Following on from my Instagram post last week about sharing plants with friends, I wanted to share with you a little tour of my ‘plant-swapped’ plant collection.
As I mentioned in my post above, there’s something so special about sharing plants and/or cuttings that have belonged to plants of yours, or those of friends. Each of these plants have connections that intrinsically create a link to situations or people, and is something I hadn’t really considered until last year. 2018 was definitely the year my plant swapping kicked off! Before this point, I had only really shared plants with family… splitting plants such as my nans aspidistra or pinching oxalis tubers from my relatives garden!
Receiving these succulent cuttings a few weeks ago from my (in real life) plant friend Peter got me thinking about the plants I have received from swaps since starting my Instagram page in August 2017. It also reminded me that I need to give Peter his string of hearts cuttings as my part of the ‘swap’ (sorry for the delay if you are reading this P!)
I thought I would get together my plant-swap plants for a group portrait (at the top of the post, and reproduced below for reference) and to take a moment to thank those I have swapped plants with. I also thought it would be nice to offer a little bit of context for each plant/person too.
From left to right:
In the propagation station are the cuttings you see above from Peter which are rooting nicely in water… still no roots on the succulent leaves yet (but this is always a slower process) / Next are some satin pothos cuttings I got from my plant gang friend Gareth which rooted beautifully and make up a lovely little plant…side note… I love plants this size! / Behind this is my monstera karstenianum from Sing I received off her in person after meeting up last Summer in Newcastle for the first time / Behind this is a marvellous minty cutting of Brad’s sanseveria moonshine, which has new growth appearing, albeit in a typically slow fashion (as most sanseveria’s do) / In front of this is a double whammy of plant friend appreciation as the Prick London pot was a present from Brad, and the marble queen pothos cuttings were from Fiona. They took a while to root but this has turned out to be one of my favourite plant/pot combinations in my whole apartment (and that’s saying something!) 
Behind this and to the right is another particularly special swap from Hillevi in Sweden after hearing I’d been looking for a cutting of a selenicereus chrysocardium (fern leaf cactus) for absolutely ages! Next to this is another cutting from the same swap; a selenicereus anthonyanus with crazy new growth. A close up of these two plants from December is above. I also had a bit of a hoya pubicalyx too (which I forgot to put in shot!)
Moving back down to the front in the turmeric coloured pot is an aloe I got from a baby plant from my friend in Spain, it was grown in the tiniest of cork plant pots, and has really flourished over the last few months. / Behind this is a sanseveria boncel plantlet from Joyce that arrived all the way from Germany along with the moonshine pup in the pot alongside it. These are both beautiful plants and I’m enjoying growing them very much, thank you Joyce! / In front of this is a cutting of a silver dollar vine – xerosicyos danguyi I got from my plant gang friend Justyna after meeting her in person in Oxford a few months ago. / The furthest on the right was one of my first swaps with Naterlee; an echeveria setosa which has grown so much!
As you will know if you have read HPH for a while, with my friends over at The Real Houseplants of Instagram have a plant swapping website set up by Brad called HOUSEPLANTSWAP where users can swap cuttings with fellow plant lovers online. The inspiration behind this site was to create a network that was not for profit and simply to connect those looking for cuttings or wanting to share theirs online. If you want to read a bit more about houseplantswap, I wrote a post on it here. We have received some lovely feedback since the site has been running, and we have also noticed plenty of real life ‘plant swaps’ popping up too. Two of our ‘Real Houseplants’ gang, Justyna and Gareth have an initiative in place in Oxford; OXFORD PLANT SWAP and as part of my business PLANT HAUS STUDIO, there are events in the pipeline for this Spring in South Wales. Since working in a plant shop and setting up PLANT HAUS STUDIO at the end of last year, I have been in contact with a much larger network of ‘plant people’, and so the plant swapping potential continues to grow.
If you are interested in plant swapping or events of this nature, please get in touch.
Thanks for reading!
Laura 🌿
HOUSEPLANTHOUSE 