Foliage Plants at the Workplace its Images and Effects

Abstract

A questionnaire survey was conducted in a middle-sized electric manufacturing company to determine workers negative feelings against foliage plants at the workplace. Around 20% of the workers out of 102 respondents (response rate: 92.7%) thought that foliage plants disrupted their work. on the other hand, 60% of the workers felt refreshed from foliage plants. A 30-item semantic scale was used to evaluate images of foliage plants arranged in a simulated office. Nine kinds of foliage plants (height 150–200 cm) were evaluated by 36 students. The results suggest that the most relaxing plant was a weeping fig with a round-shaped topiary silhouette. on the contrary, Dragon tree and Spanish dagger plants gave feelings of tenseness because their leaves are very sharp and narrow. The result in paired comparisons of five small potted plants showed that weeping fig was the most disliked plant because it looked very weak.