It is widely accepted that having plants indoors is beneficial to our health. Surrounding ourselves with flora and foliage brings a little of what we love about nature into our spaces, which is perhaps why many of us relied on nature to bring a sense of calm into our lives during the pandemic lockdowns, when houseplants and indoor gardening experienced a wild boom. Indoor forests and micro-greens bought the garden indoors and provided kitchen greens and superfoods. The trusty succulent and the good old terrarium had the advantage of being both decorative and low maintenance. But what if you would like to combine the diligence of tending to a small outdoor garden, with the convenience indoor plants offer? Consider the desk meadow.
Picture a wildflower meadow: the romantic, colourful, slightly untamed scene is immediately joyful. Wouldn't it be nice to bring a little of that joy inside with your very own desktop mini-meadow? It's not a window box, not a houseplant, but a tiny, seeded patch.
We came across the idea thanks to Pith, a sustainable notebook company known for sending out a small packet of mixed seeds with each purchase. The idea accompanied their WE PLANT, YOU PLANT project where for each sketchbook bought they’d donate a portion of the profits to planting and rewilding projects. ‘We wanted to share a tangible connection with the project by providing seeds for you to plant your own desk meadow, introducing a slice of British native flora into your workspace or home,’ says co-founder Liam Goward.
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It's true, a desk meadow is not quite as low-maintenance as a succulent or terrarium, but growing from seed at your humble home office desk might scratch your itch to garden, while fulfilling a desire for more analogue rituals. It introduces a sense of unpredictability, surprise and delight – the thrill of the first green shoot! – into a place typically governed by schedules, screens and monotonous repetition.
So how do you actually do it? It is essentially growing a mix of grasses and flowers from seed in a container. Our garden editor Clare Foster and the Royal Horticultural Society have plenty of useful advice on growing plants from seed, though since you are growing your meadow on your desk or a table indoors, rather than outdoors, there are a few additional things to consider. RHS Chief Horticulturist Guy Barter reminds us that ‘light and warmth is what seeds need'.
'My desk is by a window with a heated pad for seeds on the windowsill, but if you don't have any space on your window sills, an LED propagator should work well,’ he says.
There are also practical realities and limits that must be acknowledged. Once shoots begin to emerge, lack of light may result in ‘weedy elongated seedlings and potential for damping off, [a fungal disease that causes seedlings to collapse]’ Guy warns.
Keeping seedlings well ventilated near windows can help. Yes, there are weeds, short flowering seasons and myriad potential inconveniences, but in the end they actually provide a direct connection to how gardening happens outside. It's the sense of risk and reward that facilitates the connection to the natural environment we crave more and more.
For those lacking in green space, the desk meadow can be a rewarding and meaningful alternative. At this scale, it becomes less about expanses of space and more about careful attention and the opportunity to take delight in small things. If the modern desk can often feel designed for frictionless efficiency, the idea of indoor gardening with a ‘desk meadow’ is a welcome injection of life.
