A plant-lover has spent 20,000 pounds ($26,000) on turning his home into an indoor jungle complete with 3,000 plants.
Jonny Balchandani, 34, has slowly been transforming his home for the last decade after falling in love with nature and plants. His five-bed home in Castlemorton, Malvern, England, has been taken over by indoor plants, with over 3,000 from all over the world filling up the home.
“As I was growing up, my mother had a mixture of outdoor and indoor plants and was passionate about gardening, so I’ve always been surrounded by nature,” said Jonny. “The hallway and two of the rooms are now filled to the brim with plants; it looks like a jungle!”
Jonny, who works as a marketing director, shares his home with partner Charlotte Newman, 33, and two children: Phoenix, 3, and Talulah, 2. His passion has cost him thousands, with one rare variegated Monstera adansonii, commonly known as Swiss cheese plant, costing him 850 pounds ($1,100) alone.
“I source plants from sellers and growers internationally; there are quite a few from Indonesia and South America,” he said. "My favorite plant in the collection has to be the Florida ghost plant.
“The feedback I get is heartwarming. People will often say I’m living their dream and it inspires people to try and make something similar.”
Jonny shares that it takes enough care to maintain all these plants. He spends a couple of hours spraying the plants with pesticides, checking the humidity levels, checking the propagations in the greenhouse, and removing dead foliage.
“The jungle is continuing to grow every week!” he said. “I’m hoping to build an extension that is a greenhouse so I can store even more plants.”
Charlotte has learned to accept his plant obsession, but he claims she was “overwhelmed” when first seeing the number of plants.
“She’s very patient with me. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but she knows I’m quite eccentric so she’s half given up and half accepted it,” Jonny said.
“I'd love to pass this down to my children one day.
“The collection is worth a lot of money and I can’t look after it forever, so I'd love for them to take over and have the same passion that I do.”
