My Houseplant Changed My Life Chelsea Flower Show Exhibit

My exhibit at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show has been designed to showcase 50 of the most popular indoor plants for UK homes.

Using these plants I will be illustrating the health and wellbeing these plants have on us and why we should have more houseplants in our homes. The exhibit takes inspiration from my book My Houseplant Changed My Life, which was published in February 2021 by DK Books.

Illustrating the power of house plants

Keeping houseplants can improve your physical & mental wellbeing.

This exhibit showcases the top 50 indoor plants and explains how each of them benefits the owner’s wellbeing.

With many people staying, schooling, and working from home during lockdown, there’s been a big increase in people growing indoors. This exhibit looks at the symbiotic relationship between humans & plants inside the home and the benefits of keeping those plants healthy.

Environmental & Sustainability Benefits

The exhibit raises awareness of the environment inside homes and offices, exploring the sustainable benefits that plants (and microorganisms in the soil of plants) have in detoxifying the air. It also raises the awareness of reducing aerosol use and other products that potentially have negative impacts on air quality and the environment.

The exhibit structure

The exhibit will be split into 8 screens, each with a different purpose or benefit of houseplants, including:

• Plants indoors give us visual therapy

• Engaging children with houseplants

• Indoor plants improve air quality

• Growing houseplants helps our mental wellbeing

• Engaging with indoor plants can make us happy

• Make a house into a home

• Houseplants can lift us from pressures of the day

• Plants can inspire and spark creativity

How we made our discoveries

The exhibit reviews extensive studies on the power of plants to detoxify air and produce fresh oxygen, including many scientific bodies and the original NASA experiments. The exhibit brings this research up to date and out of the laboratory and practically into domestic homes.

The exhibit also addresses and summarises medical studies into the health benefits of gardening indoors.

The sponsor, Miracle-Gro® also conducted new consumer research into the topic ahead of the event to further validate our findings.

What our visitors will learn

Keeping houseplants is good for your health – both physically and mentally.

After Chelsea Flower Show

All of the plants are to be auctioned off with the proceeds to be donated to the GreenFingers Charity, who create wellbeing spaces in children’s hospices across the UK to help families enduring difficult times. This fits within exhibits dedication to mental health and the power of plants to boost wellbeing.

Why this exhibit matters

With many people staying, schooling, and working from home during lockdown, there’s been a big increase in people growing indoors. This exhibit looks at the symbiotic relationship between humans and plants inside the home and the benefits of keeping those plants healthy.

Full RHS Chelsea Flower Show Plant List – David Domoney

Additional content

Since I began researching and writing My Houseplant Changed My Life, I have produced a series of videos to further engagement people with the magic of house plants. Below is a series of videos created to illustrate the power that house plants have and methods on how to care for the them successfully.