So, what is new? The last new plant I can think of is the ZZ Plant and even they I'm not too familiar with.

Thanks :)

I think I remember you from way back when. Welcome back!

BBS's have radically expanded their house plant selections beyond the very basics, which has been quite a boon for people out in the boonies. Similarly, it also seems like the wholesalers are making efforts to make a much wider variety of plants available to a much wider audience. Like new varieties of old favorites like Pothos and Sans, and other plants that probably would already be old standbys but just haven't been available as house plants before.

Someone has to trek through the wilderness of Ecuador or Malaysia or Borneo to gather these things, then propagate successfully for years to make something new publicly available, even if the plant was growing there for centuries. Seems like someone has been working on that for a while and the results are starting to show up in droves. Or maybe it's just as simple as the BBS's realizing people want more than Pothos and Sans. What do you people think from your view of things?

If you browse Exotic Angel or Costa Farms, I think most people will see a lot of plants you've never seen before, so many that were never in any of the famous house plant books.

I think mini/fairy gardens will end up being this decade's "macrame hangers" but it's hard to tell if it's just my new interest, causing me to notice every instance, or if it really is suddenly much more prolific.

These darn "self-watering pots" are everywhere. Beware!

I find the houseplant selection available in Portland OR to be significantly lower than that in Phoenix AZ where I used to live. I'm assuming the ease of outdoor gardening and very low indoor light levels is the reason. Even when I was working in horticulture and buying houseplants for retail sales, I could not find many plants I had grown for years in Phoenix. Many of the wholesale plants here are coming from the same growers in British Columbia except for big plants all trucked from Florida which often do not survive the transition to our low light levels. Clouds for nine months of the year do not great conditions make for houseplants...