ARE YOU A FOLLOWER of fashion—houseplant fashion, that is—seeking out the latest variety that everyone’s after, perhaps the “it” plant that’s been splashed across social media? Or was each houseplant in your care carefully chosen because it’s a perfect match for the light and other indoor conditions you can offer it?
Whatever your criteria, emotional or practical or otherwise, how do you know what’s the right houseplant for you? It’s a question that today’s guest, August Laska, and his team at The Old Yew Plant Shop are asked all the time.
August and I headed inside from the summer heat of the garden to talk houseplants. He didn’t exactly intend to end up with so many—not just the ones in his house, but two whole New York City stores full of them. Like a lot of people, the former corporate marketing coordinator got into plants during the pandemic, but I suspect few others got in quite so deep as to prompt an entire career change like August’s.
His two branches of The Old Yew Plant Shop, in the West Village and on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, offer retail and mail-order plants and pots and other gear, as well as design services and more. (Photo of one of the shops, above, by Angela Sun.)
Read along as you listen to the July 20, 2026 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
talking houseplants, with august laska
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Margaret Roach: Hi, August. It’s a good time to be indoors, I think [laughter], when we’re having heat waves-
August Laska: It certainly is. It certainly is. Number what, four of the year so far?
Margaret: Something like that. It’s koo-koo land.
August: Yes.
Margaret: Yes. So I hinted in the introduction that the pandemic and plants definitely changed things up in your life. And I thought you could just give us the short version of that: You went from working in marketing at a big corporation to uh-oh [laughter].
August: Yeah, absolutely. I always had plants. It was always a hobby of mine like so many other people. And in the pandemic, I had a lot of free time like everybody else. And so my marketing brain got to work and I started selling plants to my friends, and then that turned into a website, and then that turned into an Instagram account. And then 20,000 followers later and two stores later and six years later, here we are. It just snowballed for lack of a better word.
Margaret: Yeah. And you also do landscaping of all the things. I mean, besides the indoor, besides the houseplant business—which is, as I said, not just retail in person in Manhattan in two locations, but also mail-order—you also do landscaping stuff for people, I think.
August: We do. And the story goes, I was gardening in my mom’s front yard in 2020 and planting some hydrangeas, which are still there today. And the neighbor walked across the street and said, “Oh my gosh, those are so beautiful. Can I pay you to do that in my yard?” [Laughter.] And she was my first paying customer.
And so it really was born out of practice. I mean, there was no professional schooling. I didn’t study horticulture; I just sort of learned on the fly. And it’s a blessing, because not many people just fall into something that they love. But it’s been a really amazing couple of years, and I think it was a little bit of the right time in the right place. But it’s amazing to work with plants every day.
Margaret: Yeah. Well, I suspect you and your staff—I think when we spoke before you told me there were 16 or 17 people on the team now between the two stores and the rest of the business—I suspect you guys are matchmakers for people and plants. That people come in or email or call sort of asking for advice on “What plant is right for me?” kind of. Is that part of the equation? [Photo above in the shop by Ngoc Minh Ngo.]
August: That is precisely what happens. And we do a lot of back-and-forth question and answer with people when they come in or when they reach out to us, because I find it so funny: People come in and they ask such a generic question like, “What is the best plant for a bedroom?” And we have to say, “Well, what is the condition? What are the conditions of your bedroom? Is there a window? Is it north-facing? Is it south-facing?”
And so we end up asking the customer many more questions than they ask us, because it’s so situational. Not every room is the same. And as you know, plants require such different basic elements of care, like light and water and even humidity. And so we are finding out the lifestyle and the environment of the customer to make sure that the plant that they ultimately go home with is right for them.
And then there’s the added element of the design element, which I think we’ll get to. But the very first layer is, is this plant going to live? [Laughter.] So that’s where we start with the customer.
Margaret: Yeah. And I imagine that a lot of people are drawn, and as I said again in the introduction, they’ve seen such-and-such on Instagram or whatever, and they’ve got to have one, but they don’t know anything about it.
August: Yes. That happens often. And some of these plants that we see on Instagram are fortunately or unfortunately staged. They’re put there for a photograph, and that’s perfectly fine. It makes for beautiful art, beautiful photography. And it can be difficult and challenging sometimes to admit that information to customers who want that look forever in their living room.
