Episode 324: A letter to my 12-year-old houseplant self
Photograph: Jack Orton
Transcript
[0:07] Dear Jane, it's Jane here, your own good self checking in from four decades in the future.
[0:17] Yes, I made it to our 50s. Did we make it as a journalist? Yes, we did. I ended up doing the job we first set our heart on aged about six when we saw our name on a one-line theatre review in the typed out pages of the school magazine. Am I still into houseplants? Yes, of course. The funny thing is our passion for houseplants, the thing that you, I mean I, love, is going to merge with our chosen career in amazing ways that you currently can't comprehend.
[1:03] I know you've moved house recently. I hope you're looking after the grapefruit tree you grew from a pip at Brownies. Whatever you do don't let dad prune it. It's funny everyone now who wasn't alive in the 70s and 80s thinks macrame hangers were everywhere but we never had any did we? No way dad was going to put hooks in the ceiling. Nope in 1986 it was all about the copper. Copper plant pans being a particular favourite. There was a lot of time spent polishing copper kettles and miners lamps with that scrap of scratchy cotton wadding dosed in Brasso. Hang on to those copper pans though, they really are something and they're worth something too now. And don't get rid of all those grape ivies because they're going to get increasingly hard to get hold of as the decades go by. And please, please take more photos of your plants. I've forgotten so much and I'd love to see what you were growing. 52 year old me really wishes I could remember more.
[2:17] Oh, and talking about dad, he is at some point soon going to bring home a massive old fish tank from God knows where. A word of advice from your older self. Please go to Woolworths and buy some proper house plant soil. It really will be worth it. And it's not cute having to look at those giant earthworms tapping on the glass. Now at some point in the next few months or years you're going to spill a load of damp compost on your bedroom carpet, please please don't cover it over because you're worried about being told off get some help get it cleaned up it will be okay i promise and if it's any comfort in, 1986 you probably killed some plants and here in 2026, I definitely killed some plants so don't worry it's all part of the process and when it comes to your plant collection it's quality not quantity that matters.
[3:28] Now I know you love the house plant expert by David Hessayon on your plant bible, I've still got it and I'm looking back I can see that you've circled the dracaena and written bottle garden in capital letters next to it. I can't remember was that because you'd put one in a bottle garden or you wanted to? Either way it's going to outgrow that thing very quickly so you might want to give that a rethink. Today we mostly call plants under glass terrariums although weirdly non-houseplant people often seem to call them terraniums.
[4:08] Anyway, terrariums are big business now. We've got specially made glass containers and not many people use those really annoying narrow necked cowboy bottles anymore. So you don't have to have little tools attached to chopsticks to plant them up. You fell out of love with terrariums for a long time, but now you're getting back into them. And I've got a fish tank full of plants in my office that once held our children's goldfish. Yes you have kids don't worry they turned out great.
[4:43] You know those caladiums in the book, the angel wing plants with the colourful tracing paper thin leaves you keep admiring? A few years from now, you're going to live in Louisiana, in the deep south of the US, and see these plants growing as summer bedding outside, and it's going to blow your mind, and make you think about where the plants you grow indoors really belong. In your 20s, you won't have many plants, but trust me, you won't forget the names or the plants. And when you get your own place in your 20s, it starts again with a Hoyer Crimson Queen, which I still have, incidentally.
[5:29] Here's a crazy fact we are going to meet Dr David Hesseon, the houseplant expert in 2013 at the Garden Media Guild Awards when you pick up an award on behalf of your colleague at the Guardian Alys Fowler, sadly I was too shy to tell him how much his books mean to us, his speech was kind of sad he didn't think there was a future for horticultural experts he said the internet was killing off garden reference books, well kinda Dr H, kinda, but there are so many other ways to learn and connect with other houseplant growers in 2026, I know you feel alone in your hobby right now, but trust me, you will find your people. Don't listen to the teacher at school who tells you that you're no good at public speaking. It's just a question of practice and confidence.
[6:33] Oh, and there's one thing I forgot to tell you. You get to be a published author three times over. And one of those books is about houseplants. It's about 25 iconic houseplants, including lots of your current favourites. Plus a couple you won't yet have heard of because they just aren't around in the 80s. The Fiddle Leaf Fig and the ZZ Plant. But trust me, they're going to be really big. Oh, and I better warn you, you're going to find out some pretty dark stuff about one of the plants in your book, Diefenbachia.
[7:13] Right, well that's it, there's lots more I could say, but I guess you're going to have to find out for yourself. I guess what I am saying is, keep going with the plant stuff, it's not a waste of time. It will take you places you can't yet imagine. Give Ned, the Irish Terrier, a cuddle from me and try to have more fun. You weren't too hot.
[7:56] I do hope you enjoyed that. Something a bit different from last week's Miniature Rose episode.
[8:04] I would love to know what you would say to your childhood houseplant self or maybe to, your beginner houseplant self during the COVID pandemic or 10 years ago or 15 years ago. I want to hear your letters to your previous houseplant selves. So do record something. Drop me an email. Make a comment on Spotify. What would you like to go back in time and warn yourself about or encourage yourself? I'd love to know.
'Dear Jane ... it's Jane here, your own good self checking in from four decades in the future.'
If you could talk to yourself when you first started growing houseplants, what would you say?
CREDITS
This week's show featured Whistle by BenJamin Banger (@benjaminbanger on Insta; website benjaminbanger.com) and The Road We Used to Travel When We Were Kids by Komiku.