A few years back the culture of household plants was associated with grandmothers’ apartments and something complicated and useless. But, as often happens, fashion can change course overnight: today, houseplants are the pride of those who are called millennials. Young people around the world are suddenly drawn into home gardening, and potted plants are no longer a symbol of failure in life. No more jokes about the “old maid with a cat and a plant”: the world, fortunately, is evolving, so an adult independent woman with a pet and a luxurious house tree in 2021 is an example to follow, not an object of ridicule.
In fairness, love for plants never really subsides, it just blooms periodically: the same inhabitants of the Victorian era were crazy about ferns, giving this collective madness the beautiful name — Pteridomania. In the Garden Media Group’s report on trends this year, there are no longer botanists in frock coats, but young people:
- they plant gardens,
- grow herbs at home,
- bring flowers to work.
Gardening is a new type of meditative and useful hobby. There is a huge variety of garden plants and everyone can find a favorite one.
It is even more pleasant to do gardening when the compiler of the monthly subscription with cacti decides for you, and growing edible spinach isn’t hard when you can buy a hydroponics kit and get into vegetables you can grow hydroponically — and no one will look askance, making a joke about what you really grow in it.
Plants Are Life-changing
The “deliberate reversal” is also to blame: following the frivolous fashion for everything organic and serious environmental problems, millennials — or at least a part of them — started thinking about what and how they consume. Some were impressed by documentaries like True Cost and That Sugar Film, exposing the clothing industry and the modern diet, and some were mentally tired of the constant mindless shopping — mindfulness became an essential part of identity.
Sometimes it takes radical forms: people leave city life, leave the city and start their own household. More often, everything happens on a smaller scale: small apartments turn, if not into a jungle, then at least into a front garden with fashionable neat terrariums. In attempts to make your life more minimalistic and more effective, there is a craving for everything natural — and the easiest way to get involved in it is through plants.
Live plants not only look favorably against the background of white walls, but they also bring much-needed warmth and vitality that are always with you, even if the apocalypse is outside the window. So, along with the fashion for Scandinavian design, a minute of fame fell on palms, fig-trees, cacti, and other greens. By the way, life in the city also affects their properties: the less space, the more popular are small plants like succulents.
Plants can melt the heart of someone who doesn’t follow trends — even if the general fashion for something rather annoys you. When a hurricane is raging on all fronts from politics to technology, craving for the good and the eternal can help calm down at least for a short while.