This house needs plants The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly two years ago meant people were spending more time at home—and soon, they were spending more money on the home. “It was really fascinating to see that there are a lot of people t hat , be fore COV ID, d idn’t have any houseplants, and then all of a sudden, they had like 50 houseplants in a matter of a couple of months,” Godfrey s a id. “In an at tempt to cons t r uc t t he i ndoor environment, people were looking for things that were of interest to the eye: like a good piece of art—how it triggers that reaction where you really start thinking about it or you just get lost looking at the painting.” That botanical artistry can manifest itself in a variety of colors, such as the many hues of anthuriums Godfrey grows; they come in shades of red, pink and white. Many of her plant s a l so feature va r iegated, or multicolored, leaves and stems. “I think my favorites are the ones that just have a lot of botanical interest in them,” Godfrey said, adding the calathea makoyana reminds her of a mosaic from Roman times, with chartreuse tiles and darker green lines between those tiles. There are as many ideal indoor plants as there are people, Godfrey noted. For example, some people like plants with big leaves while others are attracted to interesting symmetry or variegations. “Just like there isn’t one style of art that speaks to ever ybody, there i sn’t one plant that speaks to everybody,” she said. “It’s a form of self-expression.” Growing interest At Folsom-based Green Acres, which has nurseries in and around Sacramento, the houseplant business grew to the point that the nursery needed a houseplant merchandiser. Mary Bettencourt, a longtime store manager, was promoted into the post and found herself dealing with a 40% uptick in houseplant sales; nearly half the buyers were f irst-timers, she noted. They weren’t picky. “A lot of people had to stay at home and so they pretty much wanted anything,” Bettencourt said. Soon though, because people were home, they were able to better care for their plants, leading them to focus on ficus varieties, philodendrons, calatheas and the like. “They had more time to spend looking at the inside
of their house and they wanted things that were different,” Bettencourt said. “Some of them wanted air-purifying plants—all of them are really air-purifying plants. They wanted some hanging plants; they wanted some tall plants. It was all over the place, but a lot of them wanted some rare varieties.” These include hoyas or alocasias, tropical plants originating from Asia. Varying tastes and levels of interest are reasons Godfrey prefers not to get on the “trend” bandwagon. “I hate to have a situation where we’re saying, ‘Oh, these plants are trending.’ The plant purchase is such a personal purchase.” Clearing the air Back in 1989, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration studied whether certain indoor plants could act as natural air purifiers, with an eye toward cleaning the air in space stations. The NASA Clean Air Study found that some plants, such as peace lilies and dracaenas, might be effective at removing volatile organic compounds such as benzene and formaldehyde from indoor air. (Subsequent studies have suggested that
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January/February 2022
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