The Business of Houseplants

Specialty shops, social media have given houseplants new clout

By C. Cleo Creech

Many of us remember grandmothers who fussed over a rag-tag collection of houseplants in a sunny corner of their home. Most of these were probably grown from cuttings and divisions shared between close neighbors and friends. Though that community spirit lives on today, the new wave of houseplant collectors have a whole new set of tools and community resources to pull from.

Social media plays a huge role in this new wave of houseplant culture. On Instagram, plant influencers post carefully styled shots of the various plants in their collection with a whole litany of special hashtags like #houseplantsofinstagram and #plantsmakemehappy. A well shot and shared Instagram post can make a given plant Instagram famous overnight and drive up crazy demand and prices. An example of that is currently the Monstera Thai Constellation, a plant that’s been around for ages, but thanks to social media the demand has been driven up of late. A cutting can be hundreds of dollars. Full grown large plants, thousands. Yet there are stories of old Florida nurseries just a few years ago ripping out their mother plants, since they couldn’t give the things away. What a difference a few thousand likes and shares make. Fame can be fickle too, if something is popular and pricey, believe me someone is out there growing as many as they can to meet demand. You may pay big bucks for a plant only to find it in six-months for $20 at Home Depot. The popular trendy plant now might end up “so last season” a year later.

Along with this growth in houseplant culture has arisen a new batch of specialty plant shops to cater to these new demanding plant enthusiasts. Visiting these stores can be an event in itself. The Victorian in Ponce City Market (thevictorianatlanta.com) and Flora/Fauna in Cabbagetown (@florafaunaatl) are recent examples. It’s not unusual to see customers taking selfies under the signage or by a particular specimen plant. Plant shopping can be an event in itself. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the big boxes either. Both Lowes and Home Depot now carry lines of “trending” houseplants. The Houseplant department at Atlanta staple Pike Nursery has grown and is often busting at the seams with new offerings. Intown shops like GardenHood in Grant Park or Intown Ace have great offerings as well. And watch for these blockbuster plants to become more common in the future. Remember how orchids used to be so rare and expensive, and now they’re in every grocery store for just a few dollars? That was in large part to advances in plant cloning.

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