Learning to tell your elephant ears from your flamingo flowers has become the latest virus lockdown escape in Malaysia, where houseplants are very much in season. Collectors are searching out specimens with intricate patterns in a dazzling array of reds, yellows and greens, and sharing their best on social media.
“It’s like looking at a painting,” collector Leiister Soon told Agence France-Presse (AFP), admiring the broad-leaf caladium — elephant ear plants — at his Kuala Lumpur home. “Taking care of plants meant that I can divert my attention — [it is] better than watching the number of Covid cases going up.”
Once relatively cheap, prices surged last year when lockdowns confined Malaysians to their homes, and many collectors started posting images of their favorite plants on social media.
“During the lockdown, people were at home thinking about how to beautify their homes,” nursery owner Daud Kasim told AFP in Sungai Besar, 100 kilometers northwest of Kuala Lumpur.
Nearly half of his nursery’s inventory is now made up of such plants, with foreign varieties from countries such as Thailand, China, the United States and the Netherlands. Standing among thousands of potted specimens, Daud said the trend was here to stay even as authorities gradually begin lifting restrictions.
Malaysia first imposed curbs last year shortly after the start of the pandemic and had to implement restrictions again in January when a new wave hit, but the outbreak is slowing. Health authorities have reported more than 300,000 infections and over 1,000 deaths.
Read the complete article at www.manilatimes.net.