千禧一代的室內花園
NEW YORK — When Summer Rayne Oakes’ roommate moved out of their apartment in Brooklyn, she was left with more than just a vacant bedroom.
紐約——薩莫爾·瑞妮·奧克斯(Summer Rayne Oakes)的室友從她們在布魯克林的公寓搬走後，留給她的不只是一間空臥室。“All of a sudden the apartment felt so cold and empty,” said Oakes, 33. “I needed to find a way to make the space feel warm and full of life again.”
“突然間，公寓變得那麼冰冷、空空蕩蕩，”現年33歲的奧克斯說。“我需要找到一個方法，讓這個空間再次充滿溫暖和生機。”Her solution? A fiddle leaf fig tree; the first of nearly 700 houseplants — spanning 400 species — that Oakes, founder of Homestead Brooklyn, would eventually buy for her 1,200-square-foot apartment.
她的解決方案？琴葉榕；這是布魯克林農莊(Homestead Brooklyn)創始人奧克斯買來的第一種植物，最終，她爲自己約1200平方英尺（111平方米）的公寓買了跨越400個物種的近700棵室內植物。
Her indoor forest features everything from a subirrigated living wall in her bedroom, which is a wall of greenery that is essentially a self-watering planter with a built-in reservoir; a vertical garden made out of Mason jars mounted to the living-room wall with wooden boards and hose clamps; and a closet-turned-kitchen grow garden with edible plants (ranging from herbs and greens to pineapple plants and curry leaves).
她的室內森林豐富多彩。其中，有她臥室裏靠滲液澆灌的活牆，這是一個綠葉植物牆，它其實是一個帶有內置蓄水池的自澆灌花盆；用木板和固定軟管的夾子佈置在客廳牆上的梅森玻璃罐形成的垂直花園；還有一個由貯藏室改爲廚房裏的種植園，裏面種了可食用植物（從藥草和綠葉蔬菜，到菠蘿和咖喱葉）。“I didn’t set out to build a jungle,” Oakes said. “I just saw how much energy and life the plants brought to the space and kept going.”
“我並沒打算建設一個叢林，”奧克斯說。“我只是了看到這些植物給室內空間帶來的極大能量和生命，就愈發不可收拾了。”It’s a sentiment that more and more young people seem to be echoing in their own apartments. Wellness-minded millennials, especially ones in large urban environments that lack natural greenery, are opting to fill their voids — both decorative and emotional — with houseplants.
這種觀點似乎在越來越多的年輕人的公寓裏迴盪着。關心健康的千禧一代，尤其是住在缺少天然綠色植物的大城市環境中的那些人，正在選擇用室內植物來填補他們裝飾上和情感上的空缺。“Millennials were responsible for 31 percent of houseplant sales in 2016,” according to Ian Baldwin, a business adviser for the gardening industry. The 2016 National Gardening survey found that of the 6 million Americans who took up gardening that year, 5 million were ages 18 to 34. “This group has more college debt and, as a result, are renting homes instead of buying,” Baldwin said. “Houseplants are a low-cost way to have a green space at home.”
“千禧一代在2016年的室內種植銷售中佔了31%，”園藝行業的商業顧問伊恩·鮑德溫(Ian Baldwin)說。2016年全美園藝調查發現，那年開始種花園的600萬美國人中，有500萬人的年齡在18歲至34歲之間。“這個羣體在念大學期間借了更多的債務，因此，他們在租房而不是買房，”鮑德溫說。“室內植物是在家裏擁有綠色空間的低成本方式。”Meanwhile, Greenery NYC, a botanic design company, has increased its clientele by 6,500 percent since it was founded in 2010; developers are finding ways to include gardens as an amenity for residents; and more people — like Oakes — are turning what little spare space they have in their apartments into indoor gardens.
