Houseplant Gift Trends

Tastes change and new varieties last longer, says Peter

- Peter Seabrook

WEeare just a fortnight away from Mothering Sunday when literally millions of houseplants will change hands. Traditionally, they would be the flowering kinds, but the current trend nowadays is very much for low maintenance succulents.

Every now and then, a letter will arrive from a reader with news of a flowering houseplant of great age. Recently, a 60-year-old cyclamen and a 100-year-old Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera) turned up, the date confirmed by the original arrival of a gift, or (in the case of the cyclamen) a raffle prize at a specific event. I have to wonder whether the Schlumbergera was the original plant or pads rooted from it over the years, but we will never know.