Me 0:08 Hello! Would you like to introduce yourself and what you are currently doing?

Fendi 0:14 Oh sure! I am Fendi, I am the owner of Little Botany. I run a nursery space and we deal with plants, pottery and gardening essentials.

Me 0:28 For myself, I'm Shawn, I'm a final year student at the school doing design communications. Yeah. And I am also quite interested in plants. It's not like I get any interest at all, but it's more of like, this hobby, such a huge undertaking, then there's a lot of information that is also like, quite complex. Yeah, then I feel like there are a lot of like, articles that have been written recently. But it's not like actual literature. So there's a lot of like, insights and chatter about like, my plan, how to start purchasing.

Fendi

So what articles have you read?

Me

So I'm what I think most are from, like, international sources. So like, like Guardian, or like New York Times. So like, over the, there's a lot of like, nurseries that become really big until, until they can]sell overseas. So because of what I read quite a bit of like environmental conservation and sustainability, then I realized there's a lot of things that you can do to make a plant thrive and survive. And also, there's a lot of like, increased wastage, then also that increase in any form of consumption for any for-profit organization increased wastage, and also that there'll be a lot of carbon produced. And there'll be plant miles if you ship it internationally, then I think I think the worst of these are ornamental and flowers. To maintain the beauty, they are always kept in air-conditioned spaces even during shipment.

So I realized that this could be a form of overconsumption so this interesting topic and angle to look from.

Fendi

Well, are you talking about globally or locally?

Me

Globally, but in the local scene, there is an increase in sales especially for luxury plans. So on that Today online video, I'm pretty sure you have watched it, they highlighted collectors who started selling luxury plants. One of them is Rabbit Island, and how they sell plants at such an exorbitant price. So, I assume a high price will come with high demand. I have also heard from different podcasts saying that raising plants can be a form of investment. If you would grow a few plants from cuttings, then, you can sell them at a higher price than you have bought them for, or when it grows too big, you can start selling the pieces as cuttings. So that is quite interesting, seeing how even a living thing such as a plant can be commodified. I think this is very similar to how people breed dogs for certain features that are popular, and then the genes can fetch high prices. The value may look arbitrary and short-lived.