PRODUCTS: Let Sleeping Plants Lie

Many plant lovers are also plant killers: they never quite find the right mix of light and water to keep their houseplants alive. Weyerhaeuser, the Tacoma, Wash.-based forest-products company, believes this problem may now be solved. Last week the firm began selling plants, trees and flowers that have been put into a kind of permanent "sleep." Weyerhaeuser owns the North American rights to the treatment, in which nontoxic preservatives are injected into the plants. The process, which also permits the use of dyes to transform green plants into red ones, has been available on a limited basis in Europe since the 1970s. Oaks, palms and eucalyptus trees, as well as indoor plants like baby's breath, can be preserved for as long as eight years. After the process, the plants look, feel and even smell like they did before. Still, they neither grow nor blossom and have no need for water or light. The sleeping plants will sell for up to four times the cost of their living counterparts.

Weyerhaeuser believes there is a huge market for its products, but owners of plant nurseries caution that sales of living trees and flowers are not about to die off. Says Steve McGonigal, executive director of the Washington State Nurserymen's Association: "There will never be a substitute for a real plant."