Sino-Singapore Jingwei, October 20th (Ma Jing) A green plant named "Superior Yellow Turtle" started bidding at 1,000 yuan, and after 21 rounds of bidding within 60 seconds, it was finally sold at a price of 2,000 yuan.
This is a scene that happened in a live broadcast room watched by more than 160,000 people on the evening of the 19th.
This green plant has only four leaves, which is 500 yuan per leaf.
However, this price is much cheaper than last year. At the hottest time, a leaf of a boutique green plant can be sold for more than 20,000 yuan.
According to the observation of Sino-Singapore Jingwei, in the nearly two and a half hours of live broadcast, 43 green plants were all sold in rounds of auctions. Compared with the starting price, a rough estimate of the premium is almost 40% or more. One of the buyers has repeatedly The price of the green plants was more than 400 yuan.
A leaf can be worth more than one gram of gold, who buys it?
for what?
On the evening of the 19th, a live broadcast room was auctioning green plants Source: E-commerce platform
"Hermes" in green plants: spend more than 20,000 to buy back a pot of orange-handled brocade philodendron
According to the introduction of many players in the green plant circle, everyone mainly plays the green plants of the Arranthaceae family. The main ones that can be seen in the market include philodendron, calla lilies, flower candles and other categories. Each category includes tens of thousands of varieties, such as The common anthurium in the office also belongs to the genus Anthurium.
According to the rarity and appearance of the plants, sellers in the domestic market generally classify these products as general goods or fine products. The green plants with brocade effect were once sought after, that is, due to gene mutation, irregularities appeared on the leaves. A plant with white or yellow patches, which is commonly understood as a plant that is sick.
Since the effect of brocade is natural, in the early stage, artificial cultivation methods have not been developed, so this kind of accidental once made this kind of green plants with "disease-carrying effect" more valuable.
Last summer, a 9-leaf giganta was sold for more than 120,000 yuan on the New Zealand auction website.
Since then, the green plant fire has been introduced to China, and the price has also risen.
According to media reports, in 2021, the price of a new house in Beijing at that time could not buy a single orange handle brocade, and the price was about 90,000 yuan.
Orange handle brocade is a kind of philodendron, known as the "Hermes" of the green plant circle.
Hong Yang (pseudonym), a financial practitioner born in the 1980s, also started a plant when green plants were just emerging in China. It only had 4 leaves and cost more than 20,000 yuan.
Hong Yang was planted by a social platform and a foreign green planting website. At the beginning, he bought one pot after another. "Basically, I receive express delivery every day, and I bought seventy or eighty pots in more than a year."
The source of the orange handle brocade that Hongyang started with more than 20,000 yuan: Photo courtesy of the interviewee
Jerry (pseudonym), born in 1995, joined the green plant circle last fall. He bought about 100 pots in the past year, and about 80 pots are still alive.
The most expensive green plant Jerry ever bought was the terminal bud of the white-colored monstera, and the two leaves cost 1,200 yuan.
"At that time, I did a lot of psychological construction. The average price of green plants in the past was 50 or 60. I have never bought such an expensive one. My friends called me 'neurotic' at the time, but I still bought it at the time. Maybe it was just right at the time. Year-end bonus."
The most expensive green plant Jerry bought, the picture on the left is the state of the two leaves just bought, and the picture on the right is the current growth state Source: Photo courtesy of the interviewee
It is worth noting that the maintenance costs of these green plants are also relatively high.
According to Hong Yang, because it is a tropical plant, each variety needs different soil, and ventilation is also required, otherwise the roots will rot.
There are also requirements for light, can not be exposed to direct sunlight, and can only be maintained under semi-shading conditions.
The humidity should be maintained at about 50%rh-70%rh, the temperature should not be lower than 15 degrees in winter, and not higher than 35 degrees in summer.
The cost of Jerry's purchase of green plants is conservatively estimated at around 9,000 yuan, but it is actually more than that.
In addition to the flowerpots, nutrient soil, fertilizers, and medicines to control pests and diseases that match the green plants, Jerry also bought fill lights, humidifiers, electric fans, and heaters.
In order to resist the winter in Nanjing, Jerry bought Xiaomi's intelligent temperature control, which measures the temperature in real time 24 hours a day, so as to ensure that the heater can be turned on when the green plants need it, and the air conditioner is often turned on. After a winter, the electricity bill cost 3,000 yuan. Diverse.
In addition to the wallet, but also energy.
Jerry mentioned that when he gets up every day, he will check the diseases and insect pests, and if there is a stuffy root, he should deal with it in time.
Fortunately, the plants at home have now adapted to the environment, and may only need to be intensively treated twice a week, including watering and fertilizing.
However, since it cannot be directly sprayed in a large area in the study, it can only be watered little by little. After watering, the excess part must be poured out. It takes about an hour to toss back and forth.
Source of Jerry's study: Photo courtesy of the interviewee
Some people buy green plants to seek healing
Jerry regards growing green plants as his biggest hobby outside of work.
In his opinion, green plants make him calm, and even the days of isolation at home have become "enjoyable".
"I always feel that people in the media are always in a state of pursuing speed and pursuing new things. This kind of high-pressure life can sometimes be unbearable." Jerry previously participated in the recording of variety shows on a video website. I was in a bad state and even felt depressed for a while.
Raising green plants was the emotional sustenance that Jerry found for himself at that time, another kind of life outside of work.
He calls this feeling a sense of accomplishment that you can get through the little things around you without needing praise from others.
