We’re all familiar with outdoor air pollution – ozone, car exhaust, smoke. But the air we breathe indoors can be just as polluted, with emissions from man-made things like carpet, paint, building materials and cleaning products.
But some houseplants can actually help to clean the air that we breathe, and today on “You Can Grow It,” garden master Jim Duthie tells us about a few of them that you might just want to have around.
We don’t usually give it much thought, but the air we breathe inside our homes and workplaces is sometimes not very healthy. Several years ago, NASA conducted research to see if houseplants could help purify the air inside space stations, and the results showed that there are several common houseplants that will help to cleanse the air inside your home or office, allowing you to breathe easier.
Here are a few:
The snake plant, sometimes called a sword plant, or mother-in-law’s tongue, is one of the easiest plants to take care of. Like most plants, it thrives on carbon dioxide and turns it into oxygen. Studies show that it clears the air inside your home or workplace of many toxins like formaldehyde and benzene, which are potential carcinogens, as well as ozone, one of the biggest pollutants in outside air.
The spider plant’s rich foliage and tiny white flowers are instrumental in absorbing odors and fumes, as well as carbon monoxide, helping to improve the air quality in your home. It can also clear up to 90% of the formaldehyde in the air. Spider plants will thrive in indirect light. Let the soil dry out in between waterings.
Another easy to grow houseplant is English ivy. It doesn’t need direct light, and a weekly watering will do. It’s known for helping to improve the symptoms of allergies and asthma. In just hours, it can clean up airborne mold. Outside, English ivy can be invasive, but inside your home it will be just fine in a hanging basket or trailing off a tall shelf.
The tall white flower spike of the peace lily is pretty, but it also helps cleanse toxins from the air that come from synthetic materials in our homes and offices, including carpets and furniture, paint and cleansers. It’s an easy to care for plant – all it really needs is shade and a weekly watering. Peace lilies are at the top of NASA’s list for removing toxins from the air.
Golden pothos, also called devil’s ivy, is a fast-growing vine that produces a cascade of green from a hanging basket. In just a few hours, it can remove large amounts of toxins from the air, including formaldehyde, which is also a byproduct of toilet paper, tissues and many personal care products. So a good place for it would be in the bathroom, where it does well in the more humidity atmosphere.
Thanks to their large leafy surface areas, indoor dwarf palm trees are great for absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. They’re also good at absorbing xylene, which is found in solvents and paint thinners. They don’t like bright direct sunlight, but they do prefer moist soil, and the humidity from the soil helps reduce mold and bacteria in the air.
Finally, philodendrons are a great addition to offices, but perhaps not as much in some homes, since the leaves are toxic to children and pets if eaten. But they do a great job at cleaning the air of all kinds of toxins, especially formaldehyde fumes that come from many common construction materials and some floor coverings.
V-O-C’s, or volatile organic compounds, are commonly released from most of the manmade materials in our homes, from floor coverings and building materials to furniture, paint, plastics, and even computer ink. So besides being beautiful, these houseplants provide an important health benefit in your home, improving the air that you breathe.
A few other air-cleansing houseplants that you might want to consider for your home include aloe vera, rubber tree plants, potted mums and ficus trees.