He’s turning the concrete jungle green.
Nearly every night, Miguel “Mike Plants” Andrade transforms the subway into a traveling floral shop, where he hawks succulents, orchids and even trees to straphangers in need of plant “therapy.”
The Bronx resident, 44, is entering his 15th year as the 1 train’s “Plant Man,” a job he said grounds him amid the chaos of the city.
“It’s good for the body, the soul, the mind. Just connecting with the plants and with people about the plants — it’s an experience that is connecting with the universe.”
The Post followed Mike Plants as he traded greens for green Friday evening — though he happily handed out a few potted friends free of charge.
“I work for God, he sends them in my direction and the energy just tells me that they really would be happy to get a plant,” said Andrade, adding that he typically seeks out those who look like they might be having a bad day or who might not be able to afford the expense of his plants.
His transition into the 1 train’s “Plant Man” happened organically. In 2012, Andrade was working for several shops in Midtown’s Flower District, often doing the heavy lifting and making deliveries.
Without a car, Andrade relied on the subway to transport floral freight — and quickly found himself surrounded by interested straphangers looking to buy the plants right then and there.
He slowly started packing extra merchandise for his trips until it transformed into a full-blown gig.
Today, he still helps those Lower Manhattan shops make deliveries, repot plants and close up shop, but now he does it in exchange for a different kind of green: Andrade asks to be paid in hundreds of dollars worth of plants, which he then doles out on the subway.
“They give me orchids every day. That’s my main thing. I will have a whole bunch of orchids — 30, 40 orchids, all colors. They’ll also give me small plants, medium plants, large plants, indoor and outdoor,” Andrade said.
The key is offering the plants at a reduced price. A handcrafted bouquet by Andrade fetches just $5, while a 10-foot-tall tree, priced in store at up to $200, can be purchased from the Plant Man for just $50.
And when Andrade boards the train and reminds commuters heading home, “Don’t forget to pick up flowers for your wife!” — it’s hard to resist.
Andrade will ride the 1 train for up to three hours every night, by which time he’ll offload a majority of his inventory. The rest he sells online — a tenacious gig that reaps up to $400 on a busy night.
Although the cash is good, Andrade said he’s in it for the happiness he spreads to the community.
“On a train day, you would see there’s like a whole bunch of people on the train. It’s a lot of emotions. I could see people, that they’re going through stuff and I just come to them and see a certain plant lit up for them and it just picks their spirit up,” said Andrade.
“I’ve had probably 30 or 40 people that came back to me saying, ‘That time that you gave me the plant, I was going through something and it really picked me up.’ There’s been plenty of times I’ll give flowers to people and they just burst out crying.”
When Andrade boarded the 1 train Friday evening, numerous straphangers immediately pulled out their wallets — and their phone cameras — and smiles spread like a contagion.
“Of course, this has absolutely impacted my day. Positively,” Josephine De La Rose, of the Upper West Side, told The Post after buying a bouquet for just $5.
Kamillah of the Bronx said she was ironically on her way to a 24/7 flower shop when Andrade serendipitously boarded her train car.
“This is divine timing. It’s such a unique offering to sell flowers on the train like this, it made my day. I love to see people who are finding unique ways to survive capitalism,” she said while clutching her orange and white roses.
“Being able to brighten people’s day and provide a service is amazing — it made me very happy.”
Unsurprisingly, the unusual job has plenty of quirks.
There’s been a handful of times Andrade has admittedly held up the train as he’s rushed to stock the car up with his vegetation. A video of the “Plant Man” rushing to toss a dozen trees onto the train went viral last year, but fortunately commuters were more amused than annoyed, and some even bought a tree off Andrade to make the load lighter for his next transport.
And he says it keeps him young — people are usually shocked to find out he’s 44 years old, often being mistaken for his mid-20s.
“It’s a therapy and it’s a workout,” Andrade said of his daily hauls.