House Plants and Millennials
When I first started researching for this post, I typed ‘why do millennials love’ into Google. The suggestions were, in no particular order, ‘Netflix’, ‘astrology’, ‘brunch’ and ‘house plants’. Because, of course, we are one collective body of people with exactly the same interests - yawn. What is interesting however, is how these things are connected. They all seem to offer a bit of escapism from everyday life. I wanted to find out more about the last item on this list: house plants. Why do we love them so bloody much?
House plants are nothing new. According to Bloomberg, ‘cultivating indoor plants dates back to the ancient Chinese’ and ‘the famed Hanging Gardens of Babylon’. Fast forward to the 1800s and we see that the development of home heating systems made growing indoors much easier. Another jump forward in time to the ‘back to nature’ movement of the 1970s and there is a spike in popularity - probably something to do with spider plants and macramé hangers. While a minimalist aesthetic followed, causing a fall in demand of house plants, today we are at an all time high - with millennials at the helm!
A Social Media Trend
This high is certainly connected to social media. As Chantal Aida Gordon notes, ‘a lot of the social media aesthetics that Millennials are into - the Boomerangs, the time lapses - they’re all so conducive to plants’ (Cosmopolitan).
And the hashtags back this up:
#URBANJUNGLEBLOGGERS - 1.4m posts at the time of writing
#IHAVETHISTHINGWITHPLANTS - 353k posts
#LIVINGWITHPLANTS - 602k posts
What more, there are ‘plantfluencers’ - see hugely popular accounts like ‘House Plant Club’ and ‘Homestead Brooklyn’.
Ultimately, showing off plants online seems to express an element of ‘cool’, implying a level of skill and maturity, whether you have it or not.
A Need to Nurture
But it’s more than just aesthetics. Growing plants satisfies an inherent need to nurture something other than ourselves. As millennials, we are experiencing delays in key adult milestones. For example, many of us can’t get onto the property ladder due to financial constraints, meaning that we are renting for longer. These spaces aren’t ours to call our own. At the same time, we are increasingly moving into cities - meaning smaller urban dwellings, usually without gardens. Pets are either not allowed by landlords or unfair to keep, given the lack of green space and the time we spend working. And don’t even start with children, because we are delaying or forgoing parenthood too.
Hence, plants come in. They are something we have control over, through slow caregiving. Indeed, ‘a plant […] is fertile ground to act out the trial and error inherent to emerging adulthood, a low-risk investment in discovering the type of person you are: it feels safe and permissible to try out authority and ownership on a being that it’s legal to kill’ (Bustle). I guess, it’s something that depends on us, but not too much. And we can always get online for care advice should we need it.
A Way to Connect
Through plants, we also find a way to connect with others. In the seventies, there was no online platform for plant enthusiasts to come together and leverage the expertise of others (Huffington Post). However today, social media has enabled like-minded communities to build. Sites offer a space to share information, build relationships and even meet in real life - at events, talks and plant swaps.
A Nod to the Wellness Movement
As well as the emotional gain discussed above, the health benefits of plants are no secret. Indeed, ‘being around thriving plants boosts your mood’ says Camille Richman, co-found of plant subscription service HAMAMA (Bustle). In addition, plants have been shown to clean and purify air, reduce blood pressure and positively impact nervous systems (New Yorker). They also encourage a slowing down of our fast past lives, inviting in a calmer environment by bringing nature to our immediate surroundings. Plants even allow control over our food (think herbs and vegetables). As more of us move to a plant-based diet, this is no small thing!
So, it seems that the millennial obsession with house plants is a healthy one. While it is undeniably connected with visual social media sites, it is more than this. It meets the desire to nurture. It provides a way to connect. It links to the wellness movement. And above this, it is partly responsible for reviving an industry - with online start ups like Patch and physical stores like Conservatory Archives taking root to meet the increased demand. Big growers even employ ‘plant hunters’ to ‘scour far-flung locales like Tanzania to find new varieties’ (Bloomberg). If you want to read more on the supply of plants from a consultant-type perspective, this is a killer article!