與此同時，植物園設計公司“紐約市青枝綠葉”(Greenery NYC)自2010年成立以來，客戶人數增加了65倍；開發商們在尋找把花園作爲居民便利設施包括進來的方法；越來越多像奧克斯這樣的人正在把他們公寓裏的閒置空間變成室內花園。“Our sales have doubled each year,” said Rebecca Bullene, the founder of Greenery NYC. “And I attribute that mostly to businesses that want to attract millennial talent and millennials themselves who want more nature in their lives.”
“我們的銷售額每年都在翻番，”紐約市青枝綠葉的創始人瑞貝卡·布里恩(Rebecca Bullene)說。“我覺得這主要是因爲那些想吸引千禧一代人才的企業，以及那些希望在自己的生活中有更多大自然的千禧一代本身。”Inside her 1,800-square-foot apartment in Brooklyn, Bullene, 37, cares for more than 100 plants. She has installed a green divider wall — a 6-foot-by-6-foot steel shelving unit filled with a dozen wooden planter boxes and more than 50 plants — that separates her living room from her in-home office, as well as a terrarium and several other large-scale plants, including an 11-foot-tall Ficus Audrey tree, to help break up the open layout of the space.
現年37歲的布里恩在自己位於布魯克林的1800平方英尺（約167平方米）的公寓裏，照管着100多棵植物。她在客廳和設在家裏的辦公室之間安裝了一個綠色分隔牆，這是一個約2米長、2米寬的鋼製貨架，架子上放了12個木製花盆，裏面種了50多棵植物，她還有一個生物養育箱和一些其他的大型植物，包括一棵3米多高的熱帶榕屬植物奧黛麗樹，這些植物幫助把開放空間分隔成幾個部分。But for Bullene, the plants do more than help define the apartment; they make her home healthier, too.“Plants boost serotonin levels and dissolve volatile airborne chemicals,” she said. “They actually make healthier spaces for humans to inhabit.” She cited a 2010 study from Washington State University that breaks down the benefits of indoor plants, including cleaner air and lowered stress levels.
但對布里恩來說，這些植物的作用不僅是幫助襯托公寓；它們也讓她的家變得更健康。“植物能提高人體內血清素的水平，還能溶解空氣中的揮發性化學物質，”她說。“它們實際上爲人類創造了更健康的居住空間。”她提到華盛頓州立大學(Washington State University)2010年的一項研究，該研究列出了室內植物的好處，包括清潔空氣和減少精神壓力。Along with her floor-to-ceiling plant divider wall in the living room, she also employed a combination of plants that release oxygen at night in her bedroom — including aloe vera and sansevieria — so that she and her husband can breathe cleaner air while they sleep.
除了客廳裏從地板到天花板的隔離牆外，布里恩還在自己的臥室裏擺放了一組夜裏釋放氧氣的植物，包括蘆薈和虎尾蘭，這樣她和她的丈夫在就睡覺時可以呼吸更清新的空氣。Millennial-minded companies are also going to great lengths to integrate greenery into their offices.
對千禧一代有興趣的公司也在不遺餘力地讓綠色植物成爲他們辦公室的一部分。The Etsy headquarters in Brooklyn, for example, could easily be mistaken for an indoor botanical garden. Spanning nine floors and more than 200,000 square feet, the office is home to more than 11,000 plants, including dozens of large-scale plant displays and living walls installed and maintained by Bullene and Greenery NYC.
比如，位於布魯克林的Etsy總部很容易被誤認爲是一個室內植物園。在這個佔了9層樓、總面積20萬平方尺（約1.8萬平方米）的總部裏，有11000多個植物，其中包括數十棵大型植物陳列，以及由布里恩和紐約市青枝綠葉安裝和維護的活牆。“Every employee has a sight line to greenery,” said Hilary Young, Etsy’s sustainability manager, who helps the company seek ways to conserve the environment. “It’s a beautiful space that inspires and boosts productivity.” Greenery NYC and the architects at Gensler worked closely to create a state-of-the-art rainwater-harvesting and irrigation system at Etsy’s headquarters, which is considered the largest commercial “living building” in the world. It allows all the office plants to be watered with recycled stormwater.
