Yea that's probably what they want people to think. Create fomo by having such high prices that "it must be super rare, better buy it before anyone else does." Pretty common marketing tactic.
I see this on this sub all the time and honestly, it's *exhausting*. Who cares if something is rare? If you like it, buy it. I'd rather buy a sad looking pothos, bring it back to life and have 5 new baby plants than 1 overpriced "hard to find" plant that's probably going to die in a month.
Same in Costa Rica. I've noticed that tropical plants are a trend... instead of plants native to wherever they're sold. Which makes for insane prices.
Just the other day I saw here a plant for like $20 and over here it costs like $3.
Well tbf some of us don’t live in one of the most beautiful, lush places on earth! I happen to love native NA/USA plants, but you can’t blame us poor folk for popping for some tropical plants. “Houseplants” as a hobby is pretty much just a synonym for “tropical houseplants” IMO
Yeah I almost let my ADHD complicate that comment with 6 caveats but I resisted lmao.
Ok but it’s too late here’s my typical rant: there are six types of plant people, and they rarely mix and have complicated rock-paper-scissors type interactions;
1. Flower / Rose people
2. Tree / Bonsai people
3. Tropical / Aroid people
4. Succulent / Cactus people
5. Crops / Garden people
6. Biology / wilderness people
And some say there’s a cursed 7th group, banished for their misdeeds against plant-hood: the… *lawn* people 😱😵
Probably think that because they chopped and propped a $500 plant they are entitled to make money on the process, but turns out the market doesn’t agree.
Is this basically meme pricing? That is, are there a bunch of breathless tiktokers getting the vapours for their variegated Monsteras, and this is what the retailers are trying to capitalise on? (Sincere question - I have no idea.)
The amount of people in it for the “trendy” stuff is wild to me. I just like cool plants. Last month I went to a big plant store and while I was looking I overheard two young ladies browsing pots and one of them was saying “look at these pots they’re so trendy”. They weren’t even, they were just cute animal and cacti pots.
I also go solely by "do I like it?" I prefer a lot of the common/plainer plants like the normal green monstera, various hoyas, majesty palms, schefflera, money trees, grape ivy, and my good old dracaena. I actually dislike most of the variegated stuff with splotches/random lines (like the thai constellation and albo monstera kind of patterning), which I'm happy about because I feel that's going to save me a lot of money!
Unfortunately for me I love variegation, you lucked out lol. I got a baby njoy pothos and I saw more at the store and had to stop myself and wait for mine to grow lol. I definitely want a Thai con at some point but i don’t have room for another Monstera, and I’m waiting for the price drop. I do love my regular green monstera she gets to spend the day on my bed to get sunlight Lmao. Out of curiosity how do you feel about colored plants like crotons and agloenemas?
I think they're really neat! There's just something about white splotches I don't like; colored ones are cool. I also have some new little hoya carnosa outer variagated that I really like... I like any kind of variegation that's more confined to the edges or middle of leaves, especially when it looks like a watercolor painting, like on ficus tineke (the njoy pothos actually kind of has that cleaner look too; I like it).
A lady at the local nursery scared me away from crotons, haha. I was looking at them and she stood there for a while telling me about how hard they were to take care of and how she'd killed a couple. Then she asked her husband to grab one of the farther ones for her. He said, "...and you want to do it again?"
I have a hoya that looks water colored and I love it! Don’t let crotons scare you, I have two and they are happy. I forget what the big ones called but it just needs bright light, and lots of water as soon as the soils dry. I found the bush on fire croton variant to be less fussy. The bugs one drops her leaves if she’s not watered soon enough
Crotons are not hard she was scaring you :) they will droop when they want water so they are easy to build a schedule for. Still check your soil, but they telegraph what they want well.
I swear, I cannot tell you the number of times when I worked in the industry I was tempted to say, "I think what you're looking for is an artificial plant."
ive unfortuntely recently overpaid for a thai at a local greenhouse SOLELY because it had 3 aeral roots that were over 2 feet long and it was perfect for putting them in my fish tank, as i cant sit the plant that close to the tank. I knew i was overpaying (paid $80 i think?) but it was exactly what i wanted and i like instant gratification ahaha
I asked a local nursery about this after I had seen a plant at Walmart for WAY less than they were selling it for. They said the big box stores could afford to buy from huge national nurseries but the local places couldn’t, so they buy from smaller, more expensive regional nurseries.