And so we’ve developed a couple ways to help. We offer automatic grow lights that turn on at night so as not to disturb you during the day, that keep plants that might need a lot more light in a room that has no windows. So there are ways that we’ve figured out how to put something where it may not usually want to be, with automatic watering systems like a sub-irrigation liner or these automatic grow lights. So we’ve developed over the years a couple ways to counteract that staged photo kind of plant thing.
But it’s an investment. How many people do you know have grow lights and watering systems on timers in their New York City apartment? I mean, it’s not so common.
Margaret: Right. Or want to go that far.
August: Right. For the look.
Margaret: Because there’s a commitment, there’s an expense, there’s all those different layers. And the other thing I would imagine is that, for instance, one plant that comes to mind in recent years, Monstera with their big, often-variegated, Swiss-cheesy kind of fabulous leaves and so forth, they were like everywhere. But does anybody know who craves one what its eventual growth habit and size is of that plant? That plant doesn’t want to be tiny, does it? [Laughter.]
August: No, it does not. And it’s named like a monster for a reason. [Laughter.] We get lots of inquiries from people who have had Monsteras for years and they say, “Oh my gosh, what did I do to this plant? Why does it look so crazy lopsided? Why doesn’t it look so cute and pretty like it does on Instagram or like it did when I bought it? ” And we push back to the customer and say, “You’re doing amazing. Look how incredibly this plant has grown. It just needs to be staked up, because it wants to grow upwards. It’s falling over out of the pot that you have because it’s actually not meant to grow in soil in the ground. It’s meant to climb up a trunk of a tree in a rainforest.”
There’s quite a bit of education that we do to people that we work with, because plants are sold commercially to be in pots in your house, but in the wild, that’s not exactly what they want.
Margaret: Yeah. No, it’s really true. So then besides people coming in and saying, “I want a plant for my bedroom,” and then you say, “Well, what’s your bedroom like?” and those types of details of making a good match, how much does trendiness—like what we’re talking about with people have seen the Monstera or have seen another trendy plant—how much does trendiness figure in? Do you hear a lot about, “Oh, I saw this,” or, “Oh, I’ve got to have that.” Is that a big thing? And do you follow plant trends? I mean, you must follow plant trends.
August: Absolutely. I mean, it’s kind of funny, and I find it to be really interesting. Plants absolutely with certainty go through trends in the same way that music and fashion and television and films go through popular trends and culture, decade over decade. And in the 2010s, in the millennial houseplant boom, it wasn’t just the Monstera, it was the fiddle-leaf fig. Every single person needed to have a fiddle-leaf fig. [Laughter.] It was like that was the plant.
And I’m sure many people remember that because that sort of crept outside of the plant world. It was like if you were just a person with a room or where you lived, you needed to have a fiddle-leaf fig. And so that trend has sort of faded a little bit. And I think what everybody’s saying now is we want a plant that’s easier than a fiddle-leaf fig, because I remember so many people saying, “I bought my fiddle-leaf fig and 30 days later it had no leaves on it because it got stressed and it dropped every single leaf.” And so now there’s this idea that that plant was too hard.
And so there’s an easier version of the fiddle-leaf fig that is probably one of our best-selling plants. It’s called a Ficus ‘Audrey’ [photo below, by Ngoc Minh Ngo] and it is a cousin of the fiddle-leaf fig, it’s what we say. And it’s much easier. It doesn’t drop all of its leaves in a stressful period.
Margaret: And it’s kind of like Audrey like a woman’s name or-?
August: Yeah, Audrey like Audrey Hepburn. So if you’re in the market for a big Ficus tree, I would recommend a Ficus ‘Audrey.’
So they certainly go through trends. I would say in the 2020s it is still the black olive tree that is the plant that we get requested the most, which is kind of counter to what I just said about people wanting an easier tree, because the black olive tree has a reputation for being very, very, I don’t want to say difficult, but high maintenance. If it’s in the right conditions, it thrives. But if it is not, you will end up with a stick. So there’s certainly trends.
Margaret: So the black olive, and I don’t know how to pronounce the genus because I’ve never heard anyone say it: Bucida.
August: Yeah, Bucida. Yeah.
Margaret: So it’s not an olive olive. It’s called black olive, but it’s not an olive.
August: Correct.
Margaret: I saw on your website, I think it was, I think you actually do have some real olive trees though, don’t you? [Laughter.]
