I left a houseplant outside, not because I didn’t know it was a houseplant – I had been told: “This will look nice in your kitchen” – but because I assumed plants were like rabbits: whether you called them indoor or outdoor, they always prefer to be in the garden. It sickened over time without my noticing, to the point where I had to send a picture of it to my sister. She said: “Yes, this is a houseplant, which you are killing,” then sent me an instructional video about how to rescue it.
As I was watching it, I couldn’t help noticing the timbre of her voice – Prue Leith levels of certainty and expertise with a Gregg Wallace can-do attitude – and the jungle of succulents on her table; tiny, creepy verdure bursting out of terraria – with the garden vying for attention through the window, full of … well, full of damn plants.