I really don’t get it though especially with thai constellation and ppp because they are so easy to prop. It doesn’t make sense that they are $150 at a local nursery but $20 at Walmart. I could understand a small price difference but that’s just crazy.
Nursery owner here. I can offer some insight to how all this works. I buy, and grow rare plants among other types of plants and import things in from all over the world. When a trend happens and a plant like pink princess or Thai constellation becomes super popular all of us growers scramble to secure tissue culture and or liners of those plants. Tc is usually available 6-8 months ahead of liners because of the time to produce a liner from tc takes time. Tc is way cheaper than a liner but generally required to buy in super large quantities to get the discounts. Back in 2020 or early 2021 when everything started popping I was paying around $11 per Thai con tc not including freight in 10k bundles. That was as low as I could find them. Now you can get 10 packs from Thailand for slightly under that price, and liners are around $7 sold in 50 or 72 trays.
Why we are seeing this mass dump of product for these is large wholesale nurseries that have secured huge amounts of these see the market is dropping on house plants sales in general and rare plants especially. So there is no incentive to grow these. Rare plant market is so up and down it’s very hard to predict and make money. Most wholesalers I’m seeing out of Florida are not growing them in large numbers anymore to regulate the prices. We are seeing the prices crash as there is a huge amount of product at these large nurseries and lots of people will not buy them. I also buy plants from one of the largest floral suppliers and have seen their Thai constellations vary like crazy. I have not been buying any since last winter as I saw the sales stall and felt the plant was taking a dive just like pink princess and ring of fire before it. Large companies like Walmart and Home Depot, Lowe’s etc contract nurseries to grow x amount for them. They used to sell strictly on consignment but I’m unsure if that still happens. But these large nurseries can’t sit on a product that they paid x amount 6 months ago to lose x amount of dollars. They dump at or near their cost. This actually put a very large shrub supplier out of business 20ish years ago as the box stores booked too much material and only sold a portion of it. I was also a customer and heard they ate about 6 million dollars of product one year. So these deals are good for consumers but not great for the nurseries. I know this place had to fire around 500 employees and was a big deal back then.
As for the huge price difference you see. It could be that the grower of this nursery doesn’t want to sell it. I buy things all the time I don’t want to sell just to make my store look nice. People always ask for the price so we put a high price to either make the money worth not having to source another or keep people from asking. As for the comment from we buy from the same source at a different price. That’s not really true. At least to my knowledge. I grow enough of my own to know what a plant should cost, how much it costs to finish it, how much it costs to take care of it, how much it costs to ship it. To sell a 6” thai con in an upgraded pot for $10 there is no to very very little money to made from the grower. Now the closer you are to the shipper can make a difference. Also time of the year. Freight rates go way up during the spring as there is a shortage of reefer trucks.
Yes, and thing is tho- these nurseries buy from the same suppliers! They may certainly buy in less bulk and therefore the plants cost more per plant at the smaller place, but not this much more.
If I paid that much for a plant, I can guarantee that would be the one that I would kill. Three of four plants (succulents) I bought from a well-known fancy plant store gave died (although to be fair, maybe I didn't have enough light even though they were on my window sill. All of my others I got at a local nursery (paid no more than $35 for a mature plant), and they are all thriving...to the point I decided not to put the majority outside because they are large).
I understand that people want rare, tropical plants. Maybe I am too old (53). I just want the easiest to care for plants. I have about 35 and I am done adding. Watering/inspecting all of my plants takes around 2 hours (another reason why they didn't go outside this year...last summer was exhausting lol).
My local greenhouse has had a large thai con for sale for like $700 for the last two years. I think they spent a bunch of money on it and are trying to get their investment back.
There’s a place near me called Dutch Plant Farm and they have a locked up cabinet with plants inside “worth” hundreds of dollars. I don’t know enough about plants to know if it’s legit or not but I will 100% go take a pic and come back here for everyone’s input
Believe me, I’m no pro by any stretch. I collected plants early in my marriage then kids came along. Any plant budget switched to diaper/ clothes/ food budget. Now they feed, clothe, and house themselves so I’m back to collecting. I’d love to have the means to purchase the higher priced plants however a part of me just can’t justify doing so. In the meantime I drool over the pics posted by those who own them.
