The self-confessed plant geek on the fun of putting the detective work into horticulture, his love of houseplants and his fascination with Instagram
WORDS ANNIE GATTI PORTRAIT ANDREW MONTGOMERY
On James Wong’s website he describes himself as a professional plant geek, broadcaster and bestselling author. The unbuttoned ‘plant geek’ label is typical of James’s desire to communicate with as many people as possible, to open eyes to the importance of plants and the wonder of gardening. “Botanist most accurately describes what I am,” he explains, “but the trouble is, most people don’t know what botanists are. Ethnobotany, which is half anthropology and half botany, is what I understand best. There are lots of botanists who have never planted a seed, they just know what it looks under a microscope, but an ethnobotanist has to understand how to use plants, where they come from, how they can be grown and harvested. You also need to be able to go to a rural market in the mountains of Ecuador, as I have done, and go up to people and ask them all about the herbs they’re selling.”
One of James’s favourite adages is ‘desire plus frustration equals obsession’ and an early example of his love affair with plants is when, as a five-year-old growing up in Singapore, he was sent a packet of mixed seeds by his Welsh grandmother that included snapdragons. “The plants came up in half the time they said on the packet and I thought ‘I’m a genius’. But it was really because I was growing temperate plants in tropical conditions. They all got fungal disease and collapsed. I was so frustrated by the vision I had of flowers snapping at each other that I decided to try again, this time putting them in the fridge and opening the air conditioning vents.” James’s ‘bible’ growing up was DG Hessayon’s The Houseplant Expert. Not only did it show him how to make his first terrarium, it also identified the plants that were growing next to his bus stop. Indoor gardening became an escape (his family lived in an apartment without a garden), which it still is, though his refuge now is a one-bedroom London flat, which is crammed with more than 500 plants. “The fact that I only have tiny amounts of space and that most houseplants need to grow within two metres of a window, has meant I’ve had to do things like experiment with grow lights, bonsai and water lilies in fruit bowls. That’s the exciting thing about horticulture for me: it’s like a detective puzzle. I think many people are put off horticulture because there are rules that you have to memorise and if you don’t, everything will di
