How households use houseplants? Let's dig into the indoor plants business!

Houseplants meet a growing interest! Here are some key elements to better understand this gardening trend.

The American trends consultancy Garden Media says that houseplants will have a significant impact on the landscaping sector in 2020! What causes this upswing and how can landscaping companies reap the benefits? Here is a summary of the key elements in the Garden Media report!

What’s so good about houseplants trend?

In 2018, French sales of indoor plants and flowers fell 3% (1), but in the same year in the United States their sales grew by 10%! Several factors contribute to the fact that households are increasingly hooked on houseplants. One reason is a growing interest in interior decoration and a return to nature.

Thanks to advertising campaigns run by the landscaping sector, households are more aware of the benefits of plants like air cleansing, stress reduction and boosting creativity. For the younger generations, who lack time, money and space, indoor plants are perceived as a way to improve their wellbeing.

Garden Media goes even further in the analysis of this garden trend, evoking a new kind of parenting focused on plants. The impact on the Y generation is so strong that specialized garden centers and stores often run out of the most popular houseplants!

Outlook of the French horticulture industry: discover the main key figures!

The most popular houseplants are…

Garden Media reports that the most best-selling houseplants are those which need less maintenance, like succulents - Echeveria, Senecio peregrinus, Pilea peperomioide, Aloe Vera…

Monstera deliciosa, or false philodendron, which went out in the Seventies, has made a comeback in the new urban jungle design style! And as by definition every fashion changes, it is up to landscaping companies to define tomorrow’s gardening trends.

What can be done to promote the trend to houseplants?

The advent of houseplant influencers, a strong opportunity for indoor plants business

Did you notice the appearance of Instagram hashtags #plantparenthood, #HouseplantClub and #indoorjungle? Indoor flowers and plants now have their own influencers, eager to propagate their lifestyles and interiors in their very own communities.

To make houseplants high fashion again, landscaping businesses should offer rare products targeting influencers looking for something new to create group bonding. They would then promote their new finds to an increasingly present, committed, community happy to spend in specialized garden-centers and other stores.

And to get on this bandwagon, landscaping companies can also use this digital lever to contact more potential end users!

Another possible vector to grow your indoor plants business: community events focused on houseplants

Increasingly, people like to meet up with other plant lovers to exchange tips and find new friends with the same hobbies!

There are a host of initiatives reflecting this gardening trend, including the new “Plant Swaps” concept – where you swap plants you’ve gotten bored with to give them a new lease of life with someone else – and master classes for amateurs. The landscaping sector could meaningfully contribute to meetings like that.

This would strengthen the “Houseplant Community” aspect, and also promote the stores doing the organizing – a potential sales-builder and a win-win solution!

And why not benefit from these educational and friendly meetings to surf on the waves of the influencers by encouraging participants to publish photos of these events on the social networks? And even to invite influencers to run meetings with garden-centers or other specialized stores!

Discover 14 main concepts to use to reinvent indoor landscaping!

Paradoxically, houseplants can become a vector for socialization outside homes. Landscapers can contribute to this indoor gardening trend by their professionalism and plant-centered advice and in this way harvest the fruits of this community-focused passion!

(1) JAF-Info: Etudes XERFI – Conjoncture et prévisions – La distribution de fleurs et de plantes d’intérieur