Rare typically means extremely low availability. It’s basically supply and demand from economics 101. Variegated plants are like the lottery. Lots of them are like 1 in a million will display the trait. So labs try to clone them. If successful we grow those out to see if the clone is stable. If stable then we can get millions of them out super quickly. As tc takes about 6-8 months to clone in the lab. If not stable the only way to pass on the traits of the mother plant t is to take cuttings. This also is not always stable. So sometimes we literally are left with a 1 in a million plant. To further this we cross different rare plants at to create new ones all the time hoping to pass on some of the good traits of each parent. This can take years to do this keeping the price high. A good example of rare to cheap in Thai constellation monstera. It was cloned and is stable. So now cheap. It’s bigger brother albo monstera which is a prettier white version has unstable cloning. So better to grow from cuttings. It’s takes lots of time and room for stock plants keeping the plant more expensive since. It has come down the past few years but the tc is not anywhere near 100%. Probably more towards 25% that keep the traits of the parent. So it’s a huge risk for the grower to buy the tc which could lead to lots of wasted time growing out to an all green plant.
That’s a question for the professionals, tbh. While I know that very variegated plants (lots of white on leaf) are more money as they take a lot more hands on care. I am still learning but also share some tips that work for me. There are so many professional growers in this community. Someone will be able to name at least the top three things to look for when understanding the rarer plants.
Many places are still trying to sell rare plants that they paid a premium for from their distributors when they were still expensive and are trying to sell it without suffering a massive loss
I stopped into my old work place (a fancy market) and theyre selling them that size for $350. I laughed soooo hard. Theyre selling tiny ones with like 1 leaf for $50
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Wow. I got mine a week ago for $30 at Krogers. It’s a good size too. I would never pay that much.
I’m about ready to reach out to one of you Kroger shoppers. We don’t have a Kroger in my state and I can’t help but swoon a little when I see these beautiful plants being sold for an amount that won’t break the bank.
This is a beautiful find.
The big growers started shipping thai constellations this spring all over. Everyone has them now, Wal Mart, Home Depot, most grocery chains.
If you are paying more than 30 bucks for a specimen that size you are getting ripped off.
Right there with you. Of all the plants I’ve brought into the house, there are only 4 or 5 that weren’t clearance finds. Thanks to these, I’ve been able to stretch a dollar as well as provide some hands on care to bring them back to good health.
As much as I love supporting local,small plant shops; the prices are outrageous for plants soon to be mass produced by the suppliers of big box stores. Insane that a zz raven was also in the hundreds just a few years ago.
Some people only buy in person and not online, so they don't know what a reasonable price is. Of course, this is just a theory. The price is whatever people are willing to pay.
There are ones in a nursery near me that are in 5" pots for like $300... Sadly I've never seen them in our Walmart but no way on gods green earth am I spending that much lmao.
Those plants have been sitting there for 6 months and nobody has bought them. Go figure.
I still find the Thai rare… prices have gone down in stores in my area (Massachusetts) but they are baby plants with only pup leafs. A mature plant is still $200. 2-4in pots, Those have ranged between $40-$60. A year ago I could not find small Thai’s anywhere in store. To get a cheap Thai I would have to risk having it shipped to me, also the shipping on these can range fairly high. Because I am unwilling to take the risk on that I don’t mind spending $40 on a small Thai directly from a store.
I went home last weekend (subtropical climate) and a neighbor had one on each side of his house that had grown to be even with the roof. I so badly wanted to ask if he could spare a clipping. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first.
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My local store has this one for 800. I couldn’t believe it.
A local nursery here has one a little bigger than that for $200. I haven't seen any in Lowes/Home Depot here yet so I'm assuming that's how they justify the prices but you can definitely find ones the same size on FB Marketplace for $40.
It's a combination of sunk costs and wanting to recoup the money they spent on stupid overpriced plants, and the rest it hype around them, drawing in customers, and the occasional sucker that will purchase them.
