Plants make buildings look more attractive and welcoming.

The most obvious reason for installing plants is one that is supported by qualified research. A postgraduate study carried out in a London hospital in 1995 provided clear evidence that people do react more favourably to a building when it contains plants than when it does not. Hospital visitors were asked to respond to a descriptive choice test using twenty pairs of bipolar adjectives (quiet v noisy, cheerful v gloomy etc.). The results showed that when plants were present in the reception area of the hospital, users perceived them to be:

17% more ornate
17% more interesting
17% more cheerful
16% more welcoming
15% more relaxing
11% less stressful
11% more expensive
11% tidier
8% quieter

Equally important, the results confirmed that there were no negative findings and all the results were independently verified as being statistically significant. (Ref: “Human Responses to Interior Planting”, J.V. Stiles, PhD, Oxford Brookes University, 1995).