How Tending To Your Indoor Plants can Help You to be More Mindful

Written by Meredith Kirton

When you’re in the garden it’s easy to slip into ‘the zone’.

A time when the clatter of thoughts become still and you begin to tune into the environment around you. The whisper of the breeze, birdsong in the distance and of course the plants themselves – their colour, the leaf variation and the insects clambering to connect. 

But is it possible to get this same essence in an indoor scene?

As biophilic design makes its way into our homes, this connection with nature is certainly easier to imagine.

Looking up and out through picture windows into tree canopies, watching clouds whizz across the sky or simply feeling the warmth of the sun through glass on a cold day when you’re protected inside is certainly one way to reap the benefits of nature from inside, but is there more mindfulness to be noted from within our domestic space, and how can indoor plants play their part? 

Caring for your indoor plants is a simple and effective way to block out the constant interruptions of technology and bring your focus onto a simple repetitive task.

In fact, research tells us that by adding just a few houseplants into your home you can enjoy benefits such as improvements in air quality, lowered stress and anxiety, improved mood and even boosts in creativity and productivity.

So how can you incorporate plants into your self-care routine?

We recommend creating a simple fortnightly or monthly ritual for tending to your plants. Approach it as a sort of meditative practice rather than a chore, and we promise the time spent will leave you and your plants feeling better than before!

Begin your potter about the home by gently wiping off dust from the leaves of your plants with a damp cloth, followed by dead heading and trimming any  damaged or diseased foliage. 

You can experiment with mixing up your favourite ‘brew’ to feed your ‘plant babies’ as an ‘in the moment’ gesture of care and giving. It might simply be watering your plants, taking them into the bathroom for a tepid shower or soaking them in the sink before draining them off and returning them to their homes. Certainly, the opportunity to gaze at an orchid bloom opening or watch a new leaf unfurl is a simple pleasure worth indulging in.   

Take a moment to bask in their beauty while thinking about the use of all your senses. Take a moment to smell perfumed plants like hoyas or if you have a growing collection ofair plants, water plants watch how thrive in their environment. 

We can learn so much from watching, touching, listening, smelling and sitting with nature and these unique plants will be sure to help you appreciate the beauty of all living things.