{"id":7318,"date":"2020-12-11T12:30:22","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T12:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qpol.qub.ac.uk\/?p=7318"},"modified":"2020-12-11T12:30:22","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T12:30:22","slug":"house-plants-were-our-link-with-nature-in-lockdown-now-they-could-change-how-we-relate-to-the-natural-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/house-plants-were-our-link-with-nature-in-lockdown-now-they-could-change-how-we-relate-to-the-natural-world\/","title":{"rendered":"House plants were our link with nature in lockdown \u2013 now they could change how we relate to the natural world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They\u2019re not the first generation to keep house plants, but millennials seem to have earned a reputation for gratuitous indoor foliage. Bloomberg reporter Matthew Boyle<\/a> claimed that young people have helped revive \u201cthe once moribund market for house plants\u201d in the US, where, according to the National Gardening Association, sales surged 50% between 2016 and 2019. In the UK, the Royal Agricultural Society<\/a> reported a 65% increase in house plant sales in 2018 alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why young people in particular might be so fond of house plants has invited numerous explanations. Lifestyle reporter Casey Bond<\/a> argued that house plants offer something to nurture that\u2019s cheap and doesn\u2019t involve a lot of maintenance, with obvious appeal to a generation whose entry into parenthood is stymied by house prices<\/a> and economic instability<\/a>. Young people today are thought to be more conscious of mental health and self-care too, and plants have been proven<\/a> to reduce stress levels and improve mood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To continue reading, please click here. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article originally appeared in The Conversation. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The featured image<\/a><\/em> has been used courtesy of a <\/em>Creative Commons license. <\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Giulia Carabelli looks at the role plants play in these times of forced isolation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2602,"featured_media":7466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[918],"class_list":["post-7318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-wellbeing","tag-covid-19"],"mb":[],"acf":{"authors":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":9774,"key":"field_66d0cbf58f930","label":"Authors","name":"authors","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"relationship","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"post_type":["authors"],"post_status":["publish"],"taxonomy":"","filters":["search"],"return_format":"id","min":0,"max":10,"allow_in_bindings":0,"elements":["featured_image"],"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"authors","_valid":1}},"description":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":9776,"key":"field_66d2183027749","label":"Description","name":"description","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":3,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","allow_in_bindings":0,"tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":1,"_name":"description","_valid":1}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/76\/2020\/10\/House-plant.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"mfb_rest_fields":["title","jetpack_featured_media_url","jetpack_sharing_enabled","amp_enabled"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2602"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}