Paean to the power of plants

She now has more than 500 kinds of succulents, she says, and recently became interested in a variety called Haworthia, which she bought from a WeChat acquaintance for 300 yuan ($48).

"You can pay anything from one yuan to thousands of yuan for a succulent," Jin says. "The easier it propagates, the cheaper it is."

A variety called peach egg was fetching as much as 180 yuan four years ago but with expansive planting its price has fallen to as low as 1 yuan today.

Jin says she has more than 100 peach eggs, most priced at less than 50 yuan.

Anyone shopping for peach eggs on the online marketplace Taobao will easily find them in the 1 yuan to 5 yuan range, but Jin says the succulents sold on line tend to be of inferior quality.

Chinese are generally familiar with cactus. Other varieties, such as jade drop, peach beauty and baby bear, are less well known but are very popular among a small group of enthusiasts.

One of those responsible for driving the growth in popularity of succulents is Zhu Weiwei, 36, well known for a blog she has run since 2011.