CICERO, N.Y. – Cicero may have turned into a winter wonderland, but New Yorkers still found a source of early spring.
The Northeast Plant Show happens twice a year in Central New York, one of those times during the coldest months of the year. This time, it popped up in the Driver’s Village Automall in late February.
Rebekah Watters started the event a few years ago, after she worked at various reptile shows as a vendor. When people flooded the shows to see the reptiles, Watters had an idea.
“I was thinking, where is the market for just plants?” she said. “These shows bring thousands of people to reptiles, why not for plants? So I was like, okay, why don’t I do it?”
The event brought the attention Watters dreamed of. Organizers expected around fourteen hundred people to show up, but Watters said an estimated three thousand arrived. The line stretched around the second floor of the auto mall. Some waited over an hour to get inside.
Watters has an idea as to why the show’s attendance grew so much.
“A lot of people got into plants during the coronavirus pandemic,” she said. “It was something to have in their house. It was alive, it was growing. They felt a connection to it, it was alive with them.”
The plant show featured over sixty vendors. Some sold just plants or succulents, others had plant-inspired products like candles to artwork.
Kristina Ferrare waited in line to visit a vendor from Sage and Stardust. She echoed Watters’ sentiment as to why she waited for the plants.
“It’s nice to have something living and breathing in the house,” she said. “Besides us.”
The Northeast Plant Show will look much bigger when it returns later this summer. The show will sprout in the On Center in Syracuse in August.
