Houseplants wilting? Insider tips on how to keep them healthy and alive all year round

Houseplants wilting? Insider tips on how to keep them healthy and alive all year round

Lockdown restrictions may have ended across England, but thousands of people have emerged with a newfound love of indoor gardening. Keeping our plants alive, however, isn't as easy as it may look. If booming indoor plants sales over the past year are anything to go by, the sector has risen in popularity as a result of increased isolation, social media-led design trends and, as many experts suggest, a new-found millennial desire to have something to nurture and care for. Google searches for 'house plants' increased by an astonishing 84 per cent between February and April last year, rising from 360,080 to 663,980 monthly searches, while Flower Card , an online card business specialising in floral design, reports that several houseplants have reached more than 400,000 tags on social media in 2021, namely the Swiss cheese plant and Chinese money plant. Some businesses like Rocket Gardens in Helston saw sales increase by 600 per cent since the first lockdown began and has been posting plants to destinations across the UK; that's a total of 20,000 gardens, vegetable patches, allotments and window boxes in cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and London. "I'm not surprised that houseplants are popular throughout this time,"