National Indoor Plant Week reaches out to universities

 

 

Justin Hancock: National Indoor Plant Week was established to help promote the benefits of having indoor plants and it’s encouraged by indoor plant growers, of course, as well as interior scapers.

 

 

JH: There are so many, it’s hard to know where to start. My favorite one is that indoor plants clean the air. We have the NASA research that’s been around for a few years now, [that shows] plants are amazingly efficient in removing harmful VOCs [Volatile Organic Compounds]  in the air. And just being around plants, chance are you’re breathing clean air, healthier air. Especially, the more energy efficient your building is, the more it’s going to trap those VOCs in. It’s kind of a downside of our modern building technology.

 

The wonderful part about the way plants clean the air is that through the pores they breathe through, they’re able to absorb some of these harmful chemicals, and get down into the plants, sequestered in its roots. And in the root system, microorganisms go and they start to digest some of these materials that are so bad for us.

 

Other scientific studies have revealed that having plants at your desk at work results in fewer sick days. People tend to suffer fewer sore throats and fewer headaches and so the more time you’re in the office, and the better you’re feeling, the more productive you’re going to be as well.

 

We also talked about some of the psychological benefits of having plants in the spaces around us, particularly of interest to college students. There are a number of scientific studies that have shown plants increase our productivity, and they help increase our memory and concentration.

 

A study in the UK put all of this data together and did some number crunching, and found that plants can increase individual productivity from 40 to 60 percent. 

 

So having plants around may be a way to try to score better on your tests or get a better grade in school as well as perform better in the workplace.

 

 

JH: Our PR firm, Garden Media Group, has hooked us up with about six universities around the country [University of Wisconsin, Boston University, Villanova, Temple University, University of Arkansas and Florida State University]. And we have live, on-air interviews with students, where we’re talking about different aspects of indoor plants that meet their specific programming needs. For some, it’s going to be more about care. And for others, it’s going to be more about selecting plants.

 

On Monday, for example, we spoke at University of Wisconsin and it was more about the science behind it for their Ag channel.

 

 

Some of the ones we’ve been highlighting are Red Aglaonema. This is a really fun one because it has colorful leaves all year. The green leaves are variegated with red or pink. It stands out a little more. It doesn’t blend in the background like green leaf plants do.

 

 

But the best feature is that it’s so easy to grow this thing, and it’s really difficult to kill. The only way you can do it is with persistent overwatering.

 

Another great one for college students is Snake Plant or Sansevieria. It has a really fun, modern architectural look with its stiff, upright leaves. And it is even easier to grow than the Red Aglaonema. So you can ignore it for two, three, even four weeks, depending on your situation, and it doesn’t bat an eye.

 

While I was on the interview with the University of Wisconsin students, they were talking about how there was a Sansevieria left in their greenhouse over the summer. It got no care, it wasn’t watered, and when they came back in the fall, three months later, it was still alive. Even though it had been in the greenhouse all summer long with 100+ degree temperatures.

 

For really bright spots, cacti and succulents tend to appeal nicely to chemicals. They have fun, architectural, sculptural shapes and forms, and they come in some interesting colors.

 

 

Again, they bring that nice, low-water element. So when you’re busy studying, or doing all those other things we did in college, you don’t have to think about, When is the last time I watered this guy?

 

 

My first tip is to always pick the right plant for your spot. Take a look at what the conditions are like in your dorm, and really have a good sense of how much light it gets, what the temperature is like and how realistically you are going to water it. If it’s low light, plants like Red Aglanoema, Santovaria, are going to be your best bets for that kind of situation.

 

If you have a brighter room where that might cast a really strong shadow during the brightest part of the day, then if you want to, you can go with some of the higher-light need plants like your cacti and your succulents.

 

 

[Watering is] the most mysterious thing for people when it comes to indoor plants. You can almost never go wrong with a good general guideline of water when the top inch or so when the potting mix is dry.

 

And if students don’t want to stick their fingers in the soil, they can get moisture meters relatively inexpensively at garden centers. And with [the meters], you just stick your probe in the soil and it tells you the moisture, whether you need to water or not.

 

 

To be honest, I’ve been surprised at how excited they were. I think it’s really an eye-opening moment for them when we talk about some of the benefits, especially the psychological, testing better kind of benefits. It gets them excited because it’s something they can do, it’s something they can do easily and it’s something they can do immediately.

 

It’s not hard, like study harder or spend more time. Those are great pieces of advice we always hear, but it’s not quite as easy to do in real life as just going to the garden center and buying a nice, leafy green plant.

 

So far, [students have] asked some really good, insightful questions which has me excited…It tells me there’s legitimate interest going on, and they’re not just filling space [in their programs].

 

 

 

 

At Costa Farms, we’re really interested in helping grow the industry. And millennials are definitely the people who are entering our category at the moment. More and more boomers are leaving the category and somebody has to take their place. So it’s not enough just to bring in the number of millennials as the number of boomers [is lowering]. We have to bring more new consumers than what we’re losing to really grow the industry as a whole.

 

 

A couple of times, we’ve gone to elementary schools and done plant giveaways. That’s definitely something on the radar to revisit for 2016. We’ve talked about the possibility of going to, for example, elderly facilities and brightening people’s days there. Just anything that we feel we can do to make a good, nice connection with the power of indoor plants.