Geordie accents help plants thrive

A gardening expert claims that talking to plants in a Geordie accent helps them thrive more than any other regional pronunciation.

Chris Bonnett had staff at his nursery in Essex speak to plants in different accents every day as an experiment, reports The Mirror.

The plants were also played DVDs and CDs of regional soaps and pop stars to help reinforce the different dialects.

Each group was placed in a different area of the nursery, near Colchester, and staff took great pains to ensure the accents were never mixed up.

Mr Bonnett says the 'Geordie' plants, which were subjected to Geordie Shore, Cheryl Cole and Ant and Dec, grew almost 10% more than those in some other groups.

He said: "We kept all other variables as constant as possible. So the plants all had the same amount of sunlight, water and nutrients.

"By the end of the summer it was clear that the accents had a huge effect. There was, more or less, average growth across the Australian, Liverpudlian, Yorkshire and American groups.

"The Geordie and Welsh groups visibly thrived and displayed enhanced growth while the Scottish, Chelsea and Mancunian plants were stunted."