Sonya Patel Ellis - The Modern Gardener: A Practical Guide to Houseplants, Herbs and Container Gardening

HarperCollinsPublishers

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2022

Copyright HarperCollinsPublishers 2022

FIRST EDITION

Sonya Patel Ellis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Text by Sonya Patel Ellis

Cover and interior designer by Gareth Butterworth

With design assistance from E-Digital Design

Picture research by Shifting Pixels, Gareth Butterworth and Sonya Patel Ellis

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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Note from the Publisher

The sections in this book on edible plants, as well as plant for beauty and health are intended to be strictly informational; they are not and should not be deemed to be medical opinion or medical advice. Any information given in this book is not intended to be taken as a replacement for medical advice. Any person with a medical condition should consult a qualified practitioner or therapist. The author and publisher expressly disclaim any responsibility for any effects arising from the advice, information, recipes, or treatments described in this book.

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Source ISBN: 978-0-00-849824-5

Ebook Edition February 2022 ISBN: 978-0-00-849825-2

Version 2022-01-21

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Personalize and inspire your own plant choices by connecting with your lifestyle, focus, and space, as well as more deeply and vitally with how nature works.

T he main premise of this book is the idea of choosing plants based on the parameters of your own life. Its about thoughtful, personalized planting that requires you to look more closely at factors such as time available for gardening, people or animals you share your space with, nature-inspired passions or pastimes, and the light and humidity within a particular room.

The focus is also on container plantsor species that can be planted in pots as well as in the groundas this provides scope for indoor and outdoor gardens, plus those increasingly inspiring areas in between such as conservatories, courtyards, and garden rooms. Being able to move your plants also allows for a seasonal reshuffle, or the creation of new vistas or productive yields.

Although it might seem as though youre limiting things at first, what youre actually doing is creating space for an ideal edit of plantsa selection that will provide you with exactly what you want or need: an ornamental garden that will grow with you, a houseplant family that will really thrive, or an edible garden that will reward in terms of a bountiful harvest.

Once youve established a workable visionyou want a low-maintenance, mainly ornamental garden for a semi-shady balcony, for exampleyou can start to layer up inspirations. This is the really fun part, taking cues from plant stores, a planting program, podcast or feed, or indeed the section in this book. Take your time and enjoy the process, creating a mood board, list of ideas, planting plan, or a simple hand-drawn design.

The main inspiration, of course, is nature itself. Choosing to connect with nature bridges the gap between prescriptive and intuitive gardening. Neither one is possible without a degree of understanding about how plants grow or what they are capable of, whether thats through the applied learning of planting principles, or a lifetime experiencing the sensory qualities or growth habits of plants. This could be through gardening or growing your own food, or activities such as walking in the park or countryside, cooking, art, or even the simple act of preparing and drinking herbal tea. Every interaction we have with a plant, from observing a rose to tasting a tomato or inhaling the aroma of rosemary or thyme, leaves us with a nature-inspired memory. This is how we connect with plants every day.

Modern gardening is simply about building on these connections with nature. We now know so much about plantsthrough thousands of years of recorded and shared botanical and horticultural knowledge and decades of modern sciencethat it makes sense to use these resources to help our gardens grow.

This doesnt mean using a plants care label in a one size fits all approach. Rather, we should learn to read between the lines of such guides before or as we take their advice. Why does a plant prefer sun or partial shade? What benefits come from misting once a week? Or how does a particular cultivar work as a container plant whereas another might be too big?

The is designed to furnish the reader with a comprehensive list of container plants for indoors and out. But it also invites the reader to go deeper into a plants backstory or narrative: Where does it come from? What is its natural habitat? How does it grow in the wild? How did it get here? How did it get its name?

Many houseplants hail from tropical rainforests, for example, where the natural climate is hot and wet, with little or no dry season. Some plants, such as Syngoniums , Calatheas , and Sansevierias , live in the partial shade of the forest floor. Others, such as philodendrons and devils ivy ( Epipremnum aureum ), climb around tree trunks and in canopies, where they may receive brighter, filtered light. Epiphytic plants, including orchids and bromeliads, attach themselves to rocks and trees, absorbing nutrients from organic debris that collects around roots, from the air or other water supplies.

All this information provides the basis for an optimum care routine. And while some plants, such as the cast-iron plant ( Aspidistra elatior ), are helpfully versatile or hard to kill, most require at least a semblance of the light, water, food, and space that they need to grow well.

The Personal Plant Selector is also a guide to observing plants, in the wild and at home. Its arranged by plant type (see .

The herb garden of your dreams, for instance, could be a south-facing terrace of sun-loving, drought-tolerant specimens such as lavender, rosemary, oregano, and thyme. Or it could be an indoor windowsill of cut-and-come-again basil and cilantro. Such plants could sit alongside potted-up edibles such as microgreens or lettuce.