Hong Yang has been in the circle for nearly three and a half years. At first, he went for the appearance of green plants. "The leaves are very beautiful and the texture is very good. Many people are chasing them, and I like them very much." Hong Yang mainly plays with quality. There are about 300 pots of relatively good green plants, and a flower room has been set up for this purpose.
Hong Yang also values the self-healing function brought by green plants. "Staying with green plants can relieve stress. Watching its growth, the leaves become bigger and more beautiful, and the mood will improve."
Many respondents love plants for this purpose, and even sparked new anxiety as a result.
The post-70s insurance agent Xiaorong (pseudonym) spent about 20,000 yuan to buy more than 50 pots of green plants.
She mentioned that growing flowers is a process of healing one's mood, but it will also be accompanied by new anxieties, such as not being able to keep them well, or unable to "go as soon as you want" to go out, or fall into the urge to follow suit and buy.
Green plants are also a kind of social currency, Jerry used this to meet many like-minded people, "In the past, there may not be many people in the social circle, but we have made many friends through raising plants, and we may only talk about plants in the group. , I will occasionally vent and complain about the unpleasant things that happened today with the other party, and the final destination must be a state where everyone will be happy when they buy a pot of plants."
The post-90s craftsman Shed (pseudonym) is also one of the green plant lovers.
He opened a studio called a handmade studio, and placed more than 200 pots of green plants that he had purchased since he entered the circle in the studio, in order to "take a look and relax himself" when he was busy with work.
In addition, he combined his love for green plants with his own craftsmanship to make some plant-based earrings. He did not expect to open up a small business opportunity. "The biggest order is that a foreign customer customized 50 pairs of earrings."
Source of monstera earrings made by the shed: Photo courtesy of the interviewee
Some people buy green plants as financial products
But there are also some players who regard green plants as financial products, hoping to outperform other investment products.
This is due to the fact that the attention and demand of the green plant market were on the rise last year, and the price rose rapidly.
On the other hand, green plants can propagate leaves by cutting cuttings, seed sowing, tissue culture, etc.
Many players sell derived green plant products on second-hand trading platforms, and the industry calls this behavior "returning blood".
Jerry, Hong Yang, Peng Peng, and Xiaorong have all sold their own green plants on second-hand trading platforms. Among them, Hong Yang sold relatively large scale, selling hundreds of pieces, and the highest transaction price was tens of thousands of green plants. Yuan.
The post-90s Xuan Xuan (pseudonym) also went for her looks at the beginning. She originally wanted to buy one or two pots, but she didn't expect to be "up". In just two months, she bought thirteen or four pots, costing 1 10,000 yuan, the most expensive to buy is a pot of beauty broccoli with only one leaf, which costs more than 2,000 yuan.
"Some flower friends shared their experience of using green plants as a wealth management product. At that time, the market was relatively good, the price rose faster, and the plants would grow. A leaf of the better white-colored monstera is about 800 yuan, but it will grow again. There were more than 1,000 in two months, and I felt that there would be a lot of room for appreciation at that time." Xuan Xuan mentioned.
For ordinary working class, spending more than 10,000 yuan to buy plants in two months is not an easy expense.
Xuanxuan once tried to use green plants as an investment product, but later she found that her spending had far exceeded her consumption habits, so she "brakes the brakes".
She realized that this may be a "pit", and it is difficult to keep buying plants, and it also requires a lot of space for placement.
The most important thing is that there are professionals in the market who use professional equipment for tissue culture, and green plants multiply very quickly. It is obviously an unrealistic choice to use green plants as a financial product.
Xuanxuan also mentioned that since many transactions are conducted on a second-hand trading platform, some sellers will use medicines to create a "false" brocade effect on plants, commonly known as medicinal brocade. Subsequent growth will no longer have a brocade effect.
"Most of the early green plants were imported from abroad. Rare or new varieties are easy to sell for sky-high prices, but especially high-end and expensive ones are usually bought to be the female parent. When they are propagated in China, it is 1 birth, 2 births, 2 births, and countless ones. Realization logic." Jerry said that the brocade plants that were sought after in the early days can now also be cultivated through tissue culture.
An imported green plant of 45,000 yuan on a second-hand trading platform, the seller told Sino-Singapore Jingwei that the price is the selling price Source: Second-hand trading platform
More and more people are pouring into the green planting circle. From less than demand to oversupply, the market price of green plants quickly plunged.
Hong Yang mentioned that now the price is not the same every month, and it has dropped a lot.
A leaf that sold for 20,000-30,000 yuan last year will be sold for more than 2,000 yuan this year.
Sino-Singapore Jingwei found that in the live broadcast room of a plant supermarket on the evening of the 19th, the anchor has repeatedly emphasized that the market has cooled a lot now, and "the price is too high."
However, a reporter from China-Singapore Jingwei also found that most of the 43 kinds of green plants that were successfully auctioned had a starting price of more than 500 yuan.
What is the pricing logic of these green plants?
In the face of this question raised by Sino-Singapore Jingwei, the anchor responded that green plants are a non-standard product. In the past, the price was based on the price of foreign imports, and various costs were added. Most of them were based on the theory of leaves. How much is a leaf? .
But now everyone has stockpiled a bunch of goods, and now it is calculated by plant, and a rough standard is set according to the individual differences of each department, and then based on the anchor and sales staff's understanding of market conditions and plants, the price is added or subtracted based on feeling.
The shed believes that some of the more expensive plants in the past are indeed rare and expensive, but now that tissue culture and other technologies are developed, some plants with higher prices do have some hype.
"You can buy it within the affordable range, but it's not necessary if you just pursue special or blindly follow consumption. Ultimately, plants have to please themselves and do what they can."
Responsible editor: Luo Kun