20 pledges: The plastic-free house plant and gardening brands I’ve found

Since self-isolating and working from home during this awful pandemic, I’ve not worn anything other than jumpers and an array of gym leggings.

With all this new found time on my hands, I reorganised my wardrobe and even found an old pair of trusty black Topshop leggings that are goodness knows how old – but they've happily become an added bonus to my new everyday wear.

I very much doubt I’m the only one who has found this to be my Monday to Sunday, every-single-day wardrobe either.

But what that means is I’m not buying clothes. I’ve obviously massively reduced my online shopping habit, not only for this pledge, but also to save for my wedding this year, that is now at risk of being postponed because of coronavirus.

Since we've all been working from home for more than three weeks, I realised I had more money left at this point of the month than I can ever remember having. And so, joyously, I’ve turned to spending a little of it on plants.

This was not only in a bid to help the thousands of nurseries and garden centres now at risk of throwing away an unimaginable amount of plants, since being forced to close, but it was also in order to cheer up my makeshift desk – aka my kitchen table.

First I bought some dried flowers to do exactly that. They’re neutral tones with a hint of blue to go in a beautiful vase from Morocco, which sits in front of me on my desk, and most importantly, they will last years. The bouquet came in nothing more than a cardboard box and were neatly held in place with two string ties and some extra protective pieces of cardboard. Not a cellophane wrapper in sight.

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I was most excited about my house plant though. I ordered a prayer plant, which is from the calathea family: these pretty plants have large, almost teardrop-shaped, leaves that come in varying colours, but what I loved most about the one from Beards & Daisies I chose was the pink vein running through the middle of the top of the leaf, as well as the whole pink underside of the leaf.

It reminds me of our wedding invites, which are firmly on hold – designed, but yet to be printed – which have similar pink and green plant design.

Of course though, I looked for a brand that cared about it’s packaging too. Beards & Dasies’s packing is 95 per cent recyclable. This also includes the packaging chips, which are made from starch and can dissolve in water.

My prayer plant came in a cardboard box, protective cardboard wrapping (which is all FSC certified) and compostable a “plastic” wrap which is used to keep the soil in.

We’ve also added to the garden too, and bought climber roses to brighten up the garden fence. David Austin’s roses now come in compostable packaging, made from potato starch, which I’ve not seen before. The protective bag can go on your compost or in your garden waste bin.

Although it’s still consumerism, I’ve found it’s less of the mindless consumerism of buying clothes to make myself feel good, that I was doing. It’s buying plants – albeit some dried – that will make the space I am now confined to look better, as I’ve never spent so much time inside my since being a child.

And these plants will last an awful lot longer than a season of fashion, as long as I can keep my houseplants alive, that is.