Meet the millennials who are turning houseplants into investments – Financial Post

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When Julia Rago’s father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2018, she found herself suddenly spending more time at home.

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But she didn’t find her room a comforting space. So Rago went looking for home decor tips online and landed on a 30-minute plant tour video.

“It was this older woman … and she was just walking around her home; it was really beautifully decorated, and there were hundreds of huge plants all around … I watched the entire video and I was so entranced by her knowledge and how the plants looked.”

Rago was hooked.

By 2019, she had started an Instagram account — “@Torontoplant.girl” — to chronicle her journey. And in 2020, she launched a plant styling and consulting business to help others start their own collection or tend to their current plants’ needs.

There’s huge demand for plant content these days and Instagram plant influencers like Rago are generating more of it every day for their houseplant-hungry followers.

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And while it’s been heating up for years, the pandemic set this trend ablaze.

Consumers eager for plants and plant content

Michael Leach, the owner of Dynasty Plants in Toronto, had been planning to roll out an e-commerce site in the summer of 2020. But he sped up that timeline because of COVID.

“When we posted our initial stock online … several weeks’ worth of product sold out in a couple of hours,” says Leach. “And that happened for about a month straight.”

He was initially surprised, but it made sense to him in the context of COVID: “I think it was something really easy for people to latch onto to reinvigorate their work and living spaces.”

While traffic has since levelled …….

Source: https://financialpost.com/moneywise-pro/meet-the-millennials-who-are-turning-houseplants-into-investments