A GROWING SENSE OF WELL-BEING
Plants go beyond decor to tap into our instinctive connection to nature
When you walk into a home that’s filled with lush, green houseplants it’s hard not to feel instantly better about that space, and this can be attributed to “biophilia” (a hypothesis that suggests natural human affinity for nature or living things), says co-founder of Vancouver’s ByNature Design, Nicolas Rousseau, referring to the work of Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson.
“If we surround ourselves with plants and nature, we’re going to feel better. It impacts our brain, our mood, and we feel more calm and relaxed. Biophilia is that deep connection we have in our DNA with nature,” he says.
The acoustic element plants bring to indoor environments is also significant, says Rousseau, whose company was founded in 2012 and has since opened offices in Toronto.
“When we use moss or plants, all of those natural textures have a huge impact on the acoustics,” he says.
ByNature Design has become known for their living walls, moss gardens, and creative plant designs. A few years ago, Rousseau says, the company also began making “preserved” plant products, in which plants are “stopped in their growing process” with glycerine to preserve their texture, and food dyes are used to enhance their colour.
Preserved products now make up about half of their business and appeal to a slightly different market than live plants do, since they don’t need maintenance, watering or sunlight, Rousseau says.
“Some people are truly passionate about living plants, and they want to care for their plants, and they know what they’re doing. But there is a new market where people are too busy to water their plants, or they travel a lot, or don’t want to learn. Or sometimes it’s a branding thing, where a company wants something green but doesn’t want any maintenance,” he says.
There is a growing demand for houseplants among millennials, says Darryl Cheng, a plant specialist and author of the book The New Plant Parent.
He cites a recent survey carried out by OnePoll for online furniture and home furnishings company Article (involving 2,000 millennials, aged between 25 and 39 years, surveyed between December 2019 and January 2020).
Cheng says seven out of 10 surveyed considered themselves “plant parents,” but almost 70 per cent said they had trouble keeping their plants alive.
A common mistake people make is fixating on watering their plants, but not putting them in places where they’re exposed to enough light, Cheng says. Exposure to natural light is everything, he adds.
“I think when people hear ‘avoid bright, indirect light,’ they think they should avoid the sun, but in fact what it actually means is we need to put the plant in a position where it will have the widest possible view of the sky. And if the sun is going to shine on it for two to three hours, block it with a sheer curtain,” he says.
When it comes to watering plants, people often think they should follow a schedule, but this isn’t the best approach, Cheng says.
“You are looking for a soil dryness cue. There’s only three ways you water: If it’s succulents and cacti, you’re waiting until soil is totally dry before you give it a good soaking. For classical tropical foliage plants you put them where there’s the right light and wait until the soil is partially dry down to two or three inches (use a chopstick and gently probe to see how dry the lower soil is). And for the last kind (like maidenhair ferns) keep the soil evenly moist. Check the soil every day and the moment it’s even slightly dry you have to water it again,” he says.
Sisters Taylor and Lakelind Booth opened Mount Pleasant plant store West Coast Jungle six months ago.
Their mother is a horticulturist who has her own plant shop in Edmonton. She raised her daughters with green thumbs.
Taylor says it was only in the last couple of years that she decided to turn her passion for plants into her day job (when she moved to Vancouver from Ontario she had houseplants before furniture).
When asked what houseplants can bring to a space in addition to being esthetically pleasing, she says: “They bring the space to life.”