In March 2020, with the first wave of lockdowns looming, many Australians thought to seize the moment and turn the enforced home time into a mini season of The Block: Garden Week. Bunnings’ queues and profits increased (earnings grew 13 per cent for the 2019-20 financial year), and nurseries were picked over quick. “It was a mad time,” says Josh O’Meara, Director of The Jungle Collective – Australia’s biggest pop-up plant nursery company, which host pop-up sales around the country.
“Stuck at home, people went crazy with plant purchases. There just weren’t enough plants going around in the end. Lockdown also coincided with winter, which is when there’s always shortages of plants anyway so it was really a bit of a challenge.”
Josh O’Meara, co-owner of The Jungle Collective, a pop-up plant nursery during the Canberra warehouse sale on Friday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Early surges were in food plants and seedlings, but it soon flowed to decorative and indoor plants, particularly as the initial upside-gazing of COVID measures waned. It became less about home improvement and more about mental health. To those stuck at home, jobless, overwhelmed, lonely or anxious, plants offered something else: a reminder that things are changing, time is moving, and a sense of achievement.
It’s a concept that Melbourne-based O’Meara understands well. Three years ago, he had a concussion (his 12th in fact, the result of too many knocks playing Aussie Rules football) that meant he was largely homebound. Unable to read, look at a screen or do too much physical activity, he got into plants. “It was a slow pace that I could really handle, but also that optimistic thing, when you’re recovering, and things are moving pretty slow, seeing that new leaf grow is uplifting and a reminder that things keep getting better. I think with lockdown, people found that same thing.”
Almost a year on from the first lockdown, it’s a different story. “A lot of growers expanded to keep up with the crazy demand and added more variants. So now is the perfect time to buy because everything is starting to get big and look really good again.”
COVID might have given plants the biggest boom since the fiddle leaf fig became a trendy home must-have in 2016, but with more variants available, prices a flutter and having a happy home space more important than ever, what should we be growing? Here’s how to be a cool, calm plant parent in the golden age of greenery.
Evergreen
“Fiddles and monsteras, giant birds [of paradise], rubber trees and Bangalow palms, they’re all nice, beginner plants,” says O’Meara, adding that the fiddle leaf fig is still a phenomenon, particularly when it gets big, (which, if you bought one five years ago, yours may be).
Melissa King, horticulturalist and Northcote Pottery Ambassador agrees, “The fiddle leaf fig will always have a special place in peoples’ homes, for its big bold foliage and the height and drama it brings to a space.” It has, however, been surpassed. “The monstera deliciosa is the standout seller at the moment,” says O’Meara. Also known as the Swiss cheese plant (because of its holey leaves), this Monstera has similar oversized, but greener leaves than the fiddle and grows wide as well as tall.
