Unpopular opinion: plant influencers are ruining the hobby for newbies

I went to a local plant swap last Saturday and heard a woman crying because her variegated monstera was 'ugly' by Instagram standards. Three years ago I started collecting succulents from a hardware store shelf, and nobody told me my plants needed aesthetic staging. Now every new person thinks they need grow lights and rare cuttings just to belong. Has anyone else seen beginners quit because they felt their setup wasn't fancy enough?

3 comments

3 Comments

rose_clark8124d ago

Right? Saw a girl throw away a perfectly healthy pothos because it wasn't trendy enough.

caleb_bell524d ago

and that kinda junk drives me nuts @rose_clark81. Pothos will survive basically anything, I've got a cutting from my grandma from like 15 years ago and it's still going strong in a bucket in my garage. People treat plants like fast fashion now, just grabbing whatever looks good on Instagram and tossing the rest. All you gotta do with pothos is give it some water and a bit of light and it'll outlive half the fancy plants people pay $60 for at the nursery. Honestly it's a shame because that girl probably spent good money on whatever new thing she replaced it with.

quinn3419d ago

Nah fr it's like people saw one video of a variegated monstera and decided their perfectly healthy pothos was basically garbage. I've got a pothos that came from a plant my mom had in college back in the 80s and it's still chugging along in a old coffee can on my porch. Meanwhile my sister spent $45 on some rare plant from Etsy and it died in two weeks cause she forgot to water it. Pothos is the ultimate survivor plant, it's basically the cockroach of the houseplant world except prettier. At this rate I'm gonna start seeing people throw away perfectly good golden pothos cause they want a "trendy" silver satin one instead. Honestly wild how fast people switch up on plants like they're trading cards or something.