August: We do. Yes. And we recommend that true Mediterranean olive trees are outside for the summer and then inside for the winter. That’s really how they’re going to thrive the best, kind of like a lemon tree or a lime tree. But actually we do have some clients who keep them indoors year-round and they actually live. Again, with the right conditions, the right spot, anything will live, but it’s very dependent on the environment.
Margaret: So going back though to the black olive [photo above, by Ngoc Minh Ngo], which is not a real olive, it’s become popular, or sought after; it’s not popular as in it’s not at the big box store type of popular; it’s choice. And so it has a very… I don’t know, how would you describe it? It has a distinctive look once it’s grown.
August: It does. Yeah. Whenever anybody asks about it and their care and what it even looks like, I say to them kind of cheekily, “Forget everything you know about houseplants. This thing is entirely different from anything you’ve ever had.” It has this incredible geometric growth habit. If you look at the branch structure from below, it looks like a calculus; I mean, it looks like a math formula. The way that the branches grow are zigzag, they grow horizontally out from the trunk. It’s almost like a big bonsai tree and the leaves are-
Margaret: I was going to say it has a bonsai feel to it, as if someone had prompted it to make this take this shape, but it does it naturally.
August: Correct. Yeah. It does it entirely naturally, especially when it’s very young. When it’s a mature tree planted in the ground and it’s 50 feet tall, it sort of loses that shape. But as a young tree, like a stem, it has this very horizontal growth habit. And what I think people love about it is that the leaves are so small and delicate that when you put it in front of a window, which is where it really wants to be, you can still see through it, and the light still comes through it into the room. Whereas if you put a big Ficus tree with massive leaves in the window, it soaks up all the light, which is what it wants, and that’s why the leaves are so big, but it can detract from the precious light that comes into a New York City apartment. And so there’s this very, very delicate element to the tree that I think is what people are after.
Margaret: Interesting. And so it definitely wants a lot of light, a lot more light than many of our apartments or in many cases sometimes homes have. Yeah, you can’t put that one in a corner of the bedroom with a little north-facing light. [Laughter.]
August: Correct. You can’t. But going back to what I said a little bit earlier, we have some people and some interior designers who have dedicated the dark corner of the room for a tree. And so what do we do? We have to either find a tree or a plant that will tolerate that limited amount of light, or if it has to be a black olive tree or another plant that requires a lot of light, we will set up a grow light from below. And so we have to find the way to make it work.
And the other thing about the black olive tree is it’s incredibly thirsty. It grows along riverbanks. It’s basically a swamp plant. I mean, it can tolerate being in standing water. And so this is why I say to people, forget everything you know about a houseplant because any other plant for the most part that is sitting in standing water will not like it.
Margaret: The roots rot. They would rot.
August: This plant, that’s what it wants. It is so thirsty. It will just drink and drink and drink. And so the other consideration for this tree is do you have the time to devote to watering it almost every day? And so that’s another element to think about when choosing not just this plant, but any plant, is how much time will I have to spend caring for? What do I have to do to keep it alive?
Margaret: So that one’s kind of trending at the moment, would you say?
August: It is.
Margaret: That’s one that’s desirable at the moment?
August: It is. And it’s all over “Architectural Digest.” I’ve seen it in the Restoration Hardware catalog, when it’s staged for furniture or photo shoots. So it’s really everywhere. It has this look to it. And we have it. We have them in our store. We sell them often and we are very forthcoming about the care for them. We’re not going to keep that information from somebody who wants this tree. We’ll say, “Hey, it’s high maintenance. It may not work in your space.” And many people are O.K. to just try, see what happens.
Margaret: I don’t have any trendy houseplants. I’m so out of date. I have grandma plants, ones I literally inherited from my grandmother, so plants that are, I don’t know, 80 years old or something that she had for a million years. So I have Clivias, for instance.
August: It’s amazing. I love that.
Margaret: Oh yeah. No, they’re great. And the one big plant that she had is now many, many big plants actually in pots so big and so heavy that they probably weigh as much as I do [laughter]. They’re giants.
But at any rate, and then the other plants that I have never were trendy, because they’re sort of rare things. They’re unusual things that, because I was in the garden-writing business and whatever, rare plant friends and other plant nerds would say, “Oh, you’ve got to try this.” Something that’s obscure. So I’ve never had a fiddle-leaf fig when it was in, or a Monstera when it was in or, you know what I mean? So it’s interesting to me.
August: Well, I think that the plants that people have been cultivating for 80 years and longer, they’re a testament to the plants that are like the staples, the foundations. For example, a Christmas cactus or an Easter cactus or any of those blooming cacti that they do.
