I never had the luxury of a garden. I grew up surrounded by concrete, first in east London and then in Lagos, Nigeria. My cousins had cultivated a mini fruit orchard in their garden: a guava tree, plus tamarind, agbalumo and soursop. I learned to suck the sweet nectar out of the red hibiscus flowers that lined their drive. But I didn’t grow up green-fingered. Not even a houseplant, and only sometimes cut flowers. With no evidence either way, I believed myself to be black-thumbed. But that was before I moved into my first solo flat in Hackney and inherited an unkillable devil’s ivy plant. I started listening to Gardeners’ Question Time on Radio 4. I attended the Chelsea flower show. I learned how to prune. Well, I snipped a lot and hoped for the best. Reader, I loved that plant. For more than four years, we nurtured one another.
I moved again a couple of months ago. I’m at five houseplants now, and none has died yet. My pride and joy is a peace lily, which I repotted a few weeks back, but there are a couple of hardy succulents in the mix, and a delicate coffee plant that threatens death every few days. My obsessive care for them reminded me of one of those odd 90s romantic comedies. Remember Green Card, starring Andie MacDowell and Gérard Depardieu? She was an obsessive horticulturalist, he was a shambolic French waiter. And it was a sham marriage. Naturally, they fell in (real) love. Did you know it was Oscar-nominated? Man, romcoms were different in the 1990s.
There are (currently) no Frenchmen in my apartment, but my snake plant is the picture of health. We’re very happy, thanks for asking.
