These Are the 9 Most Popular Houseplants on Instagram, According to Survey

Written by

Mia Nakaji Monnier
Mia Nakaji Monnier
Mia Nakaji Monnier is a freelance writer and former weekend editor at Apartment Therapy. She lives in Los Angeles and spends most of her free time knitting.
published May 24, 2020
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Woman watering plants
Credit: maramorosz/Shutterstock

We love sharing photos of houseplants on social media almost as much as we love houseplants themselves. But houseplant popularity varies by region and by species. A recent survey used Instagram to determine the houseplant capitals of the world, as well as the most popular houseplant species. Here’s what it found.

To find the places in the world that posts the most houseplant photos, insurance company Budget Direct started by focusing on one of the most popular houseplant hashtags, #urbanjungle, which has more than three million posts. It narrowed those down to 200,000 posts with geotags. 

On the continent level, Europe has the most #urbanjungle posts, at 17,000, followed by North America with 9,402. The U.S., however, has the most among countries, with 7,592 #urbanjungle posts. Brazil, in second place, has 3,577. The top three cities are New York City, London, and Berlin. (Of course, we have to keep in mind that #urbanjungle is an English hashtag, so it represents only a small part of the Instagram houseplant ecosystem!)

To find the most popular species, Budget Direct focused on posts by plant experts (meaning, for the purpose of this survey, people who used hashtags with a plant’s scientific, rather than common, name). These are the top three in each of three categories: succulents and cacti, flowering, and foliage.

Succulents and Cacti

Echeveria

These rosette-shaped succulents come in many varieties, including pink and see-through ones.

Haworthia

Ideal for new plant parents, zebra plants like the one in this illustration are pretty hard to kill.

Living Stones

These strange plants look like stones, tiny brains, or bisected citrus fruit.

Flowering

Crocus

When these bloom, you know spring is here.

Fuchsia

Fuchsia come in many different colors and varieties, and they look beautiful in hanging baskets.

Daffodils

Just a bundle of these from Trader Joe’s can make a day a little brighter.

Foliage

Swiss cheese plant

The plant that launched a thousand millennial Instagram tableaus.

Chinese money plant

Also called the pancake plant because of its cheerful, round leaves.

Rubber plant

A hardy plant for beginners ready to branch out from succulents.