Acres & Acres :: Chris Beytes

So I’m shopping in the automotive section of Target last Saturday, trying to choose the best car wash liquid for my new ride (I went with the gallon of orange stuff from Maguires), when the wife comes over carrying a plant. “Guess what this is,” she says, adding, “and think way outside the box.”

Okay, I’ll play along. Hmmm, four stalks, tall and thin, no leaves except at the very tip. Not exactly attractive. But it doesn’t look like the leaves dropped off from stress. The foliage is rounded and slightly succulent. “An Adenium obesum?” I hazard. “Nope.” “Some form of peperomia? Or maybe a weird succulent ficus?”

“Think way outside the box,” she hinted. “Way, waaaay outside the box. Think about Granda’s house,” she added, meaning her late grandmother from Florida. “Something growing in her front yard.”

“Okay, she had azaleas, but this isn’t an azalea. A banyan tree?”

“You’re getting closer.”

“Oh, I know. Those things that grow along the edge of the river … a mangrove?”

That’s what it was, a mangrove. Some crazed or brilliant grower has put mangrove in a pot. Packaged it beautifully, too, in a dark gray, square metal pot with curved sides and some moss hiding the soil. Price: $7.99.

Okay, as a former nursery owner, I have to figure this out. Why would a grower—a look at the tag confirmed that it came from Nurseryman’s Exchange—why would Nurseryman’s Exchange create this item? What is there about it that made them say, “Hot damn, we’ll sell a zillion of these!” or whatever it is they say in their sales meetings?

Back at the plant kiosk, I study the display. Above the mangrove are pots of typical foliage plants: aglaonemas, ivies, pothos. Pretty little things. The mangrove isn’t pretty. But it is striking in a structural, architectural way. It’s modern. It’s hip. I can see interior decorator Thom using it to metrosexualize a straight-guy’s apartment on “Queer Eye.” It’s also somewhat Asian. It’s got a “lucky bamboo” look to it.

But will it last indoors? I’ll find out, because that’s the reason the wife is buying one. Plus, it’s weird, and our house is loaded to the sashes with weird plants.

I bring the mangrove to the office Monday for a photo shoot and a survey. I send out an e-mail inviting my co-workers to come view the strange, unidentified plant and tell me if they’d buy it or not. I get ten responses from eight women and two men. Five vote yes, five vote no. The men are split. Those who said they wouldn’t buy it either thought it was ugly, they didn’t have a place for it or they didn’t know if it would last. Those who voted yes simply liked it. One called it "funky."

So, half the shoppers would buy it. But that means half of them wouldn’t. I began to wonder what I’d find if I asked the same question about a spathiphyllum or an orchid. Somehow, I think I’d get a higher percentage of yes votes (which translates into sales) for a more traditional "pretty" plant. Is Nurserymen’s (and Target) leaving money on the table by selling something with limited appeal?

But then one co-worker offered another opinion. Maybe those people who’d buy the mangrove aren’t necessarily plant buyers. Maybe they’re buying it for that structural, architectural look, and not because it’s a plant. Maybe it’s like lucky bamboo, which probably sells more for its Asian connection and decorative impact than for any horticultural reason.

In other words, maybe mangrove—and lucky bamboo and other "funky" plants—aren’t really plants, per se, they’re actually home décor items; in which case there’s a whole new market for our industry competing with knick-knacks, ash trays, ceramic birds, picture frames, candy dishes and other decorative "surface clutter" that fills the tabletops in most homes.

If that’s the case, there’s funky new world of possibilities available to growers who can think way, waaaay outside the box.