Bents have launched an experiment to find out if plants respond to the way their spoken to by gardeners...
The Great Plant Experiment has been inspired by Nikki Owen, Founder of The Charisma Model Programme and The Big Apple Experiment who believes that negative emotion can be responsible for disengagement within the workplace.
To prove her point Nikki Owen took two halves of an apple and, over a period of 14 days, directed only positive thoughts and emotions to one half and negative thoughts and emotions to the other
The result was a significant change in the rate of decay between the two halves.
Motivated by such a visible result and encouraged by the belief that plants do respond to voices, Bents has launched its own experiment to discover whether plants will respond in a similar way to variances in emotion.
The Glazebury-based garden and home centre has set up an experimental bench in its Open Skies Glass House, which aims to subject two sets of plants to very different emotions. Six plants will be ‘loved’ with kind words and happy thoughts, while another six plants will be subjected to ‘hateful’ conditions and harsh words. All other conditions such as watering and fertilization will be exactly the same.
“Prince Charles was given quite a lot of ridicule when it first emerged that he talked to his plants. But over the years research has been carried out to suggest that plants do actually respond to sound and vibration. We are trying to discover whether emotion can have a similar effect," said Bents Managing Director Matthew Bent.
“At Bents we’re big believers in positive reinforcement and we work hard to keep our colleagues happy and engaged. Nikki Owen's results with the apple were astonishing and it will be interesting to see if we have a similar outcome.”
The Great Plant Experiment will be taking place over a period of six weeks. Bents are welcoming input from customers inviting people to either pass on their happy thoughts or take out any anger they may have…whilst keeping language clean!
Motivated by such a visible result and encouraged by the belief that plants do respond to voices, Bents has launched its own experiment to discover whether plants will respond in a similar way to variances in emotion.
