6 BUN THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2020The motion-sensing lights sense
nothing. The swivel chairs do not
swivel. Only one sign of life re-
mains in the abandoned corporate
floor plan: potted plants.
Intended as a note of vibrancy
amid bland surroundings, work-
place greenery now seems an eerie
symbol of the suddenness with
which workers abandoned their
routines.
Yet the cactuses and philoden-
drons we left behind have not been
forgotten. During the pandemic,
some have had their own essential
workers keeping them alive. So-
called interior horticulturalists wa-
ter — and occasionally pet — the
plants every few weeks, tending to
a patch of the American economy.
Semper Ficus: Left-Behind Office Plants
Some tools of the interior
horticultural trade: a
plant care notebook, top,
kept by Mac Rogers of
Cityscapes; and pruning
snips and gloves, above,
worn by Pam Blittersdorf
of Garden Streets.Ms. Blittersdorf, lead
gardener with Garden
Streets, in the offices of
the tech company
Affectiva in Boston.
“This is a retirement gig
for me,” said Ms.
Blittersdorf, a former
librarian and longtime
plant lover.“We used to dust them,” Ms. Blittersdorf said of office plants. “But with no people, there’s no
dust.” Above, Jan Goodman, the owner of Cityscapes, an office landscaping company based
in Boston, sprays a plant installation in the Boston office of Criteo, an advertising company.
Photographs by M. SCOTT BRAUER
Text by ALEX TRAUB
Left, it’s not easy being
green for a Dracaena
marginata plant in the
temporarily closed
offices of FootBridge in
Andover, Mass.Below, Karen Bassi of
Cityscapes, filling her
watering can in a Boston
office. “If a plant has a
weak root system, it can’t
handle a switch as well
as others with more
established root
systems,” she says.
“They do better around
people,” said Emily
Metcalfe, senior
horticultural trainer for
Plantwerks. “People
bring good energy.”