Jakoba Errekondo started his speech by quoting Stefano Mancuso: -Macuso clearly wrote: 'We play through error thinking that plants are powerless animals, that they lack something, movement, brain, look. We have to approach them without animal prejudices: they have incredible intelligence as if they were from another planet.' That is to say, we are animals and we must work with plants by removing that prejudice. Very little is known about plants. Because you kick it or you cut it with an axe or you curl and you kill it, or you cut your neck and you eat lettuce, we think plants are miserable beings. It's the other way around, they've been millions and millions of years longer than we have in this world, and they have great wisdom. And we don't know about that: plants think, they help, they make decisions, and then they do ... The best way to approach plants is to think they're much faster than we are. So let's see how to treat them.

Caring for plants is an art. This art is the art of knowing how to wait. Who has a garden, who has a garden, knows: working with plants gives us time. We bring a plant, we see that every day it grows gradually, it gives a new leaf, suddenly it gives a flower, that fruit, that fruit, a seed -- our way of feeling and living will go to the cycles of the plants. The plant, in the madness that we have today, takes us out a little of this way of living to do everything in a hurry and running, gives us time, reassures us, teaches us that there are other ways of life."

Dedicated to women who speak to plants

"The floor of my house has offered me a book to the women who speak to the plants. In my life I have had many women who have taught me the care of plants: in the garden, in the house plants, in the flowers... I have dedicated this book to those women and I have tried to explain that philosophy in the book entry: 'Plants are cared for, fed, pampered... because we have brought them to our house and they are ours, from the house. We have made them ours and we communicate. We talk to them, we listen to them and we listen to them. We make them curses and they make us lose the air that we have to breathe, they give us the scenarios of our life: they sow, they propagate and perfuse joy and, above all, they put the beauty of life in our hands, full of leaves and flowers. They grow, they adorn themselves, they adorn themselves and they flourish. Not for us, with us.

There are plants like us. And we know, if we want everyone to grow, live and flourish next to us, we have no choice but to love.

Because they love plants; women love to the point of flourishing and they also flourish in plants. Those women don't call them plants, they call them flowers. Flowers are plants.'

What to bring from the tropics to your home?

"When it comes to thinking about plants, you first have to think about what we have inside the house. If the plants that come very well out come into the house, it's normal for them to die. The plants that live outdoors are accustomed to external cycles: light goes up and down, temperatures also -- inside the house is upside down, the temperature is always about 20º and the light also, at dusk we turn it on. What plants will come right inside the house? From places where temperature and light in nature don't go down, that is, the tropics. There's a problem with these plants: water. Plants in the tropical area usually need a lot of water and need water in the environment.

So when we choose plants, we will bring them out of Brazil, the Caribbean, Indonesia -- down the water, plants will not be able to complete their cycle and many plants will not flourish, others will. Those that are plants in our homes would be gigantic trees in their places of origin and, therefore, without reaching that maturity they cannot flourish. Therefore, inside the house we will normally meet these always green plants, many of them without ever flourishing. When we choose the plant, we have to see whether it's bright or not, because that's going to condition the life of the plant in our house. Where there is a lot of light, we will always have the possibility to put more plants, the possibility of darkening is smaller".

The plant in prison

"When we put a plant in a pot, we should not forget that we are entering jail. When the plant is in nature, it itself can give roots on its own, lengthen meters and meters in search of food and water. There is no possibility of finding food on your own. We have to give them, and depending on that the plant will be pretty or will spoil us and it will always be a regular plant. Therefore, it is very important to prepare the soil to fill the tiest and make the fertiliser in each cycle of the plant (when new leaves are to be given, when it is to flourish). It is also the pot: it is not the same the plastic, the dirt or the hydro-vase, in which there is a reserve of water below and with a permanent irrigation system".

Irrigation

"Nine out of ten plants that die in our homes die from excess water. Beware of watering, it's much better to water a little less and the plant itself teaches us when it needs water: when the leaves go down a little, it needs water. Do not give too much water, as we will attract fungi, putrefaction, etc.

The most dangerous artifact that I know about is those other ornament boats that are used to introduce pots -- ceramic, stone -- then we put the chalk, which normally doesn't have holes. If you water too much, the vessel starts to fill up with water and the plant will ruin, yellowing... and we think: - This lacks water! And come on, overdose. Beware of these decorative glasses.

In the book Domestic Plants, I explain four ways to water. The first, the brush of the plant above. The second is to wet the ground. But for example, these systems are very bad for plants that have hair, because the leaves will get wet and if the leaves get wet, they will rot. For example, in begonias this is often seen, with stains on the leaves. In these cases, instead of watering above, we put water on the plate to absorb it from the subsoil.

The third system is to wet the accommodation. Plants with bright, smooth leaves love the water on their leaves. One of the characteristics of the tropics is that they take a lot of water out of the air, because there's a lot of moisture in the air and they don't get that much water out of the earth. These plants can be taken out to the balcony to mock them when they make a warm siri-miri. Every once in a while, every fifteen days, get into the home shower and give the floor a good shot, as if it were raining.

Fourth system for very agile plants: put all the vessel in water. Let the earth and the plant absorb some water."

Plants limiting air pollution

"Air pollution is increasing and more research is being done, especially at NASA, on how to clean air pollution in enclosed places through plants. These plants reduce the amount of chemicals such as benzene, ammonia, etc. We know more and more about this, and there are many plants that do very well. In the book I have explained in a separate chapter what they are.

Names

-In the case of domestic plants, the names are completely mixed. One tells him a name derived from the scientific name, another tells him 'flower of Amabirjin', another tells him that it's shaped like a coin... that's why we've put the leaves in White Dani's book, so everyone can easily identify us. And the book is designed by Maitane Gartziandia.

In this book we have given them names in Basque. So far, houseplants were called with names that come from other languages. I have kept that name to plants that have a name in Euskera, but in the case of plants that have no name in Euskera, I have tried to find how they are called in the cultures of their countries of origin and to translate that name into Euskera.

We have also received the scientific name, as it is very important, because with it we can find all the information we want in books, internet, etc. Thanks to the scientific name, we will never be confused."

92 tricks for plant care

Errekondo has also explained the 4 ways of reproducing the plant, how to deal with the diseases they suffer, how to fertilize... all this is shown in the book Etxeko Emakumeak in the sheet dedicated to each plant.