None of mine made the list.

Get plants you like. Not what’s trending or popular.

Seriously, please stop posting about trends just so you can tell everyone how much you like Ficus Lyrata.

I really couldn't care any less which plants are trendy. Plants most certainly are fashion statements that beautify our homes and gardens, but I'm not going to grow something just because other people are. I'm going to collect and grow plants that pique my interest.

I see FLFs all of the time, on television and in other people's homes, and they look gorgeous. But when it comes to my home, I just don't see myself having one. The same goes for many other plants. House plants should be an extension of yourself and a reflection of your personality; something that compliments you and who you are. With that being said, it's still interesting to see what new cultivars are out there.

" that people will be hoarding on "

What kind of writing is this? Yikes, Hoarding is not usually a verb.

How about you just focus on your own plants & stop telling us what to grow, just focus on how to stop killing your own plants.

Guess you haven't noticed, we are plant lovers & gardeners, not trend followers.

As to "house plants that ‘must go’ by 2019." Seriously?

I like to grow plants, not buy them. So all my favourites are ones I’ve propagated from begged, borrowed or swapped snippets. I have them because I like growing things. Not because someone says they’re ‘in’.

I can't speak for the world, but the plants that I am looking forward to tending next year are my Colocasia 'Tea Party', my Chloroleucon tortum, and my Chlorophytum 'Fire Flash' plantlets.

I have some Sinocrassula yunnanensis and Dioscorea elephantipes plants in the works, but it's best not to count your seedlings before they germinate.

If someone gives me a Ficus lyrata in 2019, it will have to go. I only have room for what I have and would rather not hoard.

tj

No one watches me on YouTube, because I don't make any videos. I would be more likely to share my plants on Instagram, but I wouldn't give a rat's ass whether of not they became "famous." I couldn't care any less about somebody else's approval. We don't have to acknowledge anything. Do yourself a favor and stop giving a $#!+ what other people think. No one in this forum grows their plants for the sake of others, much less their opinions.

‘No ones going to watch you on youtube’.

Who cares? Genuine plant people are interested in narcissi, not narcissisism.

Btw there’s a huge amount of complete rubbish on YouTube. You need to be extremely discerning if you want to tease out the useful information.

I Despise anyone who would take anything as real and wonderful as a love of plants and watching them grow, and turn it into a cheap 'keeping up with the Joneses' chase.

So much of our lives has been cheapened by commercial exploitation and 'influencers' who try to persuade us to buy this or that because of trend value.

Family, pets and plants are for many the last bastions of joy, I have nothing but contempt for those who would seek to turn those comforts into some kind of contest.

Idiotic drivel. Mike, since you are so enamoured by these imaginary trends, magazine articles, and youtube videos, I'm wondering if you are a young teenager, a boy. If so, that would explain a whole lot! Admit it and you'll probably find that some of us may be more patient with you. ;-)

The original post is poorly written and researched. If you are the author, I sure hope that you aren't considering trying to get it published online somewhere.

I have a small garden. And I bought and planted any plant according to the principle - less maintenance, a good green fence and the creation of comfort. Picked up a ficus, sheflera, rosemary, lemon and pomegranate.

Oh, Mike, you're not getting much love here. I think your discussion is certainly worthy, or you wouldn't see articles of this nature posted in every garden magazine or blog this time of the year!

I mean, let's be real. Many people simply want things that other people find desirable, and if there is limited supply, and it's a challenge to find, it makes it even more fun to finally get it! Of course, with plants, you have to accept the additional challenge of finding plants that you can keep alive!

I love my fiddle leaf figs, my monstera deliciosas, and calatheas (especially the rattlesnake) from your list. I recently found a monstera adonsonii, which I'd been searching for, and seems to be on a lot of "must have" lists. I do want to add a peace lily, not because of being particularly trendy, but because I have areas in my home where it might survive the lower light conditions. I also want to add more sansevieras for the same reason, and would love to find a whale fin and some cylindricas. After seeing some pics on here today showing a red agloanema, I'll be keeping my eye out for that.

Speaking of plant trends and peace lily plants, anybody remember that 90's trend of plopping a bare root peace lily into a clear glass urn with a betta fish in the water below? :::shudder::: Trends do come and go!

When I consider I've been growing some of my houseplants for more than 25 years, it's a little hard to figure how "trends" factor into that!!

