Potted History How Houseplants Took Over Our Homes

In this fascinating book we learned how potted plants are as much subject to fashion as pieces of furniture. For the Victorians, it was the aspidistra in the front parlor, the Edwardians loved a palm, and, for today’s millennials, no home is complete without the ubiquitous fiddle-leaf fig. This book show that there is little new when it comes to plants in the home. In the mid-18th century, Wedgwood created a market for special bulb pots and in the 1950s, some of Terence Conran’s earliest designs were for houseplant containers. Across the ages, the choice of potted plants has been influenced by the layout of houses, the levels of dirt and pollution and the equipment to hand. Now, with so much choice, we seem happy to treat houseplants as disposables. This book gives a better understanding of the miracles that were once achieved with indoor plant displays, inspired by Sir Hugh Platt’s 1608 vision of a garden ‘within doores’. This new edition has been revised with new material added to bring the history of the houseplant and its massive explosion in popularity right up to date.

Catherine Horwood is a social historian with a passion for plants and gardens. Her book, Beth Chatto: A Life with Plants (Pimpernel, 2019), was enthusiastically received. Fergus Garrett called it ‘a triumph ... beautifully crafted by an author who has thoroughly researched and understood her subject’ (Gardens Illustrated) while the Evening Standard chose it as ‘A Gardening Book of the Year’, saying it was ‘one of the most intimate gardening biographies yet written’.