When 29-year-old Kerri Notman closed her plant and gift store just before the coronavirus lockdown, she didn't expect to spend the next two months surrounded by 12,000 plants in her own home as she fought to keep her business afloat online during the pandemic.

But now, eight weeks on, her two-bedroom bungalow in Norfolk, eastern England, is so packed with succulents, cacti and other breeds of house plant that she has to move several pallets of plants out of the way just to get into her bed at night.

Notman, who lives with her partner, Byron, and 11-month-old daughter, Maggie, initially brought 2,000 plants home from her store, the Leslie Terrance Home Gift and Garden shop, after taking the decision to close it a day before the UK-wide lockdown was announced on March 23.

But since selling out of them she has now ordered in and sold 12,000 plants from her home in total, after a surge in online orders.

And now her home is now so packed with plants, on every possible surface, that they are hanging on drainpipes, from the curtain rails, and even in the shower.

"We closed the shop and ferried all the plants to my house," she told CNN. "And now because we've had so many orders I've had to order more. "We live in the middle of nowhere down a little road and have had to get lorries to drop them off at the top of the road, and then I've had to go backwards and forwards with Maggie in in the car," she said. Baby Maggie is used to having lots of plants around -- just not quite this many. "I had a big enough collection (of plants) as it was, let alone with this lot in here." Little Maggie is used to being surrounded by plants, Notman said -- albeit not usually by this many, and now the couple are having to ensure the plants don't get left on the floor in case she tries to eat them or accidentally knocks them over. Looking after the plants at home is a 24-hour operation, Notman added. "It's mad -- I spend most of the day packing (orders) and then when my daughter goes to bed I put more stock online, and then in the morning -- because they are quite high-maintenance plants -- I have to go round tending to them. "I've got into a habit now of sometimes doing it as I go, when I'm cooking tea or something, and when I'm in the shower I end up plucking the plants! It's like a full time, constant job."

Source: CNN

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