There may well be trends with plants but most serious gardeners pay no attention to them and buy and grow what they like. Trends are more of a decorator concept and IMO, have little to nothing to do with the actual plants involved or growing them.

TT, what you say may be true, but folks here grow what we like &/or love, not for decor. Just not
who we are or why we grow.

I did see that Betta fish trend thing with an Anthurium in San Diego in 2001; plant was happy.

ETA: the bizarro spacing above is not deliberate nor my doing.

TT, it’s always very controversial if we talk about trends. Some people does not want to accept that their plants are not trendy. They always says they dont follow trends but for sure the time they bought them, their plants was the trendiest one. I am personally always on the search for rare ones like flf, etc

Mike, that is patronising, ill-informed tosh. You really do have some odd ideas, especially concerning 'rarity'.

Real gardeners grow for the love of it. Anybody can walk into a shop and buy ready made home decor in the form of a plant. Simply owning a plant doesn't make you a gardener. It makes you a home decorator. Personally, I can honestly say I have never bought a houseplant because that holds no interest for me. All my plants were propagated by me and cost nothing. It's the growing which I enjoy, not the shopping or ownership. And trends are utterly irrelevant.

floral_uk, I suppose we all have our own opinions and goals regarding our houseplants. To me "real gardeners", work outside of the home, working with nature and the environment to enhance the beauty and functionality of the landscape of their home, or to produce food for consumption. Houseplants, on the other hand, *are* living decor (and air purifiers) for the home, and everyone should own a few (even if they are not "gardeners").

As "living home decor", trends certainly are one factor in selecting, maintaining, and displaying house plants (just as trends apply in *any* home decor). Obviously, trends come and go, and so does the perception of rarity. A few years ago it was somewhat difficult to find pileas, monsteras, or fiddle leaf figs, but now they are in every garden shop, because they are super easy to propagate and grow, and once the growers knew there was a demand, they started cranking them out. I suspect that in another year or two you'll be seeing variegated monsteras or Calathea musaica in the garden shops for the same reason. They are plants that are becoming trendy mostly because of Instagram, and they *are* beautiful, and relatively rare right now, but easy to propagate, and easy to grow. So, my point is that trends influence the growers, which results in plants that are available for purchase.

I'm glad you take pride in propagating your own plants (and you should). I'm trying my hand at some propagation as well, just for fun. But, I also love visiting my locally-owned garden shops, and find personal pride in bringing home something special (trendy or not), and doing my part to support the plant-growing economy! :-)

Trendy = plastic/shallow most of the time, and the words supporting this perceived desire have proven it. Mike, I'm afraid whatever credibility you had here has dived deeper than the Marianas Trench.

Maybe I was a little harsh. But it is presumptuous and ridiculous to be told I 'don't want to accept my plants are not trendy' or that I say 'that I do not want to follow trends' by a person whose posts have revealed time and again that he knows next to nothing about plants and their requirements and shows no interest in learning.

btw i garden far more outside than in. But I consider the care of house plants to be gardening too. I also find it patronising to be told someone is 'glad' I take pride in propagating. In fact, I don't take pride in it. It's no more praiseworthy than walking out of the front door. I take satisfaction but not pride.

I go by what I like not by trends. Wouldn't get rid of a plant because "not trendy", that's just silly.

Small leaf peace lily. I've had them on and off for years/decades. Occasionally kill one off every now and then from getting too dry.

One of my favorite, grape leaf ivy. Need a new one, killed off last one a few years ago. I have a empty planter and trellis waiting in my dining area for my next one/victim. I can find the oak leaf variety but the grape leaf one is for some reason harder to find. But I don't obsessively search for one.

Regarding the Peace Lily beta fish thing. They are carnivores, betas that is, people thought they could survive on plant roots alone. The poor fish. I had been keeping one in a large fishbowl and feeding proper food but they only ever survived a year at most. Unless you keep your home very warm they need temperature controlled/heated water. You can't do that properly with fish bowl, you need ba larger heated aquarium. Too cool water too long Betas will stop eating and slowly starve. After I learned about the water temp issue I stopped getting them. Smallest heated aquarium I've found is about 2.5-3 gallons.

Izzy Mn, that was exactly my :::shudder:::: for that weird "Betta fish and plants in water" trend. I wasn't concerned about the plant, but for the fish!

