At the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) Pop Up Garden at South Street one evening in August, two long picnic tables are covered in plants: philodendrons, lantanas, begonias and more. Around them, dozens of people anxiously hover, some picking up plants from the table to inspect them, others using their phones to look up the species. Then, after some announcements, the words they’ve been waiting for: “Let the plant swap begin!” The exclamation has the effect of a starter pistol. For the next few minutes, the garden is alive with activity as guests quickly snap up pots and jars.
PHS’s plant swaps are one-for-one exchanges: If you bring a plant, you can take a plant. If you bring more, you can take more. “It’s anything gardening-related,” says Cristina Tessaro, who heads up the plant swap programming at PHS. “You can bring that pot from the plant that you killed. Or maybe you’ve got that plant that really isn’t digging your house and it just needs a new home. Or maybe you have a big garden and you need to make room for something else. Or maybe you’re moving and you need to downsize.”
At the end of the night, many guests leave with large plastic tubs full of plants. And yet, there are still more on the tables. For Tessaro, that’s an opportunity to start more conversations and introduce some unsuspecting visitors to the joys of plant parenthood. “I’ll go through the rest of the garden and talk to the people just here having food or drinks,” says Tessaro. “I’ll be like, ‘Anybody want to take a plant? It’s OK if you kill it. We don’t want you to kill it, but there’s no financial investment. Come try something new.’”
