The Giant Houseplant Takeover certainly gave the phrase ‘Garden Rooms ‘ a different meaning at this display in RHS Wisley’s Glasshouse early in 2020!
Given the lockdown scenario we find ourselves in at the beginning of April 2020, I thought it might be a bit of fun to visually relive this visit and share it with you. In the hope of cheering you up…and perhaps making you see houseplants in a different way. There were certainly some unusual containers in use here, not all of them an idea to copy at home but an inspiring selection to encourage us to try something new.
This temporary display, or exhibition, was entitled Giant Houseplant Takeover for a good reason. The premise is an abandoned Victorian house that has been subject to an invasion of houseplants, reclaiming the space that they previously had to share with humans. So let us venture inside Monstera Mansion and see what we shall find…
Giant Houseplant Takeover
Walking under the monstrous Monstera, we find Epipremnum, aka devil’s ivy, entwining its way through the banisters. The hall telephone is swamped by a spider plant …
In the living room a game of chess played is being played by two variegated Swiss cheese plants; cacti and succulents are the chess pieces. A brightly flowered clivia rests flame-like in the fireplace.
The Giant Houseplant Takeover continues in the bedroom with a duvet of colourful bromeliads on a fourposter bed.
And in the kitchen carnivorous plants, in this case, pitcher plants, hang alongside copper pans. A nod to those who like meat with their vegetables, perhaps?
A bottle of champagne explodes with bubbling pearl plants – but don’t sit down in shock as the chairs have been taken over by pincushion cacti and aloe.
Need a quick shower to cool off? Forget it – the staghorn fern got there first…
Could Houseplants Takeover Your Home?
All in all a deliciously quirky exhibition from the huge banana plant breaking through the roof to palms lounging in a chair by the fireplace. Definitely inspirational, and practical too, showing us which plants would be happy in lower light levels, in damper conditions and so on. The Giant Houseplant Takeover was highly enjoyable. If you got there in person, I hope this has reminded you of the fun. And if you couldn’t make it, I hope the photos have nevertheless made you feel you might like to try something a little different.
Houseplants have become increasingly popular in recent years, for various reasons, including the younger urban generation living in rental accommodation, often flats with little or no outside space. But perhaps the need to nuture lies deep within the majority of us, and we only have to flex our fingers to find that they are a little bit green like Grandma’s after all…
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