Not enough sunlight at home? Start ‘Carding’: Gardening in Your Car

A new term for one of our favorite pandemic-inspired hobbies on the road

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It all started when Adam Overland’s colleague at Minneapolis’s Southwest Journal gave him a petunia. To transport his new plant home, Overland hung it from the handle of the back seat window of his car. In his humor column the following week, Overland praised the traveling greenhouse fashion he had accidentally created: “I call it ‘cardening’, that’s my new term,” he wrote, “but you can use it, as long as you let me meld.”

That was in 2007, and it’s unclear whether the style section writers promoting the trend in the guardian and Apartment therapy in 2021 they know the Overland trademark (or engage in proper etiquette on the road). But cardening – that is, growing plants in one’s car – has taken off. “It’s a fantastic light source – nowhere do you have more windows than in your car,” says Overland, who still works as a writer. This serene trend is part of the pandemic gardening craze, and has seen everything from pickup trucks to Volvos planted with dash succulents, miniature herb gardens, and bonsai trees. Cacti are a tough option, but those thorns could spell injury if placed on the car’s cup holder.

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It is not the first appearance of these natural air fresheners. When the original vehicle, the Volkswagen Beetle, was manufactured in the 1950s, a porcelain clip-on vase was an optional extra. Even this was a setback: at the beginning of automobile travel, Henry Ford invented the “automobile vase.” On hot summer days, a bouquet of fresh flowers was necessary to mask the bouquet of battery acid (and the sweat of the other passengers).

Now that modern climate control has taken over its role, cardening is all about style. Overland coined the term more as a joke than a lifestyle, but he sees the appeal, especially for those with green thumb issues. “I should have accepted it,” he says.

This article appears in print in the December issue of Maclean’s magazine with the title “‘Cardening'”.