5 minute read
From anxiety to aesthetics: Katlyn Daoust talks millennials and their plants
FROM ANXIETY TO AESTHETICS: KATLYN DAOUST TALKS MILLENNIALS & THEIR PLANTS
WORDS BY MARTINE AAMODT HESS
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In true millennial spirit, Katlyn has made a business out of merging interior design with the benefits of houseplants. Now she opens up about why this generation’s relationship with their green friends goes far beyond the fad.
You wake up to the sound of your alarm. You glance over at the proud snake plant on your bedside table and hit snooze one more time before getting out of bed. You draw back your curtains and greet the prickly succulents resting on your windowsill. Making your way to the kitchen, you pass the peace lily, the trusted monstera, and the fiddle leaf fig. Good morning Cher, Baby Spice and Planty… How did all these plants make their way into your life? One by one, they have become an integral part of not only your daily routine but also your family. As houseplants have made their biggest comeback since the 1970s, you may ask yourself what lies behind the obsession. Is there more to the story than their Instagrammable nature and is the trend here to stay? Here to answer your questions is Katlyn Daoust - the Minneapolis-native making a living out of the evergreen love affair between millennials and plants.
“I think people start with a few plants because they look pretty and maybe even because they’re trendy, but by the 10th, 20th, 30th, even 100th plant, it’s clear that plant parents are invested in houseplants for reasons far beyond their ability to look cool,” says Katlyn. The 32-year-old founded Plants by Her in the hope of providing a tool to the wave of people looking to improve their lives by implementing a touch of green. Her interior design studio offers workshops, remote consultations, as well as both commercial and residential design services. At the heart of the brand is the science of plant care, and the goal is to bring the benefits of indoor gardening with a design-forward mentality to everyone from your local plant mum to the team at L’Oréal.
Katlyn is a firm believer that millennials’ attraction to plants runs deeper than the aesthetic photos shared on Instagram. “I think social media is absolutely a catalyst for the growth in the plant movement, though I don’t think social media could be strong enough to force a trend unless there were some actual lasting benefits,” she says. “There’s a theory that humans are naturally inclined to commune with nature. It’s called Biophilia. It posits that people have a primitive need to be around nature and that it restores them.” This is something she has experienced firsthand when helping young people bring plants into their city flats. Millennials tend to favour big cities over suburban life. They have been priced out of the housing market, and as a result, many find themselves living in space-restricted rentals with little access to the natural world. Houseplants allow them to stay in touch with nature.
KATLYN DAOUST TALKS MILLENNIALS & THEIR PLANTS
According to Katlyn, many also turn to plants for wellbeing purposes. In 2018, the Global Benefits Attitudes Study revealed that millennials are almost twice as likely as their parents to suffer from stress. In fact, Katlyn’s own plant journey came as a response to the hectic reality of working in Seattle. “I found myself turning to plants as a way to manage stress from my day job in advertising. I worked too many hours on too many unrealistic deadlines and was beyond burnt out,” she says as she details how caring for plants came to be an outlet for her anxiety. “I found pruning, watering, and playing with different ways to style my plants to be cathartic, almost like a meditation.” As a Japanese study from 2019 will have it, Katlyn’s experience is far from unique, finding a 27 per cent decrease in stress and anxiety among people who interacted with houseplants daily.
Time after time, millennials prove to be a group that is uniquely suited to make their relationship with plants one that is both serious and long-term. Mainly due to financial difficulties caused by low wage growth and student debt, this generation delays major life milestones such as buying homes and having children. For the people finding themselves in such a situation, Katlyn says that their attraction to plants can boil down to the basic human instinct of caregiving. “The millennial tend to have children later, thus freeing them up to care for animals and plants. Most of the residential clients I work with either don’t have children yet, or their kids are now out of the house,” she says.
It is evident that millennials often become invested in houseplants on an emotional level, but Katlyn makes sure to express the pure fun of experimenting with plants as a decorative feature. She describes the act of finding a plant that fits the aesthetic as an art of its own. Being a millennial working with many clients of the same generational background, she can testify to their style-conscious nature: “This group is okay with spending a little extra money on plants to complete the look of their interior aesthetic. Some folks may opt for a whole collection of terracotta pots, while others want to splurge on planters from local and independent ceramicists. In either scenario, it’s clear that my millennial clients care about design, styling and cohesion.”
While reflecting on millennial plant parents and their motivations, Katlyn looks back on her own journey. As she continued to research, propagate and share advice, her life became increasingly entwined with the plant world, until she turned her passion into a business in 2018. “For me, it’s not just about plants, but their relationship to the environments in which we live, work and play. Plants have been scientifically shown to improve mood, and I love going one step further to ensure that the complementary materials also bring joy,” she says. These are all reasons why Katlyn is on a mission to help people realise the full potential of houseplants and the meaningful bond that can take shape.
