Rose
Lawson

What do you do for work?

I’ve been a florist for 15 years and own a small business from home making closed terrariums. It’s the best!

What sprouted your interest in plants?

When I was young my grandfather ran the café in Begonia House at Wellington Botanic Gardens, so I spent a lot of time in the glasshouse there. I’ve loved plants and flowers for as long as I can remember. My first plant was a potted passionfruit I had when I lived in Dunedin. It was really hard to keep alive in the cold, but the flowers were incredible.

Do you have a favourite?

Any kind of passiflora plant because the flowers are so intricate and amazing. I also love carnivorous plants and the amazing rafflesia flower.

What’s your most unique plant?

I’d say my stapelia collection. The flowers are pollinated by flies so they look very alien and smell like rotting meat to attract pollinators. So weird and interesting!

Katherine Beauchamp

What do you do for work?

I am co-owner of Palmers Miramar.

What sprouted your interest in plants?

I became interested in my first year of college, which was also the year that Wellington East pulled down their horticultural greenhouses. I remember being disappointed about that – it sounded cool that you could be learning outside instead of inside the classroom. My parents also had a really big garden in Island Bay and it was definitely expected that on the weekends I would be outside!

Do you have a favourite?

Probably the aspidistra, the cast iron plant. They’re quite hard to get now, but my mum had a really big one and now I’ve got lots down the side of the house. I like them because they’ll tolerate hot, dry, low light… little care. The foliage is broad and slightly curling, so they’re not that showy, just quite staunch. They grow slowly so you can just leave it alone. The flowers are really cool and look like sea anemone, it’s amazing!

What’s your most unique plant?

I regret not bringing a calathea home that my colleague rescued from the waste management bin at work and then kept in the staffroom. You’d think that the staffroom of a garden centre would be the best place for plant recovery, but you’d be wrong. We would all look at it and think ‘I won’t water it because someone else will water it’ or ‘I won’t because I’ll get told off’, and then you watch it slowly deteriorate. Except for this one, which has now come back and looks amazing. It’s even made its way back onto the shop floor!

Danielle
Harty

What do you do for work?

I work in construction doing exterior concrete panelling.

What sprouted your interest in plants?

I suppose you could say it runs in the family. My mum and granny both have huge outdoor gardens. I’ve always had a few houseplants, but I started collecting more once I found the types I like and what works for me. Moving into a larger house with more space helped fuel the hobby, as did YouTube.

Do you have a favourite?

It’s hard to pick one – I love them all! I do love my pothos and heartleaf philodendrons, as they can trail or climb and are very low maintenance. I am currently covering an entire wall with heartleaf vines.

What’s your most unique plant?

I don’t have anything particularly rare; I think they are all unique in their own way. They all grow differently, even if they are the same type of plant; different patterns, variegation and leaf size. I think that’s what makes it so rewarding as a hobby, a new leaf unfurling is always exciting!

Jes
Maertz

What do you do for work?

I run preschool activities at the Porirua Arena.

Do you have a favourite plant?

My favourite is always changing. At the moment it would be my monstera. It’s a stunning beast and just keeps getting bigger and bigger! I also really love the plants that I’ve grown from a cutting from just a few leaves into something lush and gorgeous. It’s amazing to watch them grow from tiny babies.

What’s your most unique plant?

None of mine are particularly unique, though one of our biggest plants did have an interesting journey to get to us. It’s a huge dracaena (corn plant) that’s nearly up to the ceiling. The day that the first covid lockdown was announced, I had to rush from Porirua to Miramar to help my husband bring everything home from his office as he was travelling on a motorbike. I had no idea this would include huge plants. We managed to slide everything into the car sideways and the kids and I had a very funny leafy drive down the highway.