The calm envelopes you right as you walk in: the space seems cooler, more relaxed, smells faintly of dirt, and is overflowing with neatly organized houseplants. Grassroots Landscaping and Nursery’s store features an array of popular houseplants like pothos and philodendron, monstera, and calathea. Pots neatly line displays by the door and along the left wall, organized by color and size.
Gardening supplies are on the right. Waist-high shelves optimized for the flow of traffic house plants whose dark, emerald, or mint green foliage attracts shoppers from all over the Harrisonburg area, especially since the biggest outbreaks of COVID. The plants have soothed and satisfied us in the craziest of times in recent history.
They’ve brought calm and companionship in the chaos.
Houseplants have been around for ages; just look outside. That’s where they originated before early civilizations, like the Greeks and Romans, started the practice of growing plants indoors, reports LA RÉSIDENCE. Though they made use of potted plants, the 17th century saw the beginning of the trend that decorates bedrooms, offices, and greenhouses alike. Especially since the 70s craze of creating living-room jungles, plant-lovers have found ways to incorporate the outdoors into the indoors.
By sharing images online, indoor plants became even more popular — you didn’t have to go to someone else’s house to be able to realistically picture how fabulous that Fiddle Leaf Fig
would look in your living room. With the rise of social media also came the digital plant communities that can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Youtube (most notably). In recent years, plant popularity in social media has spiked, especially due to COVID and its repercussions. “Plant-fluencers” and members of the plant community share advice, exchange cuttings and supplies, and more, creating a shared culture that can impact the markets dramatically. This digital community flourished in the time of COVID, bringing companionship to the isolation.
Online communities haven’t been the only ones to notice the increasing popularity of houseplants. Grassroots, a landscaping and nursery shop in Harrisonburg, Virginia, definitely saw the trend increasing. Employee Laura Shobe noted that after the steady incline of the past few years, they “noticed it the most last year [in 2020]; the growth really started to pick up.” Shobe attributed this to COVID, explaining that people quarantining at home wanted to beautify their indoor spaces, and came and shopped at the store as soon as it was open.
As Shobe recalled, the plant trend was growing before the world shut down, but COVID saw exponential growth with the wide varieties of specimens available, particularly with uncommon plants.
“The demand on tropicals is crazy right now,” Scott Lindhout, sales manager at Rainbow Greenhouses reported in a video by CBC News. “We’re all trying to get the next new thing. And largely it’s influenced by social media.” In particular, variegated plants have been popular, as they were just relatively recently promoted on social media and the plant community fell in love.
Horticulture Week called the Pink Princess Philodendron a “must-have plant” in 2019, and then the market for the plant exploded. Wired reported that this pink variegated plant was first selling for $6.50 for a plant that fits in a 4” pot at the popular nursery Gabriella Plants. Then,
as demand increased in 2018, the nursery raised the price to $50, then $100. Their waiting list to purchase the plant at one point had 5,500 customers. Now, the plant is out of stock on their website and listed at $250 for a 4” pot.
Etsy, a popular avenue for selling both plant cuttings and established plants, sells the plant for prices such as $135, $165, $250, $319, and $430, depending on plant size and variegation level. Buying plants from resellers on sites like Etsy comes with benefits, such as increased accessibility to plants from different sellers, which means a consumer has more options for a plant that they like in the price point they like, being sold from a location they prefer.
Even some of these benefits, however, have a second side: reselling sites like these can feature inflated prices, don’t always guarantee sellers of repute, and even the more experienced hobbyist-sellers might not be able to adequately package or ship your cutting. Even if they package it well, smaller shops without return or refund policies can’t control the shipping circumstances, and plants can get damaged or lost in the mail. With COVID shipping delays, this waiting game had even higher stakes.
Rare plants can be found in local shops and nurseries, with a little digging. The Curious Plantaholic, a successful houseplant store in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, stocks the Pink Princess — though they sell quickly! The shop opened in October 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. “During covid, a lot of people got stuck in their homes and needed something to do, so houseplants became something that people could use to decorate and also have something to care for,” employee Brandt DeLorenzo shared. “Plants became popular not too long ago, which helped to really drive the trend, almost like a perfect storm.”
