Plants & Planters
Buy and sell plants and planters in Guatemala.
Many of the potted plants in Guatemalan homes are the same species the country grows for export: ponytail palms, sansevieria and pothos leave nurseries here in volume for the United States and the Netherlands, which keeps a healthy one cheap at home. Alongside them come orchids, cacti, garden shrubs and the pots they grow in, from plain clay to cement and fibreglass planters big enough for a terrace. Plants and planters turn up new from growers and pre-owned from owners who are moving or have simply run out of room, with rooted cuttings and offsets from a mother plant in between.
Shade plants for the living room, sun plants for the patio:
light decides more than looks do. Pothos, aglaonema, sansevieria and monstera grow in bright indirect light. Bougainvillea, hibiscus, most cacti and the ponytail palm want hours of direct sun and stretch and pale indoors. Orchids and bromeliads grow on branches in the wild, so they go into loose bark or coconut fibre, never garden soil. Spineless yucca is sold small but becomes a trunked tree, so give it ground where it can reach several metres. Soil mixes, pruners and sprayers are in gardening tools.
Clay pots, plastic pots and the drainage hole:
unglazed clay breathes and dries out fastest, which suits cacti, sansevieria and the ponytail palm, whose swollen base stores water, and punishes ferns. Glazed ceramic and plastic hold moisture longer, better for pothos and anything that droops when dry. On a roof terrace, fibreglass gives the look of stone at a fraction of the weight; cement will not tip in the wind and will not move once planted. A pot with no hole in the bottom is a cachepot, and the plant stays in its nursery pot inside it. Repot one size up, not three, because soil the roots cannot reach stays wet and rots them. Large planters share the terrace with outdoor furniture, so measure for both.
Why a sansevieria can cost less than its pot:
common foliage plants are grown here in quantity, so a pothos or sansevieria in a nursery pot is well under Q100 new, while a plain clay pot runs from about Q20 to around Q200 by size. That shapes the used market. A small common plant fetches little, because anyone with a mother plant can root another in a few weeks. What holds value is time: a ponytail palm with a base the size of a football, or a monstera whose leaves have opened into their full slits, took years to grow, and the buyer is paying for the years. Heavy cement and fibreglass planters keep their value too, as long as they are free of chips and cracks.
Mealybugs, root rot and dyed orchids:
start at the drainage hole. Roots circling out mean the plant is root-bound, which a bigger pot fixes. A sour smell, a soft dark base on a sansevieria or a mushy stem means root rot, which rarely recovers. Turn the leaves over: white cottony tufts are mealybugs, brown bumps on the stems are scale, fine webbing over speckled leaves is spider mite. All three spread, so keep a new plant apart from yours for a couple of weeks. Cacti with straw flowers glued on top and blue Phalaenopsis orchids, which are white ones dyed, will not stay that way. A native orchid or air plant taken off a tree often declines once potted, so ask whether it was nursery-raised. Tap clay and ceramic pots with a knuckle: a clear ring means sound, a dull note means a hairline crack.
Photos, pot sizes and the ride home in a pickup:
give the species, the height from the pot rim to the top, the pot’s diameter and whether the pot goes with it. Photograph the plant from the side in daylight, then the leaf undersides and the drainage hole, the pictures a careful buyer asks for. Say whether it lived indoors or in sun, since a shade plant moved straight into full sun scorches within days. With a big planter, say whether it takes two people to lift, and stop watering it a few days before collection to take weight off. Tell the buyer to bring a sheet: a shade plant riding in an open pickup bed at midday arrives with burnt leaves.