Millennials have purportedly ‘killed’ many things; but, not the humble houseplant. So it’s no surprise that plant-related hashtags (like #PlantParenthood, #IndoorJungle and #HousePlantClub) are taking over Instagram.
One of the most popular hashtags of them all is #UrbanJungle, with over 3 million posts.
Budget Direct set out on a mission to find out where in the world this interior design trend is most popular – aka the world’s houseplant hotspots. To do this, they extracted location data for 200,000 Instagram posts that include the #UrbanJungle hashtag. They then cleaned up the data and distilled it into an interactive map (preview below):
As well as mapping out where all the houseplant lovers are in the world, the team also ranked the top 10 houseplant influencers on Instagram and researched the most popular plants on Instagram.
1. The top 10 countries sharing their #UrbanJungles on Instagram:
With this project, the Budget Direct Home Insurance team set out to identify three things:
1. The houseplant lover hotspots from around the globe
2. The top houseplant influencers on Instagram
3. The most Instagrammed houseplants
They found nearly 17,000 posts with the #urbanjungle tag whose location data placed them in Europe, next to 9,402 for North America. Germany, the UK, and France are the top three countries in Europe for houseplant selfies.
However, the United States is the leading country in the world, with nearly twice the number of pictures shared in second-place Brazil.
The top 10 cities sharing their #UrbanJungles on Instagram:
Three cities lay claim to being the capital of urban jungles: NYC, London, and Berlin were the only places with more than 1,000 posts each. Are these the hippest places in the world, the most aesthetically discerning, or are their citizens just trying to escape the smog? Here’s the full list:
Methodology
To create the interactive map, they extracted location data for 200,000 Instagram posts including the #UrbanJungle hashtag. They then cleaned up the data and organised it by country.
2. Top 10 houseplant influencers on Instagram list
They checked out which Instagram accounts were responsible for the most popular posts for a range of gardening tags, including #houseplants, #houseplantsofinstagram, #houseplantsmakemehappy, and - of course - #urbanjungle.
These are the top 10 houseplant influencers on Instagram list:
1. @houseplantjournal (Darryl Cheng, Canada)
2. @thepottedjungle (The Potted Jungle, USA)
3. @hiltoncarter (Hilton Carter, USA)
4. @jamiesjungle (Jamie Song, UK)
5. @dabito (Dabito, USA)
6. @idrinkandigrowthings (Eunice Hernandez, USA)
7. @meeschmid_plantlady (Mee Schmid, Switzerland)
8. @homesteadbrooklyn (Summer Rayne, USA)
9. @jenssuccs (Jen Tao, USA)
10. @plantsandcollecting (Seija Margareta, Finland)
The number one urban jungle influencer is Darryl Cheng. Cheng has amassed over 430,000 followers with his friendly, accessible tone, and helpful answers to his followers’ questions. The runner-up is @thepottedjungle, a “San Diego plantaholic with a love for all things green.” According to our study, if you want to become an #urbanjungle influencer, you need a blend of houseplant knowledge, interior design flair, and friendliness.
Methodology
To find out who were the top 10 houseplant influencers, they identified all the Instagram accounts behind the top Instagram posts for a series of hashtags including but not limited to #houseplants, #houseplantsofinstagram,
#plantsofinstagram, #plantlife, #plantdecor, #plantsmakepeoplehappy, #plantparenthood, #plantgoals,
#plantlover, #instaplants, #plantgang, #plantsofig, #monsteramonday, #plantsplantsplants, #plantparent,
#indoorjungle, #houseplantclub, #plantmom, #plantobsessed, #urbanjungle, #houseplantsmakemehappy,
#boyswithplants. We then removed accounts belonging to plant shops and businesses and we also excluded community accounts that repost images from other Instagram users. We filled up the gaps with houseplants influencers featured on lists curated by Apartment Therapy, ELLE Decor, Curbed and NY Times. Finally, they analysed
the profiles with the help of influencer marketing analytics tool HypeAuditor to identify those 10 influencers with a larger following and engagement levels.
3. The top houseplants on Instagram
They also identified the plants most commonly photographed by Instagram’s greenery experts. How did they decide who is an expert? They searched only for hashtags that included each plant’s botanical name (rather than its common name).
Echeveria (Echeveria species)
Succulents (Crocus Crocus hybrids)
Haworthia (Haworthia species)
Fuchsia Plant (Fuchsia hybrids)
Daffodils (Narcissus spp.)
Swiss Cheese Plant (Monstera deliciosa)
Dragon Wing (Begonia Begonia hybrids)
Living Stones (Lithops species)
Freesia Flower (Freesia hybrids)
Chinese Money Plant (Pilea peperomioides)
Methodology
To identify the most Instagrammed houseplants, they started off compiling a list of botanical names for popular houseplants with the help of this guide because we believe that true houseplant lovers of Instagram know their plants inside out, including their botanical name. We searched for the hashtag associated to each botanical name to uncover those that have been shared on Instagram the most to date. Where possible we used the data from hashtags directly correlating to the botanical name, but in some cases to get the most accurate data/most common hashtags, we went with simplified versions of the names.
Sources
Guide To Houseplants. (2020). House Plants Encyclopedia A-Z. guide-to-houseplants.com
Biggs, C. (2018). 10 Plant Paradises You Should be Following on Instagram. apartmenttherapy.com
HomeAdvisor (2020). Most Instagrammed Houseplants. homeadvisor.com
Fox, D. (2018). 15 Chic Instagrams To Follow If You Love House Plants And Pictures Of Plants. elledecor.com
Green, P. (2018). Meet the Plantfluencers. nytimes.com
Guide to Houseplants. (2020). How Well Do You Know Your Houseplants? guide-to-houseplants.com
Syrkett, A., Xie, J. (2018). 9 Must-Follow Instagram Accounts For Plant Lovers. curbed.com
The credit should go to Budget Direct Home Insurance with a link back to the original source of the study:
https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/blog/where-are-the-houseplant-lovers-of-the-world.html
Click here for the full research behind the project
For more information
Budget Direct
www.budgetdirect.com.au/