The modern houseplant
Early in 2012 Marten felt that he’d taken flowers as far as he could.
Contemporary statements of glamorous stems in sculptural vases left him
cold. He longed to work with material which was “alive not dying”.
The idea of creating hip terrariums for the modern age had been knocking
around in his mind for a while. In the United States and Australia, indoor
gardens, terrariums and interior landscapes have been coming back into
fashion for a while. Exponents include the artist Paula Hayes, who makes
installations using glass vessels and plants. These, says Marten, “straddle
art, landscaping and product design”, while American companies like Slug
Squirrel make small terrariums from found glass objects.
There are also hints of a revival in Victorian interiors at the moment, with
fossils, natural history specimens and objects of “curiosity” in the mix.
Even “brown” furniture has been rehabilitated. It was hints and cues like
these which brought Hermetica London into being.
However, Marten still has to battle for hearts and minds. For all kinds of
reasons, many of us have given up growing indoor plants. It seems the
Seventies and early Eighties was the last time we thought seriously about
terrariums and houseplants. Back then, everyone aspired to have green plants
in their homes. It was a time of white-painted brick fireplaces with baskets
of ferns inside, or 6ft-high palms beside the open-tread pine staircase.
Large recycled glass demijohns planted with succulents or African violets
were a popular addition to stylish interior shots. Green plants worked with
the newly fashionable “country” look, all that pale wood, macrame pot
holders and Laura Ashley “spriggery”.
Marten’s many trips to Holland as a professional florist had showed him that
fantastic indoor plants are available, but many of them we never see in this
country, so sourcing good material can be hard. The one plant many people do
have indoors is the indestructible phalaenopsis orchid. Trouble is, as their
popularity has soared they have become too familiar. Offerings from the
British wholesale market are often dull, though a few garden centres are
more adventurous. For many gardeners, houseplants can also mean serious
guilt if they die slowly before our eyes, even if they cost less than a
bunch of flowers. We feel more comfortable with cut flowers, knowing that
they are bound to die and can be thrown out.
Marten gardens and knows his plants but he says there is a risk that
horticultural know-how can be inhibiting. “In a way, I need to forget what I
know about gardening and start again from scratch to free up the
possibilities,” he says. He thinks we should all be braver in our plant
choices and resist always buying the easy option: “Buy something beautiful
and delicate and exotic, be prepared for it to die eventually but enjoy it
for the time that you have it. You can always compost it if you feel guilty
when it has to go.”
A glass act
Originally terrariums came from a period when plant hunters transported living
specimens thousands of miles home. They provided a self-sustaining
mini-environment in which moisture created by the plants collected on the
inside surfaces of the glass and dripped down to replenish them. Wardian
cases (named after their inventor the botanist and entomologist Dr Nathaniel
Bagshaw Ward) became a way for wealthy Victorians to display plants indoors,
especially in cities where pollution made gardening difficult. It is
possible, but rare, to find examples of these at fairs and boot sales.
Fortunately, Marten has found a company still able to make glass terrariums.
Conveniently near to London, in Billericay, Essex, Glass from the Past will
be making containers for Marten’s projects and hosting workshops where
people can learn to make a terrarium.
“It’s a cube with a corner missing, basically. You see it as a cube but if you
just tilt it on its side it transforms it. It’s amazing how something so
simple can have such an entirely different effect. We’ll do a 7in cube for
the workshops so it’s easy to take home afterwards when it’s filled with
plants.”
Marten is also working with a designer to make a contemporary “Wardian case
with a twist”, including LED lighting. He says: “It will function as a table
but there will be a garden beneath you and you’ll be able to place it where
you wouldn’t normally put plants.”
Other ideas come from the possibilities offered by electronics and lighting.
These open the way for some extraordinary effects. Why not make a narrow
vertical display case or vitrine which doesn’t take up much space, planted
and hung on a wall? Ken wants to experiment with displays which shift with
time, slowly and almost imperceptibly, or maybe with faster-growing roots
suspended in a liquid medium that change almost daily. Who isn’t fascinated
by the roots of a hyacinth bulb growing into a glass jar?
Containers don’t have to be made for the job though, you just need an eye to
spot the potential of things you come across. For a recent window display in
London’s West End, Marten used groups of old laboratory glasses, bell jars
and flasks combined with small succulents, skeleton plant stems, fossils and
more, making an extraordinarily detailed still-life. It caused many a
preoccupied pavement-focused walker to stop and look up in wonderment at a
fragile natural world of living green, caught and surviving among the city
glass, steel and concrete.
View
some of Ken Marten’s terrariums in our gallery
Visit hermeticalondon.co.uk.
Follow @oscarsinteriors
on Twitter for news of a project with interior design shop Oscars.
Terrariums by Hermetica will be on show at the Garden Museum, London SE1,
from April 8 in the Floriculture exhibition (Feb 14-April 28). Ken Marten
will speak at an evening event on April 12. For tickets see gardenmuseum.org.uk.
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