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A tray full of succulents at the Flyleaf plant sale at Watson Terrace Christian Church in St. Louis on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. Succulent plants have become unlikely collectors items. Initially buoyed by social media, the water-preserving ornamentals blossomed even more during the pandemic. Photo by Colter Peterson, cpeterson@post-dispatch.com
Jose Jimenez contemplates a couple of succulents during the Flyleaf plant sale at Watson Terrace Christian Church in St. Louis on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. Succulent plants have become unlikely collectors items. Initially buoyed by social media, the water-preserving ornamentals blossomed even more during the pandemic. Photo by Colter Peterson, cpeterson@post-dispatch.com
Melody Mui peruses small succulents during the Flyleaf plant sale at Watson Terrace Christian Church in St. Louis on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. Mui says she has several shelves full already, so she is just looking for smaller items to fill in the space. Photo by Colter Peterson, cpeterson@post-dispatch.com
People wander through isles of plants during the Flyleaf plant sale at Watson Terrace Christian Church in St. Louis on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. Flyleaf holds a sale once a month at the church, with an ever changing variety of plants. Photo by Colter Peterson, cpeterson@post-dispatch.com
Abby Holman got her first succulent before the start of the pandemic. By last fall, more than five dozen were crowding the patio of her Chesterfield home, so the elementary teacher relocated some to her school.
And that’s just encouraged more buying. The plants now outnumber her first graders, who jockey to claim the most-coveted classroom job: botanist.
“It’s something to take care of, something to look forward to,” said Holman. “When you walk in the room, the plants make you smile.”
The leafy mood-boosters’ low cost and simple maintenance have helped them achieve collectors’ item status over the past two years. Families not ready to commit to a pandemic pet adopted cacti instead. A lockdown-inspired gardening boom later reverberated indoors, to houseplants. And small St. Louis-area plant-sellers were ready to offer hands-on guidance to first-time buyers.
For more than half a century, Drummond Nursery and Greenhouses in De Soto has drawn wholesale and retail customers from across the Midwest. About a decade ago, owner Fred Drummond began dedicating more space to succulents: burro’s tail, string-of-pearls and his favorite, sword-like sansevierias. Eventually, all four greenhouses were wall-to-wall succulents, including $500 rarities and hundreds of “itty-bitty starters.”
Last year was the nursery’s busiest ever. The pandemic propagated a trend that the internet had already cultivated, Drummond said. All over social media, “plant-fluencers” have been showing off their jungle-like living rooms.
“It kind of builds on itself,” he said. “It’s easy to look up beautiful plant pictures, and it’s gotten easier to get the plants.”
Eighteen months ago, Gina Houska of Arnold decided that convenient access would be the hook for her burgeoning business. Inspiration rolled in during a visit to 9 Mile Garden, the food-truck park in Affton.
I could do that with plants, thought Houska, an arborist by training. The next day, she bought a used box truck and poured 12 months and $5,000 into converting it into a mobile succulent station.
Last fall, the Plant Truck appeared at 20 locations — block parties, wineries and community markets — before taking a break for winter. The spring schedule is so packed that Houska is pruning her full-time hours at a landscaping-supply store.
Social media has provided succulent fans with an outlet for their enthusiasm, even beyond the actual plants. Their distinctive silhouettes — nubby leaves and stubby stems — have made them design perennials on baby-shower banners, tea towels and lip balms.
Sisters-in-law Lizzie Geerling and Claire Troll have grown the online following for their brand, St. Louis Succulents, since they opened in 2017. They sell plants and planters alongside plant-themed pint glasses, pillows and pins. Last summer, Geerling put up a greenhouse in her Maplewood backyard to accommodate their expanded selection, which they sell on Etsy and at pop-up markets.
Telika McCabe of St. Louis owned three houseplants when she found Geerling and Troll on Instagram a couple of years ago. She was “instantly obsessed, and her array of plants has since blossomed to two dozen. They bring joy to her home, McCabe said, even though they aren’t quite foolproof.
