BY Jelisa Castrodale

Who’s Paying $5,000 for One Houseplant? More People Than You’d Think

“Collecting can be a sort of lovesickness. If you begin collecting living things ... and even if you manage to find them and then possess them, there is no guarantee they won’t die or change.”

-Susan Orlean, JOURNALIST

Orlean's observations were about hardcore orchid collectors, people who had once been "seemingly normal" before they cultivated a willingness to risk literally everything to get their hands on the rarest members of the Orchidaceae family.

Twenty-five years later, plant obsessives are still out there, but instead of shoving flowers into pillowcases during a midday swamp raid, they can send DMs about whatever they're into, join a nursery's lengthy waiting list, or place a bid on an auction site.

Last weekend, an anonymous New Zealander paid NZD $8,150 (the equivalent of USD $5,291) for an “extremely rare variegated Rhaphidophora tetrasperma” on the auction site Trade Me. The sale set a new record for the most expensive houseplant to ever be sold on the platform.

The weekend auction marked the third time this year that a houseplant has set a new sales record on Trade Me; the Rhaphidophora even out-priced a Hoya carnosa 'compacta' with a cream and yellow variegation that sold for $4,225 in June.

What’s prompted this interest in high-dollar rarities? One gardener compared it to collecting pricey handbags, as “exclusivity, showing off and downright silliness.” But to Dr. Bridget Behe, a Horticulture professor at Michigan State University, it's just Econ 101.

“Plants, like people, can be a bit fickle. Social media can help create demand where supply is quite low, creating rare plants. FOMO is real and some people emotionally want that specific plant, so it drives up prices by driving up demand. Pretty simple economics.”

Aroids like monstera, philodendron, and pothos have undoubtedly benefited from their Insta-ubiquity, driven by plantfluencers (sigh), hashtags, and unboxing videos.

According to the National Gardening Association, the highest-ever number of 18- to 34-year-olds are now participating in "gardening activities," including raising indoor plants. As a result, retail sales in the lawn and garden category hit a new high of $47.8 billion last year.

Before somebody inevitably blames millennials for inflating the indoor houseplant market, it's probably worth pointing out that this isn't a new thing.

Almost a century before Orlean typed the first chapter of The Orchid Thief, wealthy Victorians were so entranced by orchids and so willing to spend fuck-you money to buy them, that their fascination was known as 'orchidelirum.'

“There are persons who collect orchids as others do coins or postage stamps, paying large sums for single plants. It is said that a sum nearly twice as large as the largest price paid ... $5,200 [almost $150,000 in 2020 US dollars] was paid in London last year for one plant.”

In the early part of the 20th century, Cypripedium-crazed orchid collectors were even accused of hunting one variety to the edge of extinction. Today's #plantparents haven't taken things that far—yet—but there are still detrimental aspects to the surging market for rarities.

“I look forward to when they’re in wider production so that more people can enjoy them. I think that plants should be accessible to everybody, because they’re a source of joy.”

-Jesse Waldman, director of marketing at Pistils Nursery in Portland, Oregon

Tap to get the best of VICE in your inbox

TAP TO SUBSCRIBE TAP TO SUBSCRIBE