Plants are sensitive to what we say

The Swedish company, IKEA recently created an inspirational video to support the company’s  #SayNoToBullying campaign. A very interesting part of the project was an experiment to see what happens when kids in a school bully a plant. A group of students were asked to make voice recordings, and half of the children were asked to repeat positive verbal compliments, while the other half repeated verbal abuse. Two identical Dracaena plants were taken to the school, and for 30 days they received exactly the same physical care with water, light and fertiliser. The only difference was that one of the plants was exposed to the positive recordings while the other one was ‘bullied’ by the verbal abuse tapes.