Come March, everything seems a little brighter as daffodils bloom, sunlight appears, shy and watery, tentative in its weak rays and plants begin to grow, replacing grey with green. With this change, comes a shift in society; everybody suddenly a botanist as they frantically fill their shelves with orchids and pothos galore to chase away the last dregs of winter. However, these floral forms of escapism may be short-lived due the perils of overwatering, underwatering, too much or too little sun, drowning the plant in dirt or barely giving it topsoil to live off. So, how to help our plants? Conventional methods of course, plant food or fertiliser are tried and tested techniques, but what if there was an even simpler way of ensuring the growth of your plants, something that costs little, only time.

Conversation. 

Sounds silly, right? Symonds student, (17) says otherwise, stating that, chatting to your plants gives it a “more hospitable environment,” claiming that, “obviously things are gonna grow more in their optimum environment.” They went on to use a pregnancy analogy, “like when a baby grows in their mum’s tummy, the mum has to be eating all the right things. Like the environment has to be hospitable. So, if I make my environment hospitable, the plant will grow better.” Could this be true? Having tested this method on their own spider plant - a highly popular house plant (as pictured above) - they concluded that, “my plant is very big and I definitely feel like if I hadn’t talked to it it wouldn’t have grown that big - when I didn’t speak to it, it wasn’t as big or healthy.” 

Insanity or ingenious? Costing nothing, taking nothing, perhaps steer clear from expensive options of keeping your plants bushy and bright this spring and test this technique, after all, what have you got to lose?