09 December 2020

By Natasha Goodfellow - writer, editor, plant lover and new contributor to Planted’s editorial team. Natasha writes regularly for Garden Illustrated, Elle Decoration and Country Life among others.

Biophilia is the term describing our innate connection with nature and natural environments and processes. It makes perfect sense, we are after all animals, who evolved over thousands of years with nature. Until around 1850 – not so long ago in the scheme of evolution – most of the population of Britain was rural. We would have lived surrounded by fields, woods and birdsong. We would have been acutely aware of the changing of the seasons, of the welfare of our livestock and the state of our water sources, and we would have depended on farming or its outputs – be that cloth, timber or grain – for our livelihood. Harvest was not just a festival, but a key indicator of the economic promise of the year to come.

That we have lost this connection is undeniable but, to my mind, the argument for rekindling it focuses too often on the need for us to be surrounded by nature, for us to bring plants into our homes and our offices; for us to green the walls of our buildings and to create pocket parks in unused areas of land. Don’t get me wrong – all of these things are both highly desirable and hugely beneficial. We are losing biodiversity at an alarming rate and need to turn the tide. Green walls and planted areas in cities reduce pollution, noise and urban temperatures. Indoor plants clean the air, improve our mood and increase our productivity or rate of learning. Studies prove that exposure to nature reduces stress levels and improves our wellbeing. And we know that having greenery indoors in hospitals and other medical settings not only increases our pain threshold but that we recover more quickly from illness when we can see nature around us.

But as we continue the good work of greening our cities, I’d like us to also remember that nature is not just something we need around us – we too are part of it. I’d like to see us affording ourselves the same basic conditions as we afford our plants, namely food, water, shelter and that essential but all too often forgotten ingredient: light.

So many of us have spent much of our working lives in offices with little or no natural light. Pre-covid, we used to hurry from home to tube to office and back again, only rarely seeing daylight, never in winter. Now, as many of us work from home, perhaps the situation is somewhat better, but it is still likely to be far from ideal. As a journalist who has spent more than my fair share of time working in basements, I feel a visceral need for light. My flat has large windows and is gloriously bright in the mornings but, because it faces north-east, even by lunchtime the light is fading. I feel myself leaning towards it, yearning for it – going to stand by the window when I talk on the phone in an effort to catch every last ray. In truth, it’s sometimes hard to get near the windows for the number of plants squatting there. They have the best spots, the brightest light. They are fussed over and turned with a care we seldom show to ourselves.

We are not plants – we do not photosynthesise, so surely we do not need light? Science says we do. Sunlight provides Vitamin D, which is essential for healthy bones, and boosts our mood. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a form of depression caused by a lack of sunlight, increases in northern latitudes where winter days are short. And yet so many of our buildings, particularly high-rise and suburban housing, have tiny windows out of all proportion with their facades. If greenhouses are optimised for plants, why not housing for humans? By not acknowledging and responding to our basic needs, we as a society are building homes in which we cannot hope to thrive.

So, as the shortest – and therefore darkest – day approaches, I’d like to make a plea to the architects of the future. Yes, let there be plants, but please; let there be light.

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