Happiness is a home full of beautiful plants

If the beauty of these magical creatures has not enchanted you yet, science is giving us some logical and fact-based reasons to become plant parents.

Plants are a thing of beauty

Look closely at the tiny saucer-like leaves of a Pilea peperomioides. Each one, like a coin, magically emerging out of a single central stalk. Touch its leathery leaves and discover its veiny insides as you peer through their succulent-like translucence. You could spend hours marveling at the beauty of its creation.

Once you get the taste of acquiring and growing plants, you’ll realise that you don’t have to buy some truly exotic species like a Rex Begonia to wonder at the true magnificence of these living pieces of art. Plant parents who have discovered their plant online ‘babies’ at eplants have shared the joys of acquiring even easy to care for plants and then watching them grow.

Houseplants make Indoor Spaces Healthier

If you are not one of those who are leaf obsessed, there are other practical reasons for bringing a plant home. The much-quoted NASA study on the therapeutic qualities of houseplants and how having even just a few of them can improve the quality of indoor air. A Sansevieria or snake plant, for example, can help people suffering from asthma bring down airborne contaminants and toxins in their homes, and improve the quality of air around them.

Biology lessons have taught us that, unlike animals who take in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, plants do the reverse – with some plants doing it better than others. Having plants in your bedroom and around family spaces at home is a great way to improve indoor air quality and reduce invisible toxins that paints, appliances and other devices at home are throwing up all the time.

Indoor Plants are Mood Enhancers

Be amazed at an exotic orchid bloom , find joy as a monstera unfolds a new leaf or how a tray full of common herb seeds sprout out new seedlings a few days after your child has sown and watered it. It’s a miracle really, these magical routines of nature. Having some plants inside your home and spending time actively caring for them has been recognised as a way to reduce stress.

A study conducted in the Netherlands suggests that gardening can reduce stress better than other relaxing activities like reading. Participants in the study who undertook gardening as against those who did reading for 30 minutes after a stressful activity were not only more relaxed, but they had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. As hunter-gatherers, we humans only have a finite capacity for activities that involve directed attention, after which we become irritated, error-prone, and stressed. Gardening is an activity that calls for involuntary attention, that we use to enjoy nature, while we are on holiday etc.

Get Emotional with Houseplants

‘Meet Raven’, proclaimed Vandana Yadav as she posted pictures of her newly acquired Philodendron spiritus sancti. Vandana snagged one of the most sought-after, endangered aroids in an online auction. And she was talking of the house plant, as someone would talk about a friend or even a child; just like most people who have pets develop a deep, parental relationship with these animals. A study by Michael Roy of the University of California took this premise even further, adding that people end up choosing their pets that most resemble them. He tested his theory by going to a few parks around where he lived, photographing people and their pets separately. He then asked some others to match up these pets and people, and despite no additional clues, he found that they were able to match the owners and their animals with reasonable accuracy.

Other studies have shown that gently talking to plants, as against yelling at them, helps improve their growth. So the emotional connection that people develop with their houseplants is not just a one-way relationship, plants seem to reciprocate the good vibrations that come their way.

House plants are a way to widen and deepen your social circle

As a plant parent and co-founder of eplants I like to say that I now have more plant friends on Instagram and Facebook than I have childhood friends and hundreds of others I had connected to during my three decades of being a corporate professional.

I have in fact made an effort to clean up my social feeds in keeping with my deep reconnection with plants and nature. From being a conference junkie, I now attend more plant meetups and plant-related social dos. For some people collecting and showing off plants and gardens is becoming a sort of a toxic rat race. I have connected with so many generous souls in the last two years who have helped me strengthen my relationship with plants and learn from them. Plant swapping is now a daily occurrence with people posting about what they want to share with others in online communities and others reciprocating to these posts.

Beautiful gardens can now be grown indoors

Gardens, once a hobby for people with a lot of open spaces around their homes, have now come indoors. With vertical gardening ideas, pots that look like curios or artifacts that could be displayed indoors. Technical advancements that make it possible to grow plants in indoor spaces – grow lights, humidifiers, misters and vivariums, for a plant lover there has never been a better time to get into gardening and growing plants.

Pandemic’s Promise

WFH routines are now mainstream. If not working from home full time, most companies are open to let their employees have flexible working from home or away from home. Which means, more than ever before, people wanting to collect wfh plants or growing herbs at home are now finding time and space to do so.

Any and all excuses for not wanting to reconnect with nature and grow some green around our living spaces are giving way to logic and common sense. If you are still sitting on the fence, thinking of when you should jump the fence and become a plant parent, there is no better time than now. In case of gardening and plants – the grass can always be greener.