Human beings have been bringing flowers indoors as long as human civilisation has existed, and probably as long as human beings have existed. Is it reaction to having distanced ourselves from the natural world by living in houses, and collections of houses, that we seek to reestablish a connection with nature in this way? There are children in inner cities who have never seen woodland or the sea. A childhood friend of my son thought that sausages ‘come from pigs’ in the way milk ‘comes from cows’.

But even hunter-gatherers adorn their bodies and their dwellings with flowers and fragrant plants, celebrating their colour and scent, and offering this beauty in sacred ceremonies to the familiar spirits that share their lives. In the absence of living reciprocal relationships with plants in their own habitat, we cultivate domesticated companion plants inside our own homes.

We design ornamental gardens, and we bring flowers as gifts. Like our ancestors, we use arrangements of flowers symbolically to mark the sacraments of marriage and death, and to consecrate places of worship.

The subjects of this section are plants that I have either grown as houseplants, or have been gifted by visitors or to mark a birthday or other personal event. Some, such as the dahlias and chrysanthemums, came from the gardens of green-fingered friends; others arrived on my doorstep as part of a Mother’s Day bouquet.