Pots of gold: the world’s most expensive house plants (2022)

I didn’t realize this weird little world is so wide spread. I’m into tissue culturing and noticed a lot of people becoming a bit obsessed with culturing certain species, but I was totally perplexed when I saw some cultures selling for thousands. Even hundreds is crazy.<p>This reminds me of the old days when you’d spend quite a bit to get various strains of mycelium. Not as statusy by any stretch, but seems just as bizarre on the surface.<p>Ultimately these plants are worth pocket change once they flood the market. It’s only impressive to have them while they’re still rare.<p>Another totally bizarre part is how these genetic mutations which make the plants desirable often disappear as the plants grow.

Owned a plant store up for a few years (closed earlier this year). One of the primary growers of &quot;rare&quot; plants in the US was Costa Farms out of Florida. For instance, the it plant for awhile was a Thai Constellation - the prices for a 4&quot; were often north of $300+. Wholesale maybe $150ish. At some point Costa realized they couldn&#x27;t grow them reliably (from seed) and flooded the market with their plants. You can now find decent 6&quot; plants for cheaper than what the 4&quot; was.<p>Similarly Pink Princesses started flooding Lowe&#x27;s, Home Depot, etc. I get the idea of having your bucket list plants and wanting to get them at cheap prices if at all possible. Often, those from HD, etc. were not cared for properly and many had bugs and&#x2F;or root rot and wouldn&#x27;t last long.<p>The whole plant market for house plants was interesting.<p>Regionally things in CA were easy to get, but hard in OR&#x2F;WA. The reverse was also true.<p>It was a fun business while it lasted for us, aside from the annoyance of reading FB groups where people obsessed about the lowest possible price - etc... We finally closed up shop mainly due to life being busy with higher priorities and finding reliable help (even paying well above minimum wage) was next to impossible.

Pot plant mania has declined since its peak a few years ago in New Zealand when tiny monstera was going for $100, while you can get a large established monstera for $100 today. Unlike tulip bulbs pot plants do have aesthetic value and those who overpaid did it because they genuinely wanted a plant, not for speculation.

On Ebay they sell pothos for monsteras.<p>On Etsy , it seems everything is a scam. They set up a shop selling plastic toys or dolls, then they switch to expensive plant cuttings that are obvious scams, and etsy seems to do absolutely nothing about it.

This is hilarious because it hits close to home. I think my wife has most of the plants described in the article and she’d never leave them in the care of a teenager or if she did she’d be checking in daily to get a video update.

I didn&#x27;t see this mentioned but I think it&#x27;s worth pointing out some plants are just rare to a region, rather than being rare globally. They&#x27;re hard to get a hold of in stores or nurseries so people rely on private or online sales to obtain them. Both options are pretty fraught; not everyone knows how to actually trim a plant for propagation, some plants don&#x27;t propagate but are sold as if they do, and some people are just cruelly selling leaves they&#x27;ve chopped off. There&#x27;s also this entire side industry of people who will graft flowers to cacti and paint succulents which often will kill the host in due time.<p>As someone that takes care of a lot of plants the idea of selling plant clippings for propagation seems wrong. Unless you&#x27;re selling an already rooted seedling you&#x27;re putting <i>a lot</i> to chance. Not every propagation will take and a fair amount of the chance depends on the person taking care of it doing the right things.

<i>&gt; “I’ve heard from growers I really respect that they were asking upwards of $40,000 for some of their varieties,” says Tyler Thrasher, a US plant propagator who is the host of the popular podcast Greenhouse Rants. “It’s usually because those plants will end up in a tissue culture lab where they can be turned into millions in a couple of years.”</i><p>That&#x27;s pretty much the only explanation that would make sense - these are all clonal plants that the purchaser will duplicate and resell for much more reasonable prices. Seems like there&#x27;s a fad-time component to get them cloned and grown before competitors can find another sample.

Many of the plants mentioned in this story are no longer rare or expensive, depending on how easy they are to propagate. For example, the article mentions a “Pink Princess” Philodendron. These are not difficult to grow, but the pink variegation is notoriously unstable. In 2019 I sold a small one of these plants for $125. Today you can buy a similar plant for $20-40 on Etsy from a reputable US seller.

My house is full of all sorts of semi-rare plants now. It is a whole weird little subculture on social networks.<p>In fact, I just picked up two nice big leaves (with a huge root ball) of Monstera Thai Constellation today, for $40. Lesser versions can go for hundreds. Feeling pretty happy about that one.

(2022)

Same thing with coral it’s like the plants of the sea except they are technically animals