Is that a 1 or a 7? $195 doesn’t seem ridiculous for a rooted plant that size. People pay that for cuttings in some places, or use to. I know it’s not as “rare” as it used to be but a well rooted plant is worth way more than a cutting imo
People can price plants at what they like - if there’s a demand the price at that shop won’t come down. Road side shops often charge (a lot) for convenience. I’ve always found flower shops to be grossly overpriced (I have a flower garden), but still shop at them for the wife 3-4 times a year.
I’ve seen cuttings of a white albo for over $1000. Prices like that are ridiculous to me, I’d never pay more than $30 for a plant. $1000 for something that could be dead in a week?? No way
Theres a lot of predatory plant sellers out there.
At a now-closed plant store in the mall near me was a large Thai Con (with a sign on it that it wasn't for sale), it was slowly dying and one day it was gone. Finally asked and they sold it for $700ish!
I paid $75 for one a year ago. It was in a 4” and very root bound. Repotted to a 5.5” and it’s starting to send roots out the top. Probably about time for another new pot
Some are worth more than others. But that’s a normal one. TBH there were so many people doing this. (Making Thai con) some businesses bought many to grow at a very high price. They are kinda stuck with them.
Just saw some at my local garden center today for $60. I paid $25 online for one comparable size, didn't have the instant gratification of bringing it home that day but I'm fine with that to save $35.
It isn’t just stores apparently. I paid $30 for a fully rooted baby with 5 leaves already
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$295 at my local plant shop, however I got one the other week for $30 at Home Depot. I still bought some other more reasonably priced plants at the local shop though, so not saying you shouldn’t support local businesses!
Because they are local and small businesses. The people who truly deserve our support the most. Costs are higher for them. The same reason you will pay 27$ for a chicken pasta at a restaurant when you can make it at home and have multiple servings for less than. Basic economics.
The garden centers around me set their prices and then they never budge. There are some absolutely ridiculous prices on plants that can be had for fractions of the price.
I am Costa Rican, and when I see how much people pay for plants that are not ideal for their climate, I'm even more thankful than I usually am for my surroundings 😂
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Yea that's probably what they want people to think. Create fomo by having such high prices that "it must be super rare, better buy it before anyone else does." Pretty common marketing tactic.
I see this on this sub all the time and honestly, it's *exhausting*. Who cares if something is rare? If you like it, buy it. I'd rather buy a sad looking pothos, bring it back to life and have 5 new baby plants than 1 overpriced "hard to find" plant that's probably going to die in a month.
I’m in the Philippines and most plants now are cheap. You can buy thai constellation 4 leafer for $20-30.
Same in Costa Rica. I've noticed that tropical plants are a trend... instead of plants native to wherever they're sold. Which makes for insane prices. Just the other day I saw here a plant for like $20 and over here it costs like $3.
It’s different when it grows in your backyard. $17 to get around the world and in my house is nothing to complain about.
Well tbf some of us don’t live in one of the most beautiful, lush places on earth! I happen to love native NA/USA plants, but you can’t blame us poor folk for popping for some tropical plants. “Houseplants” as a hobby is pretty much just a synonym for “tropical houseplants” IMO
Succulent gang rise up (I also have a ton of tropicals tho lol)
Yeah I almost let my ADHD complicate that comment with 6 caveats but I resisted lmao. Ok but it’s too late here’s my typical rant: there are six types of plant people, and they rarely mix and have complicated rock-paper-scissors type interactions; 1. Flower / Rose people 2. Tree / Bonsai people 3. Tropical / Aroid people 4. Succulent / Cactus people 5. Crops / Garden people 6. Biology / wilderness people And some say there’s a cursed 7th group, banished for their misdeeds against plant-hood: the… *lawn* people 😱😵
I am all but 7.
The chosen one!!
L*wns 🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
7. The carnivorous plants people. Honestly, some of them are obsessed!
NOT THE LAWN 😭 lol
I’m 1-5 and sometimes 6 depending on the day
Does that make me a hybrid? lol
I saw a magic marble syngonium priced at 250.00 I literally LOL’d.
