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Hey, every little thing. This is Esther from North Carolina, and I am wondering why is there a houseplant craze right now?

Is this new? Why do we take these tropical plants and grow them in our temperate zone homes? That is my factual emergency.

Hello. Hey, it's Laura from every little thing. Hi, Laura.

Okay, so houseplants. Houseplants. Is this a new hobby for you? Did it sprout up? I don't know.

Eight months ago in March 2020? No, I've certainly lost them in March. I have had houseplants of some variety for a number of years, but the problem is that I keep moving.

And every time I move, I leave some behind because it's just a lot of work. But this time when I moved, I actually gained houseplants.

So, you know, can picture me in a hotel room with jars of water on my windowsill of little plant cuttings in the jars. Why were you in a hotel?

So the hotel, I was taking a little weekend getaway staycation for myself in the middle of moving. So I put up an ad and I said, looking for monstera cuttings.

And the person who replied said, I have monstera. I also have a lot of other plants. What do you want?

So I went over there and this person just went around saying, oh, do you want some of this? Do you want some of this? And like, I'd say I got 15 cuttings when I left. Wow.

And I had brought a bunch of mason jars from my house when I left for my staycation. You were planning ahead for your growing family. Yeah, yeah. I was planting ahead.

And once it was in the hotel room, I put each plant into a mason jar. So it was kind of absurd.

I feel like you were, like, Octo mom, you know, I thought, like, instead of going to a hospital, you went to a hotel and you came back with, like, a whole new family.

Yeah. And I can take care of them all by myself.

So what do you want to know? I want to know when did people start keeping plants in their house? Are there cave paintings of people tempting to plants in the corners of their caves?

And has this happened before? Have we loved houseplants this much before? Like, we're living in a houseplant. Hey, now has that ever happened before? Yeah.

I think we can help with that. Houseplants do go in and out of fashion.

That's historian and author Catherine Horwood. Hi, Esther. Hi, Catherine. And she dug up some answers to your questions.

I wrote a book called Potted History. How houseplants took over our home.

But Catherine isn't just bearing her nose in a book. She also likes getting her hands dirty.

I've always been a mad collector of houseplants. My absolute favorite is one called an alacacia zebraena. They've got these big, they call them elephant ear leaves.

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