Margaret: And those are ones that can stay forever in your life.
August: Exactly, exactly. So they’re a testament to plants that just work that are timeless. They don’t go in and out of style, they just live. Yes. It’s interesting.
Margaret: It is interesting. And Sansevieria are still around. Those have been houseplants “forever,” it seems like.
So I wanted to transition a little bit and say some of the questions I bet you’re asked, just like I am as a garden writer. I’m asked the same questions over and over again. Are there greatest hits of houseplant questions? And especially right now, are there the ones that you hear over and again that you want to get across the answer to people to help them the most sort of?
August: Yeah. Well, a couple things. I would say every day I get asked the following question: “I have a bathroom with no windows. What plant can I put in it?”
And I just have to remind people that plants are living things and they survive off of sunlight and water. And if you are going to put a plant somewhere with no windows, it’s not going to live. There are some plants that will take longer to die than others, like a snake plant or a ZZ plant or a cactus, but they will die in a room with no windows.
And so I think, again, it goes back to just the education of this business. I find it funny that I have to remind people that plants are alive and they need sunlight. So just remember that even… I say often, even if there is a sliver of a window in a room somewhere, there is a plant that will tolerate that amount of light. But if there’s nothing, then unfortunately we’re out of luck here.
Margaret: And we could set up, as you said, one of the lights, but somewhere like a bathroom, that might not be the thing to be doing.
August: Right, exactly. And the other thing in the similar vein is people are so excited about succulents and cacti because they have this reputation that they’re so easy and they’re so hands-off and they don’t need anything. And while that may be true in terms of water, I think it’s gotten a little bit lost because people say, “Oh, a succulent or a cactus doesn’t need anything. I’m going to put it in the room with no windows.” So it kind of gets mistaken for something that just lives like it’s like a statue. But I remind people succulents and cacti grow in the desert where there’s no shade. They like full sunlight.
Margaret: Tons of light.
August: And tons and tons of light. And it’s so funny because people’s eyes widen and they say, “Oh my gosh, I never thought of that. ” And it’s just funny to me how often that happens. I think sometimes the marketing of houseplants gets in the way of the actual origins of them.
Margaret: And we’ve seen them almost like floral arrangements sold alongside them. It’s like, “Here’s a little gift for a centerpiece. Use this succulent.” Do you know what I mean? Absolutely. And once they became equated or parallel to that, a hostess gift or a centerpiece, we think it’s disposable. We don’t think about aftercare, right? [Photo above in the shop, by Ngoc Minh Ngo.]
August: Right, right. Absolutely.
Margaret: Yeah. Yeah. So any other questions that you want just in the last minute or two that you want to share?
August: I think what I’m about to say could probably be a topic of its own entirely [laughter]. But the other thing that comes along with plant care is not just sunlight and water, but pest control and pest care, which is not just unique to indoor. It of course is an outdoor garden issue as well. But indoors, there’s no weather, there’s no rain, there’s no natural elements, there’s no other beneficial pests that can control those. So it’s on us as the caretakers for plants to do some pest control.
And we have people come in all the time who get very upset that their plant has fungus gnats or the plant has aphids or scale or mealybugs. And we remind people that this is a normal part of plant care. You have a living thing and pests are attracted to plants. And so it’s a natural part of having a plant is getting rid of those pests, and there’s a lot of ways to do it.
Margaret: And staying out ahead of being observant and vigilant so that it doesn’t become infested with scale insects, but that you see the first ones happening and go, “Uh-oh, I’m going to get ahead of it. I have to get out ahead of it.”
August: Yes. And I think specifically here in New York City where everybody lives in confined small spaces for the most part, whenever there’s a bug of any kind, everybody gets upset [laughter]. And so there’s a little bit of damage control that we have to do.
Margaret: Well, August Laska of The Old Yew Plant Shop, or shops, because there are two of them—as I said, you do mail order and stuff too, so uh-oh. But thank you for making time. And let’s definitely in the fall do a houseplant pest thing, because that could be sort of a preventive and vigilance thing; that would be really helpful for a lot of us. Thank you.
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MY WEEKLY public-radio show, rated a “top-5 garden podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper in the UK, began its 17th year in March 2026. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station in the nation. Listen locally in the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Eastern, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. Or play the July 20, 2026 show using the player near the top of this transcript. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
Margaret
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