Jeepney Press / Wayne Sun

PLANTIFY by Wayne Sun

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul. — Linda Solegato

I have been a plant lover for about 15 years now. There is this unexplainable feeling that it gives me happiness whenever I see a garden full of different kinds of plants with different colors. It brings serenity to a troubled mind and relieves stress especially at this time of pandemic.

There is no doubt that ever since the lockdown and breakout of the virus, a lot of people have resorted to home based businesses like food, online selling and the most fascinating change is the sudden love of people with plants. This, in turn, caused a shocking elevation of prices.

I used to buy plants from garden shops but after learning about their unacceptable prices, I just resorted to bartering. This is another result of the pandemic where no cash is involved. You just have to be resourceful in sorting out posts online where members will barter their plants in exchange of food items or any good offers. I liked this platform of exchanging goods since its cashless. Little did I know that my hobby and passion has turned into an online business where people either barter for my plants and others buy them, too. So there seems to be a craze now where everybody is becoming a plant parent and so the term "plantitas" and "plantitos" were coined to describe people who love buying and collecting plants.

There seems to be a high demand for indoor plants specifically those what we call snake plants. They come in different varieties. Actually, NASA or the National Aeronotics and Space Administration has categorized snake plants as one of the best air purifying plants as they can remove toxins in the air. Due to this craze and the high demand of exotic and ornamental plants, there have been people resorting to plant poaching or what we call "plantnapping" where they go to forests and uproot them. There have been reports too about people stealing plants at night caught in CCTV. Clearly with this situation, it’s becoming what we call a "Plantdemic"! It' s a good thing that people are now becoming aware of what is essential and beneficial to ones environment but we just have to observe the right behavior on how we get our plants by not sacrificing mother nature.

"Plantify" which may summarize the whole situation of sudden love of people with plants and at the same time happens to be the name of my online business. Free delivery within Angeles City, Pampanga for a minimum purchase of P500.

Have a Plant-tastic day, everyone!