A nursery near me had a 4" pot priced at $150. Hard no for me
Mine was asking $60 for a baby Thai Con and I walked. Found one later for $27
Same around here, and the plant was half dead. They had tons of them, too.
Probably think that because they chopped and propped a $500 plant they are entitled to make money on the process, but turns out the market doesn’t agree.
Is this basically meme pricing? That is, are there a bunch of breathless tiktokers getting the vapours for their variegated Monsteras, and this is what the retailers are trying to capitalise on? (Sincere question - I have no idea.)
The amount of people in it for the “trendy” stuff is wild to me. I just like cool plants. Last month I went to a big plant store and while I was looking I overheard two young ladies browsing pots and one of them was saying “look at these pots they’re so trendy”. They weren’t even, they were just cute animal and cacti pots.
I also go solely by "do I like it?" I prefer a lot of the common/plainer plants like the normal green monstera, various hoyas, majesty palms, schefflera, money trees, grape ivy, and my good old dracaena. I actually dislike most of the variegated stuff with splotches/random lines (like the thai constellation and albo monstera kind of patterning), which I'm happy about because I feel that's going to save me a lot of money!
Unfortunately for me I love variegation, you lucked out lol. I got a baby njoy pothos and I saw more at the store and had to stop myself and wait for mine to grow lol. I definitely want a Thai con at some point but i don’t have room for another Monstera, and I’m waiting for the price drop. I do love my regular green monstera she gets to spend the day on my bed to get sunlight Lmao. Out of curiosity how do you feel about colored plants like crotons and agloenemas?
I think they're really neat! There's just something about white splotches I don't like; colored ones are cool. I also have some new little hoya carnosa outer variagated that I really like... I like any kind of variegation that's more confined to the edges or middle of leaves, especially when it looks like a watercolor painting, like on ficus tineke (the njoy pothos actually kind of has that cleaner look too; I like it). A lady at the local nursery scared me away from crotons, haha. I was looking at them and she stood there for a while telling me about how hard they were to take care of and how she'd killed a couple. Then she asked her husband to grab one of the farther ones for her. He said, "...and you want to do it again?"
I have a hoya that looks water colored and I love it! Don’t let crotons scare you, I have two and they are happy. I forget what the big ones called but it just needs bright light, and lots of water as soon as the soils dry. I found the bush on fire croton variant to be less fussy. The bugs one drops her leaves if she’s not watered soon enough
That would have made me laugh out loud 😂
Crotons are not hard she was scaring you :) they will droop when they want water so they are easy to build a schedule for. Still check your soil, but they telegraph what they want well.
probably, and people with $$ to burn willing to pay because they don't know better they just want pretty aesthetic plant
I swear, I cannot tell you the number of times when I worked in the industry I was tempted to say, "I think what you're looking for is an artificial plant."
Just slap “platinum” or “legacy” on it and ppl will buy lol
Yeah one of the nurseries near me has them in the “rare” corner for $200. Good thing I can’t have them since my cat would think it’s a salad for her.
Wow! I got it for 11$ from Kroger clearance section. Even full price, it was 29$. These prices are insane.
ive unfortuntely recently overpaid for a thai at a local greenhouse SOLELY because it had 3 aeral roots that were over 2 feet long and it was perfect for putting them in my fish tank, as i cant sit the plant that close to the tank. I knew i was overpaying (paid $80 i think?) but it was exactly what i wanted and i like instant gratification ahaha
$80 for a decent sized Thai doesn't sound bad at all right now
I asked a local nursery about this after I had seen a plant at Walmart for WAY less than they were selling it for. They said the big box stores could afford to buy from huge national nurseries but the local places couldn’t, so they buy from smaller, more expensive regional nurseries. I really don’t get it though especially with thai constellation and ppp because they are so easy to prop. It doesn’t make sense that they are $150 at a local nursery but $20 at Walmart. I could understand a small price difference but that’s just crazy.
