How sustainable are your houseplants?

Green goodness is great, but how much do you know about where your plants come from? Indoor jungles are the biggest interior trend to hit Instagram, with feeds full of posts about pop-up plant sales in Peckham, plant bloggers gaining millions of followers and millennials constantly sharing memes about being a plant parent. Whilst the origin of our flowers is a much-discussed topic, how much have you thought about where your plant stock comes from?

About 70% of UK houseplants are imported, with 65% of those from Holland often grown in commercially sized greenhouses that use a lot of energy to create artificial light and heat which contributes to global warming.

Here’s an interesting article about houseplant origin from inews.

Many Dutch growers are working on improving their sustainable credentials, such as Sentinel, a plant producer in Holland growing Scindapsus varieties like the super popular trailing Pothos (Devil's Ivy). One way they try to minimise environmental impact is by using LED lights, as research as shown that LED lights are considerably more energy-efficient than conventional lights.

Like flowers, plant growers can also be vetted and stamped as sustainable by MPS – an organisation that assesses farms for sustainable factors like energy and chemical use. If you see the MPS stamp, you know your greens have come from a good home. You can usually enter its code into the MPS website to track exactly where each plant was grown.

Pictured right: an MPS stamp on EasyCare Plants packaging.