If it’s not trendy then it’s not commercialised. Do you really go to the jungle and get cuttings? I doubt it!

"If it’s not trendy then it’s not commercialised"

What a preposterous statement!! It is patently obvious that you have no understanding of commercial growers and plant production. I can't begin to list all the many 100's of common houseplants being offered for sale at everything from corner groceries to supermarket chains, to box stores and mass merchandisers, not to mention greenhouses and plant nurseries. And you are trying to convince me that all these 100's of different species of plants are all equally "trendy".......????? Otherwise they would not be offered for sale?? There is simply NO logic in that assumption!

Based on your unsophisticated posts and obvious lack of knowledge and experience, I tend to agree with rhizo that youth must be a factor and therefore am inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. But please refrain from insulting our intellegence with any more nonsense posts about "rare" plants that are dead common or must-haves that are "on trend"....as if anyone cares about plant "trends". As should be quite obvious from the responses here, not many do..........

Here's a question for you.......can you name 3 of the most popular Victorian era houseplants? Palms, ferns and ivies. And 100 years later, these are still very popular houseplants. Are they trendy?? Not in the way you mean it yet they are still being widely grown, marketed and sold.

Most people appreciate houseplants for whatever attributes any particular plant might demonstrate.......not because some yo-yo on YouTube or elewhere on social media (which will be the death of civilization yet) arbitrarily decides it is "trendy"!!

Why are you people so angry? If you dont like to follow trends then don’t! This article is to help houseplant enthusiasts to know what’s trendy and rare so when they go out there, they know what to look for. If you know all of the plants from the victorian era then that’s great but they arent relevant now.

Mike, you’re like talking to a brick wall. House plant enthusiasts don’t care about what’s trendy, only you do.

You dont need to be out there looking for anything. Buy whatever looks appealing to you.

If you ever want any respect and don’t want to be the joke of the forum, stop posting threads like this.

Show me where anyone commented about this thread being useful!! LOL! All the comments have been about how unnecessary and irrelevant it is! And no one "looked it up" intentionally - all are comments made by regular, longtime posters to this site. You give yourself way too much credit if you think this inane topic would actually cause someone to seek this out.

And the comment about Victorian houseplants is to point out that trends really do not exist.....or that they last at least a 100 years if they do :-) The same plants that were popular then are popular now. Does your lack of reading comprehension really extend to that degree??

What is crazy is dunderheaded threads like this to begin with!!

Very well said T T. I appreciate people like you and hope that we have more people like you here. It is so much fun to chat with people who are into plants who are having fun growing them. I am always so scared to wake up everyday because of the thought that something may be happening to my plants and people will beat me to death if i ask help

I've recently had my next door neighbors move away. While I was saying goodbye to them, they told me that I could have this gorgeous rose bush that they planted a while back. It took me quite a while, over the span of several days, just to prune it and eventually dig it up out of the ground. The thorns tore my hands and arms up during this time, but it was a labor of love.

Why do I bring this up? Because I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't want to be doing it. I wouldn't be doing it if I wasn't having fun doing it, either.

I can guarantee you that every single long-time member on here has fun growing the many plants that they want to grow, not common houseplants that inexperienced novices like you deem to be "trendy" or "rare," or else they wouldn't be doing it. Nor would they be taking time out of their busy schedules to come on here to help those that seek it.

Do you even know what the meaning of the word "rare" actually is? I doubt it. But, for what it's worth, if it's being sold at countless garden centers and grocery stores all across the country, then chances are that it's being mass produced in commercial greenhouses and nowhere near close to being rare.

Many people have tried countless times to help you time and time again when you asked for it, but you only hear what you want to hear and already have your mind made up to begin with. Yet you try to twist it around, playing the victim card; making it seem like you're being attacked when that's clearly not the case.

"It's hard to fill a cup that is already full."

Mike, you're scared to wake up in the morning for worry about your plants? It seems to me that you're not exactly enjoying your hobby. If you could relax and not panic at every little mark or droopy leaf you'd enjoy it a lot more.

Seriously? I never knew there was such a thing as “houseplant trends” except succulents have been very popular of late. I just grow what works in my home growing conditions and amount of space available. Cannot image trying to keep up with the Joneses on that! Growing plants are wonderful in the home. I don’t care if they’re not the year’s hot ticket.

