Emily’s Houseplant Diary: The First Real Feeling of Autumn

23 October 2026

I have been wanting to start a little weekly diary on the blog, and today feels like a good day to begin.

We share plenty of advice about caring for individual plants, but there is so much that happens between those guides. The everyday business of looking after our own collection, finding room for something that has grown rather bigger than expected, deciding what to stock and occasionally admitting that a plant has got the better of us.

I wanted somewhere to share those things, along with a little of our life behind Happy Houseplants. Growing plants in our London home gives us plenty to talk about, especially when the seasons change.

So this will be a weekly catch up from me, with whatever we are doing with our plants, a few things you might find useful for yours and a little news from behind the scenes. I hope it becomes a familiar place to visit, whether you have a house full of plants or just a few favourites on a windowsill.

A proper autumn day

Today is the first day that has felt truly autumnal to me. The evenings have been getting colder, the heating is on, and we are beginning to settle into the idea that summer really has finished.

We are off for a walk in Hampstead later, followed by a stop at the Holly Bush for a coffee or a hot chocolate. Possibly a glass of wine. We have not quite decided how autumnal we intend to be.

It feels like a good day to get outside and enjoy the season, especially with so much going on at work. We are already deep in Black Friday and Christmas planning, so a few hours walking around Hampstead will be very welcome.

First, though, there are plants to sort out.

A little clearing out

We have been having a clear out of a few plants that are past their best. Some, frankly, are beyond hope.

I wanted to mention this in the first diary because it happens to us too. We spend our days working with plants, grow them at home and put a lot of thought into their care, but we still lose some.

There is a point when you have to look at a plant and decide whether it is recovering or whether you are just keeping it because you feel you ought to. That is not always an easy distinction, particularly with something you have had for a long time.

We give things a chance, but a few have reached the end this week. I do not think there is much kindness to yourself in keeping a collection of pots that only make you feel you have failed.

Sometimes a plant has not suited the conditions. Sometimes we have got something wrong. It is all part of growing things, and there is usually something to learn, even if the lesson is simply that a particular plant is not for us.

The space is useful too, because the plants that have been outside for summer are coming back indoors.

Bringing the summer plants home

Our succulents and cacti have been doing particularly well outside, along with the begonias and rhipsalis. They have thrived through the hot, dry summer, although we have certainly kept up with the watering.

It is lovely to see them doing so well. It also presents a fairly obvious problem when you try to fit them back into the house. The plants have grown. The available space has not.

Clearing out a few things has helped, but there is still a good deal of moving pots around and working out where everything can go. A plant that fitted comfortably in one place before summer can come back looking as though it needs a shelf of its own.

Before they settle back among the indoor plants, we are giving them a check for pests, including underneath the leaves and around the pots. It is worth taking a little time over that before everything is gathered together again.

I do like having them back inside. We get to enjoy them more closely, and all that summer growth becomes part of the house. Finding room for it is another matter, but it is a nice problem to have.

Closer to the windows, away from the radiators

We have also started moving plants closer to the windows to make the most of the daylight as the days get shorter.

This is one of the biggest seasonal changes for our plants here in London. A position that has been perfectly good through summer can become quite dark in autumn, particularly further back in a room.

Even a small move towards the window can give a plant more of the light it needs through the coming months.

Of course, the radiators are now putting out plenty of warmth as the evenings get colder, so we are doing the usual juggling around those too. Just when you find a lovely bright position, you realise it is directly above the heating.

We are trying to keep plants in good light without leaving their leaves in a blast of hot air or pressed against cold window glass. It sounds straightforward written down. With a house full of plants, it takes a little more arranging.

It is fun, stressful and, frankly, a full time job.

Watering is changing as well. Some pots are staying damp for longer, while others dry out more quickly in a warm room. We are checking the compost rather than carrying on automatically with the summer routine.

If you do one thing with your plants this week, have a look at what has changed around them. Has the heating come on beneath one? Is another now sitting in a corner that barely gets any daylight? A small adjustment now can help as we head towards winter.

What makes it into the shop

On the business side, we are juggling Black Friday planning alongside Christmas, while always keeping an eye out for plants that might catch your attention.

There is plenty to tempt us. Something appears online, people start talking about it, and naturally we want to take a closer look. Finding plants for the shop is an enjoyable part of what we do, but we have learned to be quite particular.

Simple, easy care plants keep winning out. They are often the ones that give people the most pleasure, because they settle into a home and get on with growing.

Whenever we are considering stocking a plant, we like to grow it ourselves for at least several months to see how it behaves in a UK home. I want us to be able to recommend it from experience.

That means living with it beyond the first few lovely weeks. Seeing how much attention it needs, how it responds to our conditions and whether it still looks good once it has properly settled in.

Quite a few plants never make the grade.

Some are beautiful, but they need conditions that most of us would struggle to provide at home. Others seem happy at first and become much more demanding as the light changes.

A plant thriving in a bright California home can have a very different experience through the short winter days here in the UK. We have to keep that in mind, however lovely it looks in a photograph.

There will always be people who enjoy the challenge of something more demanding, and I understand the appeal. But we avoid stocking the real drama queens. We want you to enjoy your plants, and we need to feel confident about what we are sending you.

Those months of growing something ourselves help us make that decision. It is one of the parts of the business that takes time, but I would not want to rush it.

A little tropical life indoors

On a personal front, we are loving our aquarium.

It is bringing a real tropical feel indoors, which is especially lovely now that everything outside feels more autumnal. With the houseplants coming back in around it, we have plenty of greenery to enjoy through the colder months.

The aquarium is still growing in, and we will share more as it develops. It is something we are really enjoying, and I am looking forward to including it here alongside the plants.

A few things for this week

If you are doing a similar autumn shuffle at home, these are the things I would make time for:

• Check any tender plants still outside. Bring them in before nights become too cold for them, and look over the leaves and pots for pests.

• Make the most of the daylight. See whether plants further into the room would benefit from moving closer to a window.

• Check where the heat is going. Keep foliage away from radiators and other direct sources of heat.

• Feel the compost before watering. Your plants may be drying out at a different pace now.

• Be realistic about struggling plants. Some are worth persevering with, but you do not have to keep every plant forever.

Mostly, this week has been about making room and helping everything settle into the next season. There is still plenty to do, but the plants that have enjoyed their summer outside are a lovely reminder of what has gone well.

I hope you have enjoyed this first little look behind the scenes. Next week, I will be back with whatever we have been growing, doing and discovering.

For now, we are off to Hampstead. The remaining pots can wait until we get home.

Emily x