bring summer indoors

It’s summer and within the space of a week we are expected to go from heat wave to thunder and from blue skies to grey. Nobody is really surprised thanks to the vagaries of the British weather, which does at least provide us with a lot to talk about.

What it doesn’t do is leave us with is much opportunity to sit outside, which brings us to an trend for bringing the garden indoors.

While it’s being flagged up as a fashion right now, fabrics, wallpaper and textiles have always reflected our love of gardens, it’s just that now there’s a fresh, contemporary twist.

My favourite is Sanderson’s new Potting Room collection. It’s inspired by greenhouses, vegetable plots, wildflower gardens, foliage and farmer’s markets. Pictured above is The Allotment wallpaper in fennel, £49 a roll. It taps into a deep-seated “grown your own” desire that many of us hold. Check out sanderson-uk.com for stockists.

This paper would look perfect in a boot room, garden room or on one wall of the sitting room dressed with real plants, of course.

A ladder shelf full of potted ferns, aspidistra and snake plants - better known as mother in law’s tongue - against this paper would work wonderfully. A single pot holding a weeping fig or palm tree would look equally good, as would a retro planter on legs.

The plants mentioned above are all relatively easy to keep and are also good for your health. A study by NASA found that plants neutralise the chemicals found in furniture, household products and decorating materials.

If you are looking for more ideas on which flowers and foliage to keep and how and where to display them, Urban Jungle - Living and styling with plants by Igor Josifovic and Judith de Graaf is an excellent read and has inspiring pictures of rooms filled with everything from conventional pot plants to air plants and bottle gardens. It is published by Callwey. There’s also a blog, urbanjunglebloggers.com, which features a very creative community of plant lovers from across the globe.

If you have the opposite of green fingers then there are lots of very convincing fakes. Sainsbury’s has a good and inexpensive selection of faux flowers in pots and vases some of them are on offer at the moment, with 25 per cent off.

Another way of introducing plant life is to frame colourful botanical prints - preferably beautiful, antique lithographs. You can find these on eBay, Etsy.com, Folksy.com.

You can also frame floral fabric or simply hang as a panel or curtains. Ikea has a good selection of cottons or for something extra special see artist Angie Lewin’s fabrics and cushions on Stjudes.co.uk

*Best plants for health

Indoor plants with many health benefits include the Spider plant, which combats carbon monoxide, xylene and formaldehyde; the English Ivy, which reduces airborne fecal-matter particles, making it perfect for bathrooms; the Chrysanthemum, which tackles a host of chemicals; the Barberton daisy reduces trichloroethylene, a chemical used in dry cleaning, and the Weeping fig fights formaldehydeand toluene, found in furniture and also smoke from woodburners.