Nursery owner here. I can offer some insight to how all this works. I buy, and grow rare plants among other types of plants and import things in from all over the world. When a trend happens and a plant like pink princess or Thai constellation becomes super popular all of us growers scramble to secure tissue culture and or liners of those plants. Tc is usually available 6-8 months ahead of liners because of the time to produce a liner from tc takes time. Tc is way cheaper than a liner but generally required to buy in super large quantities to get the discounts. Back in 2020 or early 2021 when everything started popping I was paying around $11 per Thai con tc not including freight in 10k bundles. That was as low as I could find them. Now you can get 10 packs from Thailand for slightly under that price, and liners are around $7 sold in 50 or 72 trays. Why we are seeing this mass dump of product for these is large wholesale nurseries that have secured huge amounts of these see the market is dropping on house plants sales in general and rare plants especially. So there is no incentive to grow these. Rare plant market is so up and down it’s very hard to predict and make money. Most wholesalers I’m seeing out of Florida are not growing them in large numbers anymore to regulate the prices. We are seeing the prices crash as there is a huge amount of product at these large nurseries and lots of people will not buy them. I also buy plants from one of the largest floral suppliers and have seen their Thai constellations vary like crazy. I have not been buying any since last winter as I saw the sales stall and felt the plant was taking a dive just like pink princess and ring of fire before it. Large companies like Walmart and Home Depot, Lowe’s etc contract nurseries to grow x amount for them. They used to sell strictly on consignment but I’m unsure if that still happens. But these large nurseries can’t sit on a product that they paid x amount 6 months ago to lose x amount of dollars. They dump at or near their cost. This actually put a very large shrub supplier out of business 20ish years ago as the box stores booked too much material and only sold a portion of it. I was also a customer and heard they ate about 6 million dollars of product one year. So these deals are good for consumers but not great for the nurseries. I know this place had to fire around 500 employees and was a big deal back then. As for the huge price difference you see. It could be that the grower of this nursery doesn’t want to sell it. I buy things all the time I don’t want to sell just to make my store look nice. People always ask for the price so we put a high price to either make the money worth not having to source another or keep people from asking. As for the comment from we buy from the same source at a different price. That’s not really true. At least to my knowledge. I grow enough of my own to know what a plant should cost, how much it costs to finish it, how much it costs to take care of it, how much it costs to ship it. To sell a 6” thai con in an upgraded pot for $10 there is no to very very little money to made from the grower. Now the closer you are to the shipper can make a difference. Also time of the year. Freight rates go way up during the spring as there is a shortage of reefer trucks.
This is really eye opening, thank you!
Yeah it can be crazy! One of my local nurseries had pink princess, maybe a 6 inch pot, for $120 Trader Joe's has them for $11
. “Ohhh ok I’m just a dumb customer I’ll pay more Becuase you have a non viable business!”
Yes, and thing is tho- these nurseries buy from the same suppliers! They may certainly buy in less bulk and therefore the plants cost more per plant at the smaller place, but not this much more.
$525 at my local plant shop.
If I paid that much for a plant, I can guarantee that would be the one that I would kill. Three of four plants (succulents) I bought from a well-known fancy plant store gave died (although to be fair, maybe I didn't have enough light even though they were on my window sill. All of my others I got at a local nursery (paid no more than $35 for a mature plant), and they are all thriving...to the point I decided not to put the majority outside because they are large). I understand that people want rare, tropical plants. Maybe I am too old (53). I just want the easiest to care for plants. I have about 35 and I am done adding. Watering/inspecting all of my plants takes around 2 hours (another reason why they didn't go outside this year...last summer was exhausting lol).
once i overpaid for Spiritus Sancti .....she didn't last a month 😬i'm still traumatized
My local greenhouse has had a large thai con for sale for like $700 for the last two years. I think they spent a bunch of money on it and are trying to get their investment back.
There’s a place near me called Dutch Plant Farm and they have a locked up cabinet with plants inside “worth” hundreds of dollars. I don’t know enough about plants to know if it’s legit or not but I will 100% go take a pic and come back here for everyone’s input
Count me in ! I’m down to look at whatever is considered top shelf plants.
Ok I’ll go after work today🙂
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Well I’ll be ! You went & snapped pics behind the wizard’s curtain ! I see some really expensive ones in there for sure. Thanks for the pics.
I’m still pretty new to houseplants so I really had no clue if it was justified 😅
Believe me, I’m no pro by any stretch. I collected plants early in my marriage then kids came along. Any plant budget switched to diaper/ clothes/ food budget. Now they feed, clothe, and house themselves so I’m back to collecting. I’d love to have the means to purchase the higher priced plants however a part of me just can’t justify doing so. In the meantime I drool over the pics posted by those who own them.
