There are plants that Jack Carlisle, owner of The Potting Shed by Carlisle in Orange, has come to call “Instagram ‘It’ plants,”  because customers always request them by pulling out their phones and showing him pictures of them on the popular app.

Houseplants got even trendier in 2020 amid the start of the pandemic as the burgeoning interest area was amplified on social media.

Two years later, owning foliage is still cool, but like everything else, from fashion to home decor, tastes in houseplants have evolved with time.

Here are 5 trends to know about.

1. Creeping, crawling and cute

The early part of the pandemic was dominated by big and bulky showstoppers like monsteras, but in 2022 it’s all about the trailing and vining plants like philodendrons, pothos and scindapsus, said Melissa Murillo, owner of Plants by Yours Truly in Huntington Beach.

“The majority of the vining plants are at such an easy care level, but they’re so rewarding when they grow and you see them expanding and just getting bigger and bigger,” Murillo said. “People love when you notice a difference in a plant every time you turn around and look at it.”

Murillo said one of the things that’s become really common is training the houseplant vines. Some people like to use accessories to have them grow up the walls and other people purchase poles composed of materials such as moss and train the vines to grow up and around them.

2. Retro with a twist

Carlisle said that plants that were popular in the ‘60s and ‘70s have reemerged.

However, while many a grandparent might have had a pothos plant in their home, they probably never had the variety known as N’joy, which has cream and yellow variegation.

“That’s one new hybrid that wasn’t necessarily around in the ‘60s and ‘70s but has been developed based off some of these tried and true varieties,” Carlisle said.

Plants that reinvent the wheel with showy and bright foliage have become much more commonplace, he said, and some varieties that he mentioned include the Pink Princess philodendron that sports bursts of an almost bubblegum pink on its leaves and the Raven ZZ plant that would feel right at home in a goth’s house with its stark black foliage.

3. Propagate, but make it art

Annette Gutierrez, co-owner of the store Potted in Los Angeles, said that as people have picked up how easy it is to propagate certain varieties of houseplants, elegantly designed containers for rooting have become increasingly popular, from upscale vases to test tubes.

She mentioned products she recently started carrying from San Diego-based company Modern Botanical.

“They’re these beautiful wooden boxes that these test tubes go into and you have the cuttings in there and they can be mounted on the wall, they can go in that kitchen windowsill that nothing fits in – they fit,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said she sees the propagation containers as a natural evolution of houseplants becoming so popular.

“Once you have them you’re like, ‘Ooh, now what can I do?’” she said.

More on indoor plants

Houseplants 101: Tips for buying and keeping houseplants alive
5 tips to keep your houseplants thriving for years
How to propagate houseplants and what to know before you cut
What to know about planters and flowerpots for your plants
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4. Macrame without a time machine

Just as some of the most classic varieties have come back into vogue, so have some of the decorative accouterments.

Carlisle said that hanging pots decorated with macrame – a knotted, rope-like material – are popular again.

“Again reflecting back to your grandma in the ‘60s and ‘70s, macrame is huge as well,” he said.

And macrame isn’t just used for hanging planters. Those poles for vining plants that Murillo mentioned? Many come decorated in a variety of colors of macrame.

5. Keep it simple with pots

As people are becoming more educated about plants they are starting to understand the distinction between terra cotta pots and ceramic pots, Murillo said. She said the former are most often used for drought-tolerant plants while the latter are the more appropriate option for the typical tropical houseplant – and she said when people are selecting their ceramic pots, they really don’t want anything loud or with too much design.

“Simplicity and just a light airiness is really becoming popular,” Murillo said.

However, some more novelty items remain popular, Carlisle said. He said his shop sells a lot of pots designed to look like faces and pots shaped like mushrooms are also really popular right now. He said there’s also not a particular color of pot that is most popular as people seek out items that most closely align with their design tastes.

“I can sell a pink pot all day long just as well as I can sell a gold pot or an earth-tone pot because they’re connecting with their space,” he said.