Honestly, this seems a bit silly. Should I toss my schefflera because it’s big? Or the pothos.

Mike,

People wouldn’t beat you to death when you ask for help if you didn’t make annoying posts, false claims, and just act so neurotic all the time.

Cant you just relax and be normal?

I think there are "trends" now in plants like most everything else. In ebay sales, you can see crazy bidding on many aroids that were once very common. Some Variegated Monstera and Pink Princess Philodendron are going for $100's. In 2008-2009(ish) bids for brugmansia (certain new hybrids) were up to $300+ on ebay. People in my brug groups then, were competing with each other to get the newest hottest hybrids. Not seeing that now. People did just drift off and quit buying those plants for crazy $.

In general, I think once the market becomes more flooded or stuff goes into mass production/tissue culture. People dont want it as much.

In 2008, I bought 2 of my original Variegated Monstera deliciosas at a local nursery for around 13.00 each. They weren't labeled as monsteras just 'Swiss Cheese'. Nurseries seem to know what they have now and mark stuff up ridiculously. They are watching the trends and thus trendy plants. Funny, the nursery where I bought those variegated monsteras back in 2008, recently had a black stem Alocasias for $50! I couldn't believe it. Way too much for something common. About a half hour later I saw a woman walk by with one in her cart. Hmmm maybe the nurseries are now smarter than the customers (trend-wise anyhow)lol.

I do watch you tube plant videos and there do seem to be trends in what people are buying and growing (especially succulents and aroids) Many are pretty informed, many are young and learning, some are just ridiculous.

You Tube and other social media are how many young people connect and learn. I am glad millennials and Gen Zs are taking an interest in growing plants.

For many, plants will 'trend' out but some will stick with it and become serious collectors. That is good! With our crazy planet changes, plants might need to depend on collectors or be lost.

FWIW, I like the nursery and botanical garden tour videos the most :)

Im sorry i didnt really know why talking about trends is annoying. I personally want to know what’s the new craze, what’s new and see what others are growing which are unusual. I dont find it annoying at all. I see houseplant trends allover the internet, youtube, pinterest, insta etc. i thought it’s a topic everyone would like to talk about just like I do

Mike, let me break it to you - just because you're interested in something doesn't mean everyone/most people/some people are interested in something. I'm glad you have enthusiasm for your plants, but we're not all 20-something year-olds here who depend on social media to feed our egos.

I'm happy you're excited about a hobby of keeping and collecting house plants. It a fun hobby. I think people here are just annoyed by the rare plant proclamations and trendy plants. People mostly get what they love, what turns them on or what works for them not what's trendy. If you love "old fashioned" Boston ferns then it's what you go with. It means something different to you than to them. They are probably thinking you are influenced by the social media crowd too much which is not always a legitimate source for information.

But don't let that deter your enthusiasm.

Not "always" a legitimate source for information? How generous of you.. :)

ill, still, Izzy can afford to be generous as s/he put it best.

I can see trends relevant to growers and sellers, and maybe a few buyers too, but the rest of us are just growing what we like. I notice that garden centres get new perennials in that are expensive when they are 1st introduced, and they either prove their worth or fade away again, like so many “black” tulip varieties. For me, some plant types click and others don’t work, like english ivy?, boston ferns, most palms, ficus trees and african violets. I’ve got some stalwarts I’ve had for years and years, and some came from cuttings from people I’ve known, so they are like living history. I really love my plants and they would have to die or really p— me off for me to get rid of them.

Wow, what a "community" of enthusists. You guys dont like this kids post so you all pile on and bash him and his ideas. Well done.

Keys, it seems you are clueless on the back story.

This is just plain sad.

Most of my plants didn't make the list. Had I bought them based on trends, I would've been very disappointed. I recently got a BOP, but it has fairly large leaves, so I'm not sure how that reconciles with your #6 statement: "the age of plants with huge leaves is dead. People are now more attractive to smaller varieties. " Thinking of it, the FLF and the Monstera also have huge leaves. Just sayin'. Regardless, keep on loving your FLF - it's quite a lovely plant!

Without trends I would not have any of my plants. I don't buy them when they first are touted as new. I wait to hear how they do, then I get the ones I adore who seem suitable for my conditions. I don't buy them because they are new, but so what if I did. Being so literal is a disservice, and makes me reluctant to post.

True! Trend is good!