In spring 2018, IKEA in the United Arab Emirates put two identical potted plants in a school and asked students to praise one and insult the other for 30 days. At the end of the month the praised plant looked healthy and the bullied one had wilted. The campaign, called "Bully a Plant", was timed for Anti-Bullying Day on 4 May and went viral around the world.
The short answer to the question most people ask is this: it was a clever awareness campaign, not a scientific experiment, and IKEA itself said as much. Plants do not understand words, and two plants cannot prove anything. But the message the company wanted children to hear, that cruel words leave real marks on people, holds up without any help from a houseplant. Here is what was done, what the photos show, what science actually says about talking to plants, and how the idea can be used to talk with children about bullying.
How the Bully a Plant campaign worked
IKEA placed two plants of the same kind side by side, each in its own clear enclosure, with signs reading "This plant is being bullied" and "This plant is being complimented". Screens above them explained the idea and invited students to stop by every day.
Students were encouraged to record kind or cruel messages, either in person or by sending them through social media. A recording system then played the comments through speakers inside each enclosure, so each plant "heard" its own stream of praise or abuse for a month.
One of the screens carried the claim that plants have the same senses as human beings, a line that is better understood as campaign copy than as biology. More on that below.
The children leaned in close to whisper to the plants, which turned an abstract lesson into something physical and memorable.
Praise for one plant, insults for the other
The complimented plant received encouragement: students told it how beautiful and strong it was, the kind of words any child would like to hear from classmates.
Groups of pupils took turns, with staff from the campaign guiding them through what to say and why.
"Come by each day and see what happens," the display read, inviting students to watch the two plants change side by side.
The other plant got the opposite treatment: recordings of insults and put-downs, the same kind of language that bullied children hear in corridors and online.
Students could see the difference developing over the weeks, which was the point of placing the plants in a busy, visible spot.
According to IKEA and press reports, both plants were given the same light, water and fertiliser in identical enclosures. The only intended difference was the words played to them.
What happened after 30 days
Students gathered around the plants near the end of the month to compare them.
The final photo is the one that travelled worldwide: the praised plant upright and green, the bullied plant drooping with brown, curled leaves. Vinod Jayan, managing director of IKEA in the UAE, Qatar, Egypt and Oman, said the campaign had helped children and their families understand the impact words can have, and that more UAE schools had asked to run it.
The campaign video shows the whole month from start to finish:
Can words really hurt a plant? What science says
No good evidence shows that plants respond to the meaning of words. IKEA acknowledged this itself, describing the project as "not the most scientific of experiments", as Global News reported. With only one plant in each group, normal variation between two living plants, a draught, a pest, or a slight difference in watering, could easily explain the result.
The idea that plants have feelings has a long history. In 1966 the polygraph examiner Cleve Backster claimed a philodendron wired to a lie detector reacted to his thoughts, and the 1973 book The Secret Life of Plants made such claims popular. When scientists tried to repeat Backster's results with better equipment, they found nothing; one researcher concluded the original readings probably came from faulty measurement. A 1973 book on music and plants by Dorothy Retallack was criticised in the same way, because light, water and humidity were not controlled.
The television show MythBusters also tested talking to plants. In its version, plants exposed to sound, whether kind words, harsh words or music, did better than plants kept in silence, and the plant played heavy metal grew best. That points to sound or vibration, not meaning, as the possible factor, and even that effect is not well established. Plants do respond to their environment in many ways, including touch and vibration, but they have no ears, no brain and no way to understand an insult.
Why the message still matters
None of this weakens the point the campaign was trying to make. Children are not plants, and the effect of bullying on them does not need a houseplant to prove it. Being repeatedly mocked, threatened or excluded is linked to anxiety, low self-esteem and trouble at school, and those effects can last.
What made "Bully a Plant" effective was its simplicity. It gave children a visible picture of something invisible, and it turned bystanders into participants. Some viewers said they would have found it hard to insult the plant at all, and that discomfort is perhaps the most useful lesson of the whole month.
How people reacted
Many viewers praised IKEA UAE for using its reach to talk about bullying.
Parents of children who had been bullied were among the most supportive, saying the campaign helped young people see how much words can hurt.
Others admitted they would have felt sorry for the bullied plant and struggled to be mean to it, a reaction the campaign was hoping for.
Not everyone was convinced. Sceptics pointed out, fairly, that the result was not evidence that plants understand speech, and some suggested the campaign could teach children a misleading idea about science. Both things can be true: a poor experiment can still carry a good message, as long as it is presented honestly.
Using the idea to talk with children about bullying
- Be honest about the plants. Tell children the plants could not understand words, then ask why the campaign still made people think. It is a good lesson in both kindness and critical thinking.
- Ask how words feel. Invite children to remember a time a comment stayed with them, good or bad.
- Talk about bystanders. Most bullying happens in front of others. Discuss simple ways to step in, support the target or tell an adult.
- Include online life. Many insults now arrive by message or comment, where they are easy to send and hard to forget.
- Know where to get help. If a child is being bullied, talk to the school and, if their mood or sleep changes, to a doctor.
Sources: photos and video by IKEA UAE (campaign video on YouTube); Global News, 18 May 2018: IKEA bullied a plant for 30 days; Wikipedia: Plant perception (paranormal).
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