If You're Thinking About Buying A Live Plant Online, Here's What It's Like In Real Life
Plants are my fronds.
Hello, all. I'm Crystal, and in the last few years, I've been getting into plants. Prior to the pandemic, I would typically buy my plants somewhere local — anywhere from a big home improvement store to a local mom and pop nursery.
I prefer to buy plants in person. This is mainly because I like to see them in person and see how healthy (or not) they are and to know how big (or small) they are based on the part of my home I plan to put them in.
Since I, like many people, have been predominately stuck at home this year due to the pandemic, it's been harder to casually shop for plants in person. So, I've been curious about buying one online.
There are, of course, many places you can buy live plants online. But I've always been wary of doing this because 1) it's usually much more expensive than just buying from a local store, 2) I wouldn't be able to actually SEE the plant I wanted, and 3) I worried shipping a plant would damage it.
Side note: I also have a cat named Peggy who loves to nibble on plants, so it's important to me to make sure whatever plants I do get, that they are non-toxic to her. Here's Peggy expressing A LOT of interest in my calathea rattlesnake plant, for example:
The ASPCA has a helpful list of non-toxic plants for pets, FYI. I refer to this list often when shopping for plants.
So when an online plant store called Lively Root emailed me about trying their services and ordering one of their plants, I thought to myself, "Well, if not now, when?" and decided to try it out.
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According to their website, Lively Root is a young Southern California–based company (located just north of San Diego). Their plants are home-grown at their SoCal nursery and full-scale fulfillment center and they only sell eco-friendly products.
Checking out their online store, I went straight for the "Pet Friendly" plants...of course.
I've been wanting to add a small palm tree to the fam, so I figured going for a "cat palm" made sense.
It's a medium care–level plant, which they explain means it requires bright, indirect light and that I just needed to keep the plant moist and humid (figured I could handle that?). And, of course, the name was cute as heeeeck. You have the option of three different types of containers: basket, eco pot, grower pot. I went for the basket pot. This plant sells for $109 (in a grower pot) or $132 (in a basket or eco pot) on their site.
FYI: Both the eco and basket pots are trop in pots. This means that a grower pot with a drainage hole is dropped into either the basket or the eco pot and then serves as a drainage tray.
After placing my order, my cat palm arrived two days later. Here's what it looked like as delivered:
I was impressed with the packaging. Not only did it do a great job protecting the plant in transit (it came via UPS), but it was also SUPER easy to unbox.
Sliding the plant out of the box took about five seconds.
Upon inspection, the plant looked pretty healthy. There were a couple very small brown spots on one frond and my palm was definitely a little smaller/less full than the one in the photo on the website. But, overall, my little cat palm looked good and I'm happy with it!
Note: I had hoped some kind of care guide would be included, but unfortunately there wasn't. I also looked at their online shop and didn't find one on there specifically for the cat palm. So, I'm just going to have to rely on Google for this one, LOL.
And, yes, the new cat palm is Peggy approved.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, the plant is about 3 feet tall.
Final thoughts:
Overall, my experience buying a plant from an online nursery for the first time was very positive. The only negative I experienced in the process was that after unboxing, there was a slight odor from the plant. I'm guessing this was from either the damp moss at the base (which I'm assuming was necessary for the plant to survive transit) or the actual material of the basket. I ended up placing my palm outside for a few hours to air out, and the smell was gone after that. So, it worked out fine in the end.
Buying a plant in person still feels like a more organic experience, and I personally prefer to pick out the specific plant I want to take home. However, given our current situation, being able to buy a plant online from a nursery is a nice alternative. So, if you've been interested as well, I say...go for it!
Note: BuzzFeed was sent this product free for review; however, we are under no obligation to give a positive review.