Jeremy Corbyn has been talking dirty to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter. Over the weekend, the congresswoman announced that she was getting involved in a community garden and asked her followers for some “sage words of advice”. Corbyn was happy to oblige, imparting tips on using lavender or comfrey to attract bees. “Best way to be healthy is to get your hands dirty – in the soil!” Corybn enthused. It was a wonderfully wholesome exchange.

To some extent, it was inevitable that 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez would take up horticulture. Gardening is all the rage among urban millennials; though due to the constraints of city-living it normally involves tending to houseplants rather than plots of land. According to a 2018 survey from Garden Research, a company that, well, researches gardens, “younger households reached an all-time high in gardening participation” and 18- to 34-year-olds account for almost a third of houseplant sales in the US. It’s a similar story in the UK – a 2018 report from Wyevale garden centres found that millennials are 88% more likely to keep plants in their bedrooms than those aged 65 and over.

“Millennials are filling their homes — and the voids in their hearts — with houseplants,” the Washington Post declared in a beautifully condescending article about the fertile phenomenon.

Horticulture’s hold on millennials is both a reaction to and a result of the always-on digital world. Plants look good on Instagram – which is why half-naked men pose next to them on popular accounts such as @boyswithplants. More importantly, however, plants provide a much-needed connection to nature. For a couple of minutes, as you water your fiddle-leaf fig tree (the Audi TT of houseplants) you are transported to a simpler, more nurturing time, when it seemed like the world wasn’t going to immediately implode due to climate change.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest I have managed to kill 10 succulents. Photograph: Freer Law/Alamy Stock Photo

Gardening is also supposed to be therapeutic, although, to be honest, I haven’t found this to be the case. Quite the opposite. My attempts to turn my small New York apartment into an urban oasis have been an unmitigated disaster. In the past month alone I have managed to kill 10 succulents. I did everything I could to try to raise the damn things, including singing to them, but that seemed to finish them off even faster. I’m left with a collection of empty terracotta pots gathered on a shelf, as if I’m some kind of serial killer who keeps trophies.

Then you have the bug problem. The other day I was tending to an orchid, feeling very sophisticated, when I saw a cockroach at the bottom of the pot. (PSA: cockroaches like orchids.) I immediately tried to drown it but after some frantic googling I discovered they can hold their breath for 40 minutes under water. A different technique was needed. I briefly thought about burning my house down to get rid of the thing, but eventually settled with thrashing it with a soap dispenser and screaming until I thought it was dead. So there you go: gardening was supposed to make me zen, but it turned me into a murderer who sings to succulents. For the sake of US politics, I really hope it doesn’t have the same effect on Ocasio-Cortez.