“每個員工都能看到綠色植物，”Etsy的可持續發展經理希拉里·揚(Hilary Young)說，她幫助公司尋求保護環境的方法。“這是一個美麗的空間，能夠激發和提高生產力。”紐約市青枝綠葉與晉思(Gensler)的建築師們密切合作，爲Etsy的總部創造了一套最先進的雨水收集和灌溉系統，被認爲是世界上最大的商業“活建築”。這個系統讓所有辦公室植物都可以用回收的雨水澆灌。With the increasing number of young people searching for access to greenery in their residences, real estate developers have also jumped on the trend.
隨着越來越多的年輕人希望在自己的住宅中接觸綠色植物，房地產開發商們也紛紛加入到這個潮流中來。At the ARC in Long Island City — a new 428-unit “industrial-inspired” luxury rental building developed by the Lightstone Group — residents have access to a 1,100-square-foot glass greenhouse, where they are free to plant and grow their own vegetables and herbs. “It’s been a tremendous selling point to prospective tenants,” said Scott Avram, senior vice president for development at Lightstone.
在長島市由Lightstone集團開發的“受工業時代啓發”的428個單元的豪華租賃公寓樓ARC裏，居民們擁有一個面積1100平方尺（約100平米）的玻璃溫室，他們可以在那裏自由地栽培和種植自己的蔬菜和藥草。“對潛在的租戶來說，這是一個巨大的賣點，”Lightstone公司高級副總裁斯科特·阿夫拉姆(Scott Avram)說。Greg Garunov, 33, said: “One factor of my decision to rent in the ARC was the beautiful courtyard and greenhouse. There is something to having a green oasis at your fingertips in the steel city of New York.”
33歲的格雷格·伽拉諾夫(Greg Garunov)說：“我決定在ARC租房子的一個因素是其漂亮的庭院和溫室。在紐約這座鋼鐵之城，有一個你隨手可觸的植物綠洲不簡單。”And over at the Margo, in Brooklyn, residents enjoy a living wall in the lobby as well as a rooftop garden with plots that tenants can adopt for their own gardens.
在布魯克林的Margo大廈，居民們在大廳裏能享受一面活牆，大廈還有一個屋頂花園，一些住戶可以用其中的小塊地作爲他們自己的花園。“Wellness is a priority for our millennial-aged residents,” said Dave Maundrell, executive vice president for new developments for Brooklyn and Queens at Citi Habitats. “They’re willing to pay more for access to a green space.”
“健康是我們的千禧一代居民最關心的東西，”Citi Habitats負責布魯克林和皇后區新開發項目的執行副總裁戴夫·莫德雷爾(Dave Maundrell)說。“他們願意爲接觸綠色空間花更多的錢。”
But for those young urbanites who don’t have the luxury of a communal garden or greenhouse, houseplants remain an affordable and renter-friendly option.
但是，對於無法享受公共花園或溫室等奢侈的年輕城市居民來說，室內植物仍然是一種負擔得起的、對租戶友好的選擇。For instance, Oakes has managed to make the bulk of her indoor garden self-regulating and, perhaps more impressively, removable.
比如，奧克斯已經把她的大部分室內花園做成能自我調節，也可以拆除，後面這點也許更令人讚歎。Thanks to several do-it-yourself irrigation systems she hacked throughout her home, including two irrigation units she created using a 150-foot hose that connects to pipes under her kitchen sink, Oakes has to spend only about a half-hour a day tending to her plants.
靠她在房間裏自己動手佈置的一些灌溉系統，包括她用一條150英尺（約46米）長的水管從廚房水槽的下水管連接製造的兩個灌溉設備，她每天只需花大約半個小時來照顧她的植物。“New York City is tough,” she said. “My plants gave me a sanctuary to come home to.”
“紐約的生活不容易，”她說。“我的植物給了我一個可以棲息的避難所。”
