Plant Collection In UWS 1-Bedroom Rivals Botanical Garden

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A sunshine-drenched one-bedroom on the Upper West Side is giving the New York Botanical Garden a run for its money.

The cozy home off Columbus Avenue is occupied by Alessia Resta – along with her nearly 200 plants. The collection started seven years ago when the 26-year-old moved into the home, and blossomed into a social media phenomenon with an Instagram channel with more than 27,000 followers.

When Alessia Resta was looking at her Upper West Side apartment for the first time, she fell in love with the amount of light coming in through the windows. Over the next seven years, that light has given life to hundreds of plants that call the one-bedroom apartment home.

"Since I was working from home so much, I was like, 'Ok, I really want to dedicate more time to finding rare plants and off-the-beaten path plants,'" said Resta, who operates a laser cutting business. "So now I have a pretty big collection."

She employs a number of different tools and strategies — such as domes, humidifiers, grow lights and a miniature greenhouse for her newest plants — to keep her collection thriving – but the best trick is to find each plant's "sweet spot."

"Finding the sweet spot for a plant is the toughest thing," she said.

"You never know how it's going to acclimate to the apartment or if it's going to do well in the apartment environment or the light your space can provide."

Resta has endured her share of "plant fails" — including a large pest infestation — over the years, but said that aspiring botanists shouldn't get discouraged if early attempts at keeping plants go wrong. The fails have also become easier to endure since Resta connected with other botany enthusiasts through her Instagram channel "Apartment Botanist."

The account has turned Resta into a social media star — her 27,000 followers were racked up in a year-and-a-half — and has evolved from a hobby to a venture she spends "a ton of time on." Resta, who went to art school before opening her business, said she created the account on a whim to give herself a creative outlet.

"It was totally just out of wanting to find a hobby that I can do from home and just pour creative energy into," she said. "It was about doing something that is lighthearted. Now I spend a ton of time on it, so joke's on me."

Through the account, Resta has met lifelong friends and said she felt an "immediate welcome" into the online botany community that's "literally and figuratively growing." Social media botanists bounce plant ideas off each other, share their failures and successes and promote great plant stores.

"People become invested in what's happening with your plants, and so I just sort of fostered that community and here we are now," Resta said.

Resta uses the account to show off some of her favorite plants in her collection. At the moment, Resta is a big fan of Aroids — members of the Araceae family — like Philodendrons, Anthuriums and Alocasia. Four rare species that she currently keeps in the apartment are the Philodendron Patriciae, Aglaonema Pictum Tricolor, Variegated Monstera "Thai Constellation" and Macodes Petola Jewel Orchid.

Photos of Resta's dogs — Pachino the Shih Tzu and Zeus the Weimeraner — make frequent appearances on the Istagram channel. Resta says that Zeus' swinging tail can sometimes threaten a plant, but that the dogs don't have much of an appetite for leafy greens.

The Upper West Sider said that she spends less time than people would think on watering her plants. Resta — with the aid of her boyfriend — dedicates two hours each week to watering her plants.

Check out Resta's Instagram page here.

Photos by Brendan Krisel/Patch