Edited by: Janani Mahadevan
The pandemic has increased how bound we are to our homes and private spaces, and a lot of people took the lockdown as an opportunity to spend more time with their families as well as their pets. So many testimonials swear that companion animals made spending lengthy periods of time at home much more bearable, which makes perfect sense. With dogs, for example, they are living creatures who adore you and react to your responses; it is said that they have a sixth sense for compassion and are truly loyal. Finding company in a dog makes sense to me. Now comes the puzzling bit. During the same lockdown, there was another subset of people who turned to nurturing houseplants as a way to cope. Indoor plant sales have boomed over the last couple of years, and this has not gone unnoticed. There are numerous articles out there detailing the growing obsession with houseplants, and the term “Pandemic Houseplant Parent” has been floating around. They’re not as engaging as pets, so why does this happen?
What does make sense to me about this phenomenon right away is that the aesthetics of houseplants are appealing — they really liven up a space and the pop of green instantly brightens up a room. Secondly, there is comfort in the routine of caring for plants: having to water them, give them the right nutrients and light, spray the leaves with water and basically watch something you’ve put effort into growing and even flourishing. It is the literal embodiment of the inspirational quote ‘watching your seeds bear fruits’. I’ve heard of people loving their plants to the extent where they talk and even sing to them. There are people in my own household who adhere to this. I sometimes wake up to the sounds of ‘healing vibrations for plants’ playing on Youtube, because our dear plants need nourishment. This, however, is what I’ve genuinely tried to but fail to fully understand. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love plants and have a few indoor potted ones in my room, but I just find it hard to rationalize the extent of the bond that people sometimes have with their houseplants. So, I decided to dig deeper into how and why people form emotional connections with their houseplants.
One possible explanation I came to land up on after reading many articles online was the logistics of plant enthusiasm. For people who don’t have pets, plants seem like a great alternative because they often require less attention but still provide the opportunity to nurture something. Perhaps all the time and effort people put into raising their plants translates to an emotional bond with them.
Another explanation that I could think of was along the lines of mindfulness and connecting to yourself. Talking to your plants emits carbon dioxide which the plant then absorbs and uses to grow. More importantly, talking out loud to a living thing that isn’t going to physically respond to you is in a way talking to yourself. Could internally attaching your plant with meaning be thought of as creating an ‘imaginary’ friend (basically embodying yourself in an object) and sorting stuff out with your own inner voice? This seems plausible to me because I feel like that’s what I can imagine happening in my mind if I were to talk to my plants.
After going through the various articles out there and giving it a lot of thought, I think that I understand this phenomenon a little better. It may not be the most accurate or psychologically true explanation out there, but it helped me rationalize the behaviour of people who share an emotional bond with their plants. I think the best answer to the puzzle is kind of circular and it would probably start with buying into the trend of collecting indoor plants. Gardening is scientifically proven to aid in better mental health, so that tips the scale to the mindfulness explanation being the reason (maybe subconscious) for bonding with plants. I truly believe that nature and the outdoors heal (as evidenced by my previous article). Perhaps having a tiny slice of that larger phenomena right beside you in your living space is comforting. With more people hopping onto the bandwagon, the plant parents community grows larger and perhaps could provide a good platform for nurturing your own inner peace along with flora.