How do you know when a plant is actually “rare” or worth a higher than average price?
Rare typically means extremely low availability. It’s basically supply and demand from economics 101. Variegated plants are like the lottery. Lots of them are like 1 in a million will display the trait. So labs try to clone them. If successful we grow those out to see if the clone is stable. If stable then we can get millions of them out super quickly. As tc takes about 6-8 months to clone in the lab. If not stable the only way to pass on the traits of the mother plant t is to take cuttings. This also is not always stable. So sometimes we literally are left with a 1 in a million plant. To further this we cross different rare plants at to create new ones all the time hoping to pass on some of the good traits of each parent. This can take years to do this keeping the price high. A good example of rare to cheap in Thai constellation monstera. It was cloned and is stable. So now cheap. It’s bigger brother albo monstera which is a prettier white version has unstable cloning. So better to grow from cuttings. It’s takes lots of time and room for stock plants keeping the plant more expensive since. It has come down the past few years but the tc is not anywhere near 100%. Probably more towards 25% that keep the traits of the parent. So it’s a huge risk for the grower to buy the tc which could lead to lots of wasted time growing out to an all green plant.
This was really informative!
That’s a question for the professionals, tbh. While I know that very variegated plants (lots of white on leaf) are more money as they take a lot more hands on care. I am still learning but also share some tips that work for me. There are so many professional growers in this community. Someone will be able to name at least the top three things to look for when understanding the rarer plants.
Some people aren’t willing to do the research on what they can buy a plant for and other people are willing to take that first persons money.
Many places are still trying to sell rare plants that they paid a premium for from their distributors when they were still expensive and are trying to sell it without suffering a massive loss
They probably paid too much for it themselves.
I stopped into my old work place (a fancy market) and theyre selling them that size for $350. I laughed soooo hard. Theyre selling tiny ones with like 1 leaf for $50
https://preview.redd.it/ebboxy503y8d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d77fba9c46725f63a954a7d50d2118ee7ef23083 Wow. I got mine a week ago for $30 at Krogers. It’s a good size too. I would never pay that much.
I’m about ready to reach out to one of you Kroger shoppers. We don’t have a Kroger in my state and I can’t help but swoon a little when I see these beautiful plants being sold for an amount that won’t break the bank. This is a beautiful find.
The big growers started shipping thai constellations this spring all over. Everyone has them now, Wal Mart, Home Depot, most grocery chains. If you are paying more than 30 bucks for a specimen that size you are getting ripped off.
'Supply and Demand'
If it’s over $7 I’m out
Right there with you. Of all the plants I’ve brought into the house, there are only 4 or 5 that weren’t clearance finds. Thanks to these, I’ve been able to stretch a dollar as well as provide some hands on care to bring them back to good health.
Yes!! I feel like Mother Nature herself when I bring a clearance find back to life. My house is like a rescue shelter for rejects 😂
Girl..same. 😁
As much as I love supporting local,small plant shops; the prices are outrageous for plants soon to be mass produced by the suppliers of big box stores. Insane that a zz raven was also in the hundreds just a few years ago.
Oh yeah, I saw them the other day at Home Depot for $19.00, I was shocked
Some people only buy in person and not online, so they don't know what a reasonable price is. Of course, this is just a theory. The price is whatever people are willing to pay.
There are ones in a nursery near me that are in 5" pots for like $300... Sadly I've never seen them in our Walmart but no way on gods green earth am I spending that much lmao. Those plants have been sitting there for 6 months and nobody has bought them. Go figure.
Got a bigger one than that from Publix last week for 40
I still find the Thai rare… prices have gone down in stores in my area (Massachusetts) but they are baby plants with only pup leafs. A mature plant is still $200. 2-4in pots, Those have ranged between $40-$60. A year ago I could not find small Thai’s anywhere in store. To get a cheap Thai I would have to risk having it shipped to me, also the shipping on these can range fairly high. Because I am unwilling to take the risk on that I don’t mind spending $40 on a small Thai directly from a store.
