Houseplants That Purify The Air In Your Home
photo credit: chefranden
We live in a world of pollution. From oil spills polluting the oceans to chemicals polluting our rivers and streams. And of course it goes without saying that the air we breathe is laced with a variety of potentially harmful chemicals as a result of industrial processes, burning fossil fuels and the breakdown of materials over time.
Poor quality air has been blamed for everything from minor ailments like sore throats during the winter months when cold weather and central heating combine to create a dry, stagnant atmosphere in our homes to asthma and even cancer in serious cases.
The air that we breathe is obviously of vital importance to not only our health but also that of the planet as a whole but what can we, in our little way, do to actually improve the quality of the air around us – most notably in our homes and places of work?
One interesting concept is the use of house plants to cleanse the air. NASA has carried out a number of studies over the years in which a large number of different house plants have been tested to see which are the most efficient at cleansing the air in a sealed room. The results have been quite startling.
I recently discovered, for example, that effectively using the right house plants can increase the humidity gently, cool the air in the vicinity, remove toxins such as formaldehyde from the air, reuse waste water and in my opinion most interestingly of all they have also been shown to reduce the number of mould spores in the air.
All this means that a decent selection of healthy house plants can quickly and easily create a safer, more pleasant and healthier environment for you and your family; and if these principles are adopted on a larger scale there is the potential for huge benefits.
But which house plants are best? What should you grow?
Thankfully the answer to this question is neatly laid out in a very useful book entitled “How To Grow Fresh Air” by Dr. B. C. Wolverton. In this pleasantly laid-out book the author ranks the top 50 house plants using the range of features such as their ease of growth and ability to absorb air-borne pollution to provide the reader with a detailed guide on which houseplants one should grow and how to do it.
As a brief taster the top plants according to Dr. Wolverton include a number of palms (the Areca, Lady and Bamboo Palms for example), the trusty Rubber Plant and a number of Ficus species.
For anyone interested in this topic the book is a short but easy read, with numerous photographs and a page dedicated to the care, selection and propogation of each of the 50 species of houseplant discussed.
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I like palm plants like palmera inside our house. It looks good and I think it contributes in purifying the air inside our home.
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