Plants with Attitude

Some plants grow. Others observe.

Plants with Attitude is the English edition of the German satirical collection Pflanzen mit Haltung: a book in which houseplants, garden dwellers and office greenery step out of the decorative background and become characters in their own right - vain, wounded, resilient, sharp-tongued and unexpectedly human.

Between windowsills, raised beds, classrooms, waiting rooms and municipal corridors, a small green society takes shape. A Hoya mistakes admiration for relevance. A basil plant turns ordinary care into high emotional drama. A bonsai defends discipline while a pumpkin expands with shameless conviction. Elsewhere, a rubber plant endures the rhythms of public administration, and an orchid discovers that beauty is rarely only about the surface.

These are dry, literary miniatures about dignity and usefulness, control and freedom, polished façades and inconvenient truths. What sounds absurd from the mouth of a plant often comes uncomfortably close to human life.