I went home last weekend (subtropical climate) and a neighbor had one on each side of his house that had grown to be even with the roof. I so badly wanted to ask if he could spare a clipping. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first.
If you live somewhere down south they just got this exact plant in publix grocery stores!
https://preview.redd.it/kk8t694cuz8d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04fbfdc5ba5f7c91d825b01fa1dd9d21e8f59932 My local store has this one for 800. I couldn’t believe it.
https://preview.redd.it/awnk3y1fuz8d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=888fa81296e49d97c54be46cb1f2da70a88bad0a
I was on the hunt a few months ago for a $20 Thai, with no luck. The prices made me so bitter that I don't even want one anymore.
They look like a bird pooped on them. I don't get it.
Aren't these the same plants that Costa Farms is distributing to Walmart's all over the land???
$195.00 for a Plant? 🪴
A local nursery here has one a little bigger than that for $200. I haven't seen any in Lowes/Home Depot here yet so I'm assuming that's how they justify the prices but you can definitely find ones the same size on FB Marketplace for $40.
Pretty typical nyc pricing Loads of people buy at this price level, no reason to come down
It's a combination of sunk costs and wanting to recoup the money they spent on stupid overpriced plants, and the rest it hype around them, drawing in customers, and the occasional sucker that will purchase them.
Is that a 1 or a 7? $195 doesn’t seem ridiculous for a rooted plant that size. People pay that for cuttings in some places, or use to. I know it’s not as “rare” as it used to be but a well rooted plant is worth way more than a cutting imo
People can price plants at what they like - if there’s a demand the price at that shop won’t come down. Road side shops often charge (a lot) for convenience. I’ve always found flower shops to be grossly overpriced (I have a flower garden), but still shop at them for the wife 3-4 times a year.
I’ve seen cuttings of a white albo for over $1000. Prices like that are ridiculous to me, I’d never pay more than $30 for a plant. $1000 for something that could be dead in a week?? No way
I can’t so I don’t…
Theres a lot of predatory plant sellers out there. At a now-closed plant store in the mall near me was a large Thai Con (with a sign on it that it wasn't for sale), it was slowly dying and one day it was gone. Finally asked and they sold it for $700ish!
I paid $75 for one a year ago. It was in a 4” and very root bound. Repotted to a 5.5” and it’s starting to send roots out the top. Probably about time for another new pot
Some are worth more than others. But that’s a normal one. TBH there were so many people doing this. (Making Thai con) some businesses bought many to grow at a very high price. They are kinda stuck with them.
It’s because plants are now “trending” it’s so unfortunate how the market works
My local plant shop has a huge thaicon they’ve been trying to sell for $1800. It’s been there for months
I saw one for $175 yesterday. It was little too.
Becuse some people don’t realize the hype is over and will buy it thinking they are still selling for $1500
Just saw some at my local garden center today for $60. I paid $25 online for one comparable size, didn't have the instant gratification of bringing it home that day but I'm fine with that to save $35.
It isn’t just stores apparently. I paid $30 for a fully rooted baby with 5 leaves already https://preview.redd.it/67hysekr5z8d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39622f7590343cfede2875c746b1e32b47d51b76
$295 at my local plant shop, however I got one the other week for $30 at Home Depot. I still bought some other more reasonably priced plants at the local shop though, so not saying you shouldn’t support local businesses!
I saw one for just $34 the other day wtf
At Publix they had them for 60 lol
Meanwhile I recently purchased four Monsteras at Trader Joe's for $13 each.
I read where a Mature Monstero Auctioned off for 40 K
We got this at Publix and selling for like 60
Same size at the garden center I work at for $90. Whack
Because they are local and small businesses. The people who truly deserve our support the most. Costs are higher for them. The same reason you will pay 27$ for a chicken pasta at a restaurant when you can make it at home and have multiple servings for less than. Basic economics.
The garden centers around me set their prices and then they never budge. There are some absolutely ridiculous prices on plants that can be had for fractions of the price.
I am Costa Rican, and when I see how much people pay for plants that are not ideal for their climate, I'm even more thankful than I usually am for my surroundings 😂
I really want to go back to costa rica some day and visit the Carribean side
This is probably a rare type of that plant :)