This year, The Planted Pot conducted a survey to understand the current house plant trends and how plant lovers around the world behave when it comes to owning indoor plants.
In total, we asked 9 questions to 1,236 plant owners who live in New Zealand, Canada, The USA, The United Kingdom and Australia. We asked a variety of questions, such as how much time plant lovers spend taking care of their house plants, how the pandemic has shaped our plants habits, how plants might be helping our mental health and more. All these interesting questions are answered in this article.
We are spending a significant amount of time taking care of plants
Approximately 40% of respondents spent 1-3 hours per week on their plants, and a further 10% spent between 3-5 hours. Most interestingly, 10% spent more than 5 hours every week maintaining, watering, and fertilising their plants, what a dedicated bunch of people!
Houseplants can be an expensive hobby, but we don’t mind
66% of all respondents regularly spent up to $50 every month on plants. 17% spent a modest $50-100 a month, and a further 17% spent a massive $100 a month on their plants. How many plants could you buy with $100?
Jodine from New Zealand said, “More than 100 a week generally - that includes plant supplies, though. But I’m aiming to spend much less through winter because it’s gotten out of control”. While another more budget-conservative surveyed answered “I pretty much only buy small cuttings or plants under $20. I like watching them grow from a baby. I spend more on cover pots but don't buy them very often unless I need more”.
People go plant shopping frequently
We asked how many plants respondents bought in the last 6 months, and a massive 37% had bought at least 20 - that’s almost a new plant every week! A further 35% and 28% of people bought 0-10 and 10-20 plants, respectively. You'd need a lot of plant pots to match.
Our homes are full (and I mean full) of plants
The percentage of people who own more than 40 plants is a whopping 27%, talk about a jungle. 32% have 20-40 plants, and 41% own 0-20 plants.
Plants are important to us, but for different reasons
By far, the most important reason why respondents had plants was for aesthetics, with 49% saying it was the most important thing they consider when buying plants. The next highest reason was colour with 21% and easy maintenance with 16%. Another factor that 12% of people found important was the rarity or uniqueness, and the remaining 2% thought that their plants having flowers was important to them. Interestingly, no respondents chose that health benefits were the most important factor in their plant decisions.
Plants help our mental health
The overwhelming majority of people consider that growing and taking care of plants has helped or improved their mental health, that’s 94%. 4% said that it hasn’t helped them, and for 2% they didn’t notice if it had or not.
Plants and the pandemic
Not surprisingly, 71% of respondents admitted that they had become more interested in plants since the pandemic began. The other 29% didn’t, although they might have been crazy about plants before the pandemic started.
We believe plants have health benefits
Zero people chose that plants cured sore throats and colds or had no health benefits at all. 22% said that plants improved the air quality by removing toxins (a proven fact), and 26% that plants give off good energy. The majority of people, 52%, said they believed plants are therapeutic.
In another question about specific benefits, 71% of respondents said that plants boosted their mood and reduced stress. 11% of people each for creativity and productivity noticed an increase. The remaining 7% noticed an improvement in concentration. After these results, we should all be putting plants on our desks.
