How Houseplants Became a Victorian Era Status Symbol

Grand gables, ornate architectural design and overstuffed parlors—few periods did maximalism quite like the Victorian era. Between 1837 and 1901, during Queen Victoria’s reign, the well-to-do filled their homes with every flourish they could afford, including houseplants. These indoor gardens weren’t just decoration—they were living proof of wealth, leisure and emblematic of the British empire’s colonial expansion. Here’s how the not-so-humble houseplant became the must-have decor in Victorian homes.

The practice of keeping houseplants dates back thousands of years. Ancient Romans kept plants in terracotta pots, which were were brought into a shed during the winter months, says Patrick Ford, reference and cataloging librarian at the Lloyd Library & Museum. 

Though best known for their outdoor gardens, the ancient Egyptians also brought potted plants indoors at least 5,000 years ago. And the ancient Chinese likely grew plants using indoor containers more than 3,000 years ago. Other ancient civilizations brought potted flowering plants indoors, not only so their beauty could be enjoyed, but also to help mask the smells of everyday life. 

"It was in the 17th and especially the 18th century, though, that we started to see gardening books and plants—specifically, potted plants—showing up a bit more frequently within the home,” says Lindsay Wells, an instructor in the architecture and interior design program at University of California, Los Angeles. But it wasn't until the 19th century that the widespread display of ornamental plants within the home took off in Europe and then the United States, she says.

During the imperial era of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Western European countries with colonies were in a constant search for natural resources. “Ultimately, they were interested in plant life that could potentially make them money,” Ford says. “They were thinking, ‘How can we discover the next sugar or the cotton, or the next banana or coffee bean?’ They were always looking for the next thing.”

Scientists also got involved in these expeditions to document the flora on the lands they were colonizing, and to send plants back either to study or sell. “Really rich people wanted these exotic, very obscure plants to show off as a sign of status,” Ford says. But prior to the 1830s, many of these plants didn’t survive the journey back to Europe because they were packed into wooden crates unsuitable for living things, leading to a loss of roughly 80 percent of the plants, Ford estimates.  Then in 1833, British doctor and amateur naturalist Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward designed a wooden container with glass sides that kept plants alive by controlling the temperature and humidity—known as a Wardian case. “That changed everything, and allowed all manner of plants to be shipped alive everywhere in the world,” Ford says. “That really gives birth to the Victorian plant craze.”

Horticulture was becoming more democratic, Wells says. Victorian women in particular played an instrumental role in defining indoor gardening, making the case that growing plants was a branch of horticulture just as legitimate as grand scale landscape design. "Women had been encouraged to study botany, especially since the 18th century, and part of that goes into the long-standing cultural associations between women and nature within the Western culture,” she explains.

The 19th-century also saw a shift in horticultural publications aimed at a broader audience. Gardening magazines and newspapers began encouraging people of all ages and genders to try ornamental gardening, no matter their budget. Several 19th century women became prominent voices in the emerging horticultural press space, like Jane Loudon and Elizabeth Maling, who wrote about houseplant cultivation.

At the same time, the populations of both Great Britain and the United States were migrating from rural areas to rapidly industrializing urban centers, where there typically wasn’t space for an outdoor garden—and even if there was, the polluted air would be harmful to plants. Thanks to indoor technologies, they now had the ability to continue gardening in this new setting.

European scientists also came to understand photosynthesis in the 18th century. It didn’t take long for the idea that plants take carbon dioxide from the air and release oxygen to catch on. “By the early 19th century, both in the United States and in the UK, the cultivation of houseplants in your home was billed as a very healthful activity,” says Wells. 

Houseplants fit right into the Victorian “more is more” aesthetic, which featured busy patterns, dark wood, intricately carved furniture and ornamentation wherever possible. “Having a terrarium in your window sill, or a window stand, or a jardiniere, were all really popular interior design accessories of the 19th century,” Wells notes. “Additionally, botanical prints of all sorts, on wallpapers and textiles were everywhere in Victorian interiors.” People even collected ferns, which were incredibly popular with the Victorians during a craze known as “pteridomania,” or fern fever.

The rarer or more difficult a plant was to grow, the greater its value as a status symbol. Houseplants became a form of signaling that a person had the leisure time and money to cultivate rare tropical species that required specialized equipment. The epitome of that was the orchid. “Often you needed some sort of specialized glass house to maintain the proper temperature and growing conditions,” Wells says. Orchids were more difficult for plant hunters to acquire abroad and propagate, so they were more expensive, she explains. This exclusivity gave rise to another craze known as “orchidelirium” or “orchidomania.”

Eventually, the cost of ornamental plants came down and people of all social classes could participate in the Victorian houseplant trend. “Even people of the working class were able to afford things like pelargoniums and geraniums,” Wells explains.

By the late 1890s, people were looking at some of the fads of the 19th century—including houseplants—as outdated or old-fashioned. “If you read gardening books and magazines in the late 1890s or the first decade of the 1900s, you will see people talking about the trends of Victorian houseplant horticulture as a has-been,” Wells says.

Not only were houseplants no longer the symbols of status they once were, but having a parlor or conservatory filled with potted palms, crawling vines and orchids didn’t mesh with the changing aesthetics of the time. As minimalist aesthetics took over home design, people became more interested in the sculptural nature of a single plant or a few plants, Ford explains. Succulents, which tend to be more geometric in shape, and therefore aligned more with modern art, remained popular for the first few decades of the 20th century.