Plants and music study: Do plants grow better with music?
There’s no denying that we’re a nation of plant lovers. In 2022, the average household in the Netherlands spent €270¹ on garden, plant, and flower products, and a previous study found 99%² of Dutch people keep plants in their homes.
Keeping plants in the home is especially beneficial for those who work or study from home, as they’re said to boost productivity. But plants aren’t the only thing keeping us motivated during the working day—the average Dutch person spends 152 minutes listening to music everyday³.
Much like music is beneficial for humans, studies have shown that music helps plants to grow, with the vibrations stimulating their growth, but are plants as fussy about the genre or artist as humans are?
To find out, the team at Euroflorist has studied the Netherland’s most popular artists to reveal which songs Netherlanders should be listening to, to ensure they’re taking the best care of their houseplants as possible.
What is the effect of music on plants?
The relationship between plants and music has been a topic of conversation in the scientific community for quite some time.
Plants obviously don’t have ears like humans do to hear the sounds of music, so how do plants react to music?
While they’re not exactly tapping their roots to the beat of a song, the sound waves from music do stimulate the plant's cells. Plants transport their nutrients, proteins, and organelles in their fluids (cytoplasm), and it’s said that the vibration of music may help stimulate this process.
Believe it or not, various studies indicate that plants prefer some genres of music to others—just like humans do! While it’s not quite as simplistic as roses liking pop music and lilies liking rock, intriguingly plants respond better to certain frequencies of music (measured in Hertz, also known as Hz).
For our study, we used the following scale:
125Hz: Known to stimulate germination and root growth in plants.
250Hz: Promotes the elongation of plant stems and leaves.
500Hz: Encourages overall plant growth and development.
1,000Hz: Stimulates plant photosynthesis and nutrient uptake.
8,000Hz: Enhances flowering and fruiting in certain plant species.
What Dutch music do plants like best?
If you find yourself wondering what artists or genres you should be playing to your houseplants to help them thrive, then look no further.
We’ve studied the Netherland’s top 50 artists and calculated the exact Hz of their most-streamed songs on Spotify, to help the nation’s plant owners understand what to play to their plants—no matter the problem they might have.
For those looking to generally improve the overall plant growth and development of their houseplants, we recommend playing songs that come in at around 500Hz.
According to our research, the best song Dutch people can play for their plants from the top artists to hit this Hz is Imran Khan’s ‘Satisfya’, which comes in at around 492Hz.
Imran Khan is a Dutch-Pakistani singer, rapper and songwriter. His song ‘Satisfya’ was released in 2013 and is his most-viewed video on YouTube with over 949 million views.
Following Imran Khan is Mau P with ‘Drugs from Amsterdam’ coming in at around 491.67Hz. Mau P is a Dutch DJ, and this song currently has around 204 million streams on Spotify.
Following Mau P is Alice Deejay with the globally iconic ‘Better Off Alone’ coming in at around 490.92Hz. Alice Deejay are a Dutch Eurodance project from Amsterdam, and they debuted ‘Better Off Alone’ in 1998. The song charted across the globe, and has received over 563 million streams on Spotify.
Check out the full top 10 below:
Which of the Dutch Top 40’s No.1 songs are the best music for plants?
We also studied which of the Dutch Top 40’s number one songs are the best music for plants.
To do this, we looked at the songs that have spent the longest in the Dutch Top 40 number one spot since the year 2000 and calculated the exact Hz (with those closest to 500 Hz scoring the highest) of these songs to reveal:
The Dutch Top 40 number one song that is the best for plant growth is Harry Styles’ ‘As It Was’, coming in at 484.3Hz. Harry Styles is a British singer whose career started with the globally successful boy band, One Direction. He released the song ‘As It Was’ in 2022 and it spent 18 weeks in the number one spot in the Netherlands.
Following Harry Styles is Clean Bandit with ‘Rather Be’, at 457.8Hz. Another British artist, Clean Bandit released ‘Rather Be’ in 2014 and the song spent 11 weeks in the Dutch number one spot.
Following Clean Bandit, our research found Davina Michelle’s ‘Duurt te lang’, is the next best number one song Netherlanders can play to promote plant growth, coming in at 443.7Hz. Davina Michelle is a Dutch YouTuber and singer whose cover of the song ‘Duurt te lang’ reached the number one spot for 11 weeks in 2018. She was the first woman to reach number one in 11 years with a Dutch-language song.
Check out the full top 10 below:
What is the best genre of Dutch music for plants?
Our analysis of the Netherlands’s top 50 artists found that the best genre of music for plants to help promote overall growth and development is, perhaps surprisingly, electronic!
The genre dominated the top 10 songs for overall plant growth, and our study found that of 42 artists’ top songs that fell within the realms of the “promotes overall plant growth and development” category, 31 of these fell within the electronic category.
Following electronic artists is hip hop and pop, with 4 each of the top 50 falling into this category:
Which Dutch music helps plants release more oxygen?
For those looking to get a bit more out of their plants, such as increasing the oxygen levels in their home, there are certain frequencies of music you can play.
To stimulate plant photosynthesis specifically, and encourage nutrient uptake in your plants, we recommend playing songs that come in at around 1,000Hz.
According to our research of the Netherland’s most-popular top artists, Sara Landry’s song ‘Legacy’ is best-suited for this. Sara Landry is a DJ and music producer, and her song ‘Legacy’ comes in at around 1,090Hz.
Following Sara Landry is Afrojack’s ‘Give Me Everything’. Nick Leonardus van de Wall, known professionally as Afrojack, was featured alongside Ne-Yo and Nayer on the 2011 Pitbull track which has accumulated over a billion streams on Spotify. The song has a Hertz of around 541.8.
Check out the full top 5 below
Houseplants are excellent additions to our home, and their many proven health and well-being benefits make them more than just a bit of pretty greenery for decoration.
However, unlike our outdoor garden plants that go through a seasonal growth cycle, houseplants tend to come from tropical climates with different seasonal cycles than what we have here in the Netherlands.
Just like bouquets of cut flowers, houseplants require ongoing maintenance and care to keep them looking their best.
Whether you’re a first-time houseplant owner or you’re practically a seasoned horticulturist, experimenting with music to help your houseplants thrive can be an excellent way to give them a new lease of life.
Methodology
To calculate our Hz findings, we took our frequency data breakdown from QP Seedlings.
Dutch Artists:
We used Viberate to pull the top 50 artists in the Netherlands list (accurate as of 13th Jan 2025), and pulled each of their top-streamed songs from Spotify.
Once we had our final list of artists and top songs, we calculated the BPM of each song and converted it into Hz and multiplied by the total number of seconds in the song (Hz frequency is measured per second) to give us the total Hz frequency of each song.
No.1 Dutch Top 40 Songs:
We used this article to pull a list of artists who reached number one on the Dutch Top 40 (looking at those who achieved the status after the year 2000), sorting by those who spent the longest in the top spot, and pulled each of their top-streamed songs from Spotify.
Once we had our final list of artists and top songs, we calculated the BPM of each song and converted it into Hz and multiplied by the total number of seconds in the song (Hz frequency is measured per second) to give us the total Hz frequency of each song.
¹https://www.statista.com/statistics/1400441/household-garden-flower-plant-spending-netherlands/
³https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/67791313/1_s2.0_S0001691821001670_main.pdf