The popular shop has fabulous reviews on their products and customer service, but also serves the community in a different way: “Along with plants, planters/pots and accessories, like
moss poles, plant shelves, and macrame are also very popular and have helped many working moms and dads to make a little extra money during the covid lockdown,” DeLorenzo said. Not all stores have a great online presence like The Curious Plantaholic does, so during the worst lockdowns, customers had few options. The most accessible options for those who don’t live near shops like The Curious Plantaholic would be shopping from exclusively online locations, or waiting until their local in-person shops opened back up.
At that point, there were many online options, especially on smaller-sale sites like the previously mentioned Etsy. If a consumer was willing to spend the money and chance shipping the plant in the mail, they can punch some keys, enter a credit card number, and receive a new friend in a package on their doorstep. I did — I bought a monstera adansonii cutting from a seller based in Flint, Michigan. It got stuck in the mail and was half-dead when I opened it, but I coaxed it back to life in a process both strenuous and satisfying. Because of the shipping stress, if I’d had the choice, I definitely would have bought it in person. This wasn’t an option when I purchased, but as lockdowns lightened up around the United States, plant stores were able to allow limited numbers of customers back into their stores.
Grassroots did this successfully. “Last year in March, it was a shock,” Shobe shared, “but things picked up right away.” To accommodate the demand, Grassroots closed off the indoor area but left it open upon request for customers to shop, with an outdoor checkout. In June/July, they were able to transition back to more normal in-person sales, with customers around the store.
From the customer’s perspective, there were good reasons to want to buy plants, including feeding a new quarantine hobby, decorating Zoom backgrounds, livening up their space, and having something to care for. Plants, however weird it might seem, given companionship and some other living being to talk to.
As I grieved losses due to COVID, I chatted with my plants, praising and admiring the sentient beings that were gloriously removed from the virus. I wasn’t the only one. With all the craziness of the COVID crisis, many reported feeling grounded and eased by their leafy friends. “Plants make me feel relaxed and happy,” first-year Abby Kaufman shared. “In a time where so much is happening and changing every day, plants are a constant in my life that are always there that I can focus on.”
Feeling grounded, less anxious, and relaxed were huge benefits to purchasing plants in 2020. Reducing loneliness is a benefit often unspoken, but impactful nonetheless. While unable to see friends and family during periods of lockdown, plants created live companionship and life-giving responsibility. “During the pandemic, there have been so many unknowns and it is hard to be there for everyone (including myself) at once, so having plants to focus on gives me one part of life that I have control over,” Kaufman said. For her, it was also about growth: seeing her own plants thrive brought her excitement and satisfaction. It was an escape.
Several studies have focused on the physical/psychological health benefits of owning and caring for houseplants. Bustle and other sources cite reputable studies that suggest several psychological benefits of owning houseplants, including suppressing the sympathetic nervous system to help you de-stress, reduce anxiety, and clear your head. A Psychology Today article cites additional benefits, such as reduced symptoms of depression, reducing symptoms of PTSD, and improved concentration in schools and workplaces.
If these benefits seem especially fitting during the traumatic era of COVID –lasting over a year now in the United States — it’s no surprise that houseplant popularity boomed during this time.
“I think that my mental health has improved since my collecting of houseplants began,”Kaufman stated. “Since my obsession with plants started, I have felt more joy in my life and the plants have given me a little more purpose in the smaller moments of the day.” The impact of houseplants during 2020 will have lasting effects on the future of houseplants and the shops that sell them. For some plant shops and nurseries, the rising demand helped generate enough revenue to stay in business while other businesses around them suffered. For others, it could have drawn out the slow death many businesses suffered during this strenuous period. It’s also likely that many of the consumers who jumped onto the bandwagon during the height of the lockdown, quarantine, and/or isolation periods will find new homes for their once-engaging plant friends. Caring for different types of plants with a variety of needs can be exhausting. Hopefully, though, this trend has led new plant parents to appreciate the benefits of bringing the outdoors in and led long-term additions to the community. It has certainly led Kaufman. She brought me her Chinese Money Tree, one of several plants in her dorm room, asking if it might need a bigger pot. We examined it together. Holding it carefully in one hand, she gently touched the starbursts of leaves with the other, pointing out shiny new growth. “I love it,” she said, gazing down at her foliaged friend. “I love it.”
