The rise of the plant people

When you’re able to spot the proliferation of “low maintenance” to the point of absurdity, and even contradiction, you know there’s a millennial trend – that some sod is looking to cash in on – on the horizon.

The emergence of artificial hydroponic walls; plastic plants that appear to be slightly wilting, so as to appear real; and self-watering pots are among the distorted outcomes of a movement towards plants.

An Instagram search for #plant yields more than 9 million posts, while #plants yields more than 22m.

As refinery 29 puts it, the new cat lady is the plant lady.

When David Arabov, chief executive and co-founder at Elite Daily, shared with Forbes their comprehensive study on millennials it confirmed statistically that this generation doesn’t necessary want to own homes.

So why does a segment (so talked about because they’re coming of age economically), who don’t want homes and kids, want to grow plants?

Perhaps it’s because they’re highly educated, politically progressive and living through global warming?

Either way they’ve spurned an industry dedicated to indoors plants and small space gardening (queue balconies everywhere teeming with cycads).

To stay on trend with nature there is surely tech: an app to determine which plants grow best where or a website where you can order your plants online. But to be fair, this is also science at its best.

If you too would like to grow herbs without soil, there are vertical, table and other mini garden apparatus to fit into a small space and busy lifestyle.

If you want to be queen of your own green kingdom, 2019 is the year in which you need to learn to tell the difference between a begonia and a bougainvillea; perhaps crochet your own macrame plant hanger and in general have some fun with foliage.

Feature Image: Unsplash