Stunned Couple Buy B&Q Plant For £12 After Realising That Leaves Are Worth £170 Each
A lucky couple have revealed the leaves of a B&Q plant they purchased for £12 ($16) are worth a remarkable £170 ($230) each.
Harry Langstaff and Amy Briffa picked up the plant at their local DIY store and soon realised it was an extremely rare plant, which had been reduced from £24 ($32) to £12.
They reckon it was discounted because the yellowed leaves might have fooled staff into thinking the plant was sick and on its way out, reports The Sun.
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Luckily for Harry and Amy - who sell rare plants on Etsy as The Plant Couple - the houseplant turned out to be the incredibly rare (and expensive) monstera Aurea marmorata.
Specimens with perfect half white and half green leaves can sell up to a whopping £2,000 ($2,700).
Harry told The Sun it was 'like winning for lottery'.
He said: "When we first saw the plant sitting there, we kind of just looked at each other and really couldn’t believe what we were seeing.
"It was reduced to £12 because it had a yellow leaf that B&Q must have assumed meant it was sick.
"For people who collect houseplants, it's like winning the lottery, so you can imagine what we were feeling at the time.
"We hastily checked the stem for any colour, we then immediately just snatched it up and strapped it in the back seat with a seatbelt like it was our child."
Harry reckons their plant is worth about £600 ($800) for now but they'll be more likely to sell the leaves when they reach £170 each.
"The first thing we tend to do is repot them into more rich, well draining soil and really give it enough humidity and light to thrive and hope for the best," Harry said.
"We didn’t realise it was so rare until it produced a new leaf a few weeks later, it just kept getting better and better and we just couldn't believe it.
"Our one wasn't in amazing condition so we were so nervous it would die.
"The odds on finding this of a plant quite like this are extremely slim though, one in a million.
"But if the stem shows signs of striping, then it's variegated (showing different colours) which will increase its value significantly.
"Beware though, as people often mistake virus on the foliage for variegation when it's actually just sick."
A B&Q spokesperson told The Sun: “At B&Q we’re pretty proud of the quality of our house plants so we can see why it’s been reported that our plants could be worth up to £4,000.
"Whilst we don’t sell the extremely rare plants in question, we do sell top quality houseplants that our customers are more familiar with and that are more purse-friendly!”
Anish Vij