The leafiest home in Australia has 400 plants and counting. It’s a veritable indoor rainforest created by Jason Chongue, architect, interior designer and owner of The Plant Society, and his partner, flight attendant Nathan Smith. Monsterias, hoyas, Zanzibar gems, even the temperamental maidenhair fern, have all found a spot in this two-bedroom worker’s cottage in Abbotsford. They’re in every room, on the fridge, hanging off ceilings, in every type of vessel. Teamed with Chongue’s other great passion – art works and artefacts – the greenery lends a rich textural layer and ramshackle softening effect.

The couple bought the house about 3½ years ago, when it still bore the marks of a tired 1980s renovation. “Every room was a different shade of pastel and these doors were only up to 2.1 metres,” Chongue says. There were no wardrobes, surfaces were laminated, and windows inexplicably featured both Venetian and Roman blinds.

But structurally the house was very good, he says, and much of its Victorian character and layout was maintained, save for the removal of a wall between the living room and kitchen and dining.

“This worked out perfectly for the middle of the house because it’s 30 metres long,” Chongue says. “The light here actually is really beautiful. It’s south facing, which everyone says isn’t great, but we’re actually fortunate for the indirect lighting coming in for the plants.”

An interiors update introduced contemporary touches. Door proportions were addressed, and walls were painted white.

An L-shaped galley kitchen is framed by Carrara marble benchtops, custom folded brass cabinetry doors and handcrafted brass handles by Rowsaan. The European dining table was a vintage find. Smaller in scale, its proportions “make sense in an old place”, and it doubles as a workbench.

“You notice that our furniture is all a bit old, vintage,” says Chongue, who is drawn towards market finds, the odd IKEA hack, and even roadside picks.

“I have this love for older things. I’ve never been someone who’s attracted to brands. That stuff’s kind of irrelevant to me. It’s more about ‘do I actually connect with the piece of art work and does it kind of tell a story, or have beautiful texture, or actually have the qualities that you want’, rather than ‘is it another copy?’“

Plants also live in the back part of the house (bathroom, laundry, back room), which is a work in progress, and where the two dogs, Ingrid and Hans, reside when there are visitors.

“The plan will be to go up,” Chongue says. “What I would love is this back room to become a spiral staircase. But you have to walk through greenery. This will become like a greenhouse. You have to walk through the greenhouse to get upstairs, which is very Asian in interior spaces.”

Australian-born Chongue, whose parents are from East Timor, says he has loved gardening since he was young. “Even as an architect, I’ve always gardened at home and had plants; it was just therapeutic.”

His style of gardening is experimental, he says. Trained in visual merchandising, he progressed to architecture at RMIT, then a masters of interior design in London where he learnt about the spatial side of design.

“The interesting thing is my style developed through travelling,” Chongue says. His mindset switches from Australian to European to Asian. Much of the haphazardness of the indoor greenery at his home borrows heavily from an Asian sensibility. He gravitates towards the graphic, sculptural shapes of tropical foliage; and going with your instincts.

“It’s all about experimenting,” Chongue says. “No plants are indoor plants, so we experiment with what we can grow inside. I’ll give it a go, whereas it’s skipped a generation here [in Australia]. People are scared to even try.”

Within creative design circles, his passion for plants is a good talking point, he says. Chongue used greenery to bring a point of difference to a recent project, nine restaurants in Westfield, to “pull back” the look from being overtly polished in favour of a more lived-in feel. Chongue’s new book, Plant Society, provides a step-by-step guide to creating an indoor oasis in urban spaces.

“Plants have their own personality,” he says. “As much as people want to come in and say, ‘I want this look,’ it’s not going to happen. Each plant’s different.

“A lot of the conversation with architects and developers is about the aesthetic, about the softening of spaces.

“Even by introducing a few plants into an interior or architectural space, it actually accentuates the architecture; it’s about the layering.”

The other side of it is the therapeutic value for people who live in that space, Chongue says.

“I always say to people when you think about your space, try to relate it back to the natural environment.”