You do realize the 70s are back, don’t you? At least in terms of design. This has been slowly dawning on me over time, as I’ve watched macrame come back (didn’t like it then, don’t care for it now,) ‘boho’ style take over (everyone I knew in the 70s was doing the bohemian thing, with baskets and exotic prints from India covering beds and sofas, hanging plants everywhere.) For those of us who were young adults in the 70s, none of this is new, but it is further proof that everything comes back at some point: in clothes design, in furniture design, in home design, even in car design.

Like many of you, I often peruse sites like Houzz and Design Sponge and Apartment Therapy. I find the ‘new’ trend to be not-so-new, but then again, in a way it is  new, with its own spin on that style of (cough) a few decades ago.

I swear I can smell the scent of patchouli oil somewhere.

I remember writing not so long ago of something I missed: the shops that seemed to be everywhere in that decade, full of houseplants. There was one just down the road from where I grew up and I spent hours there. Gradually, I filled my bedroom up with houseplants – hanging plants, plants on a white plant stand that I had, plants on the floor – they were everywhere. I would retreat to my room where I would tend to my plants and listen to music, a ritual I still enjoy.

(Not from the 70s, from the 80s, but you get my drift. This was my apartment in Cambridge. That sofa is still  with us.)

Lately, I’ve been following some houseplant enthusiasts on Instagram and many of them are youngish twenty or thirty-somethings. Here is another resurgence from the 70s – young people are crazy about houseplants! They collect them. They hang them in their windows. They do everything they can to find one particular plant. They worry about them, they lovingly nurture them. I love this. This is something from the 70s I can get behind! And there are small plant shops appearing here and there – not enough of them, but they’re out there.

I’m learning from these young ‘uns (can you tell I’m reading Jan Karon right now?) I’ve found a couple of plants via their IG posts that I want for my cottage. They’re taking great photos. They’re decorating around their houseplants. They’re publishing books about them – isn’t that lovely?

I’ve also found a few podcasts that I love, one from England by a longtime gardening writer who loves houseplants, one from Margaret Roach here in upstate New York (I’ve listened to her podcast for years,) and I’m hoping to find more. I love nothing more than reading a book or listening to a podcast about gardening – outdoors and indoors. Especially as we get further into autumn and winter lies just around the corner.

If you’d like me to, I’ll try to compile a list of Instagram accounts and podcasts, but as I’m just now discovering these little gems, it might take a while to gather all the information together.

Speaking of the great outdoors, we had more rain yesterday – deluges at times – and I have a major leaf raking job ahead of me. Yikes. Today is sunny and beautiful, so I expect Mother Nature is telling me to “get to it.”

Don is working long days in New Orleans and he’s feeling a bit under the weather, so send him so good vibes, okay?

Happy Tuesday.