“There have been some catastrophes,” she admitted.
Succulents are the independents of the botanical world: The desert natives grow slowly and don’t require pruning or repotting. But they can get prickly about too much attention. Overwatering — the most common mistake — swamps their shallow root system.
Charis Audette of Fenton brimmed with confidence about caring for her yard full of flowers and shrubs, but indoor plants daunted her. So, about a year ago, she started small, buying a couple of houseplants for a few dollars each and using them to introduce her toddler son to colors and shapes.
Somehow, she said, two multiplied into dozens. Her sunroom is about to pass its occupancy limit.
“My husband said he is putting a lid on it at 50,” Audette said.
Twig and Tarnish was born of Dana Muhlke’s love of antiquing. Muhlke, who lives in Kirkwood, unearths vintage spice canisters, cigar boxes and even dust pans at thrift stores and estate sales. Then she packs them with jade, bear’s paws and zebra haworthia.
“It’s something modern and something old,” Muhlke said. “There’s something really magical about the mix.”
She tends to about 500 plants in her greenhouse and partners them with the right rustic vessel before posting the pairings to Instagram.
“People are just enamored with the way they look,” she said.
A striped ceramic bowl first led Beth Hallemann to Twig and Tarnish. The relic from her great-grandparents’ pottery factory had been gathering dust in her Ballwin home.
“I wanted to bring it back to life and give it purpose,” Hallemann said.
Now it holds half a dozen plants as a sunlit centerpiece in her family room.
Andrew King met his wife in a greenhouse more than 20 years ago. They worked in landscape design before moving to St. Louis in 2018. A year later, King quit his job at a nursery, and the couple opened Flyleaf Tropical and Succulent Plants.
“We wanted to take succulents more seriously,” said King.
One weekend a month, they host a sale at Watson Terrace Christian Church in the Lindenwood Park neighborhood. Banquet tables loaded with thousands of waxy-leaved hoyas and rosette-shaped echeveria crowd the hallways and cafeteria.
Annie Benfield wakes up early on plant-sale Saturdays to drive 45 minutes from her home in Orchard Farm and earn a front-of-the-line spot.
The day care teacher “fell in love” with succulents early in the pandemic and uses them to explain oxygen, soil and water to her preschoolers.
“The little kids name them,” Benfield said. “I don’t understand what they’re calling them, but they know.”
Last year, the Kings bought land in Bonne Terre, Missouri, to expand Flyleaf. Andrew King is writing a couple of how-to books and wants to open a horticulture training center.
“This trend will continue to build,” he said. “People are tired of technology. There’s hope in plants.”
Stay up to date on life and culture in St. Louis.
Colleen Schrappen is a reporter at the Post-Dispatch.
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A tray full of succulents at the Flyleaf plant sale at Watson Terrace Christian Church in St. Louis on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. Succulent plants have become unlikely collectors items. Initially buoyed by social media, the water-preserving ornamentals blossomed even more during the pandemic. Photo by Colter Peterson, cpeterson@post-dispatch.com
Jose Jimenez contemplates a couple of succulents during the Flyleaf plant sale at Watson Terrace Christian Church in St. Louis on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. Succulent plants have become unlikely collectors items. Initially buoyed by social media, the water-preserving ornamentals blossomed even more during the pandemic. Photo by Colter Peterson, cpeterson@post-dispatch.com
Melody Mui peruses small succulents during the Flyleaf plant sale at Watson Terrace Christian Church in St. Louis on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. Mui says she has several shelves full already, so she is just looking for smaller items to fill in the space. Photo by Colter Peterson, cpeterson@post-dispatch.com
People wander through isles of plants during the Flyleaf plant sale at Watson Terrace Christian Church in St. Louis on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. Flyleaf holds a sale once a month at the church, with an ever changing variety of plants. Photo by Colter Peterson, cpeterson@post-dispatch.com
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