is ‘tiny’, says Andy.
Small-scale grower Harriet Thompson, at Harriet’s Plants in Cornwall, goes one step further. She raises all her house plants from cuttings and seed, so they’re in peat-free compost from the start. She also refuses to heat her greenhouse: all her plants have to get through a UK winter without help. Harriet says limiting her range to plants that can thrive with minimal resources is at the core of her sustainable approach. “I believe in seasonal growing,” she says. “This supply-led model is much more sustainable than buying imported plants from supermarkets, which may not do as well in your home either.”
The other dirty secret in the house-plant trade, says author and Instagram influencer Sarah Gerrard-Jones, is the sheer waste as plants that are damaged or
