Purify Indoor Air with Houseplants
October 30, 2007 by BC Doan
Published in Home and Garden
These seven houseplants help remove toxins and pollutants in your home.
House plants can bring a warm feeling and a decorative look to our homes. These seven house plants are not listed under the “poisonous plants” list, but as a preventive step, please treat them as a common threat to our children and pets.
Houseplants can rid the air of the organic chemicals and toxins that cause asthma and other ailments. They are also proven to reduce stress and improve our mental well-being. We can benefit from houseplants since they can remove toxins, pollutants, and carbon dioxide. Keep some of these green nearby.
Snake Plant
These plant is practically indestructible, and it will remove toxins in rooms where no other plants will grow, such as in areas with no windows. Have one in your work cubicle or any other room that has limited sunlight.
Gerbera Daisy
Gerbera is superior in removing the benzene, known as carcinogen. It tolerates shade, and prefers moisture and well-drained soil.
Christmas Cactus
This plant gives off oxygen at night while most plants produce oxygen during the day; it is perfect for your bedroom, family room, or other spots that get a lot of evening action.
Golden Pothos, also known as Devil’s Ivy
According to NASA studies, this is another plant that placed in the top three for houseplants that remove formaldehyde from indoor air.
Rubber Plant
It is the best at removing indoor chemicals, such as formaldehyde, found in particleboard furniture and upholstery, benzene and ammonia. The rubber plant is also a great humidifier. Keep one anywhere you need a pretty plant that pumps moisture into the air.
Mauna Loa
You see lot of these fragrant flowers in the mall. They are borne enclosed in a large, oval, white spathe. They preferred well-drained soil, and moisture.
Spider Plant
As the plant mature, they send out these star shaped flowers that give the appearance of spider dangling. This spider plant is placed on the top five house plants that are efficient at the removal of formalhydehyde from indoor air.
These indoor houseplants are easy to care for, and they can also purify your indoor air. Since I don’t have green thumbs, I thought I will get some of these plants for myself, especially if they help reduce some toxins inside our home.
Liked it
October 30th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Nice article, Icy. I enjoy my plants and it’s rewarding to know how good they are for our environment. Thank you for the research.
October 30th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
This is an excellent article.
I do gardening articles at http://red-icculus.com
October 30th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
ohmygoch
October 30th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
I got my lessons for today! Thank you for the information.
October 30th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
It is a new one to me. Thank you very much for the information.
October 31st, 2007 at 6:13 am
Very interesting and useful. I love plantsbut I’m not very good with them!
October 31st, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Your absolutely, positively right on here!
I love these plants, you did a great job on valuable information. Thanks for this!
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Such a very very helpful article. Promote vitality and good health. You’re such one of a kind writer. Putting this website into a useful link for someone’s life.
Excellent!!! Keep up writing such as this. You’re good at it.
Hugs and Cheers!!!
Heart
November 3rd, 2007 at 4:58 am
Really interesting article. I love houseplants and believe that the more I have in the house the better. I’ve always called Snake Plant “Mother-In-Law’s Tongue”, so I looked it up and sure enough both names are used. Snake Plant, because of the appearance of the leaves, and Mother-In-Law’s Tongue because of the sharpness of the tip of the leaves. My favourite plant is the Spider Plant.
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Thank you every body for your comments.
Dee,
I meant to put it in, but at the end, it slipped my mind. Thank you for your input. I like Spider Plant too.
November 4th, 2007 at 2:00 am
Dear IcyCucky,
This article is absolutely phenomenal. I am going to print it out for later reference. Phenomenal.*
Best wishes.
Sincerely,
-Liane Schmidt.
November 9th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Liane,
Your kind words keep me going..Thank you.
Tally,
I am honored that you choose this article to share it on your website. Thank you!
November 12th, 2007 at 12:07 am
Interesting, but how many of these plants does it take to actually make a difference in indoor air quality? Do I need 5 or 500 plants in my 2000 square foot house? Thanks.
November 12th, 2007 at 1:38 am
Spider plants are beautiful and helpful but they do have one pest that once on them is not easily gotten rid of: scale.
Scale is a tiny sticky bug that disguises itself with an exterior similar to a brown sowbug with white hair.
If your spider plant gets this malady the only way to deal with the scale bugs is to use an alcohol dipped q-tip and to touch each one and then wipe it off the plant with a tissue. Other than that, the only thing that works is toxic insecticide.
The scale comes in by way of those breezy windows and doors. A severe infestation should be halted by bagging the plant and tossing it in the trash (not in the compost pile).
November 12th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Firewomen,
Thank you for such an educational comments!
November 13th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
I love it! Cool article Icy!
November 14th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
the ASPCA website lists the Mauna Loa (Peace Lily) and the Golden Pothos as plants that can cause gastrointestinal upset in animals. i hadn’t heard about the pothos being a problem but the Peace Lily has long been mentioned as a problem plant for critters (probably because the pothos can be a hanging plant but the Peace Lily is meant to be on the ground or a table). use caution with these plants and pets.
i was thinking about picking up a Christmas Cactus yesterday. now i have a good excuse to do so!
November 17th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
I’m a keen gardener, I love both indoor and outdoor plants. Good article, thanks
November 18th, 2007 at 9:15 am
hi IcyCucky! this is such a wonderful article. thank you. your article would really be of great help to me since our house is damp and moist most of the time. with the information i learned from your article, this would help freshen up the interior of our house. i would just like to ask if you can also help me out as to what kind of plant would be suitable outdoors that would also be best in absorbing odor and foul smell? we live in a neighborhood with neighbors owning dogs however, they are not so good at maintaining the cleanliness of their dog kennels which is why the odor of their pets’ urine and poop reaches even the inside of our house. i hope you can help me out with this dilemma of mine. it would really appreciate your help on this.
November 18th, 2007 at 11:51 am
CCdrewchat,
Thank you for such a wonderful comment!
For other part, I don’t know the weather where you live, so I can’t recommend any thing. However, if you search online, you will find the information you need for your environment.
About the bad smell,can you call the local enforcement office for help? That’s not a very nice neighboring, is it? So sorry for this!
November 30th, 2007 at 1:29 am
Thanks for the terrific list (and pictures!) I have always preferred potted plants to clipped flowers, but now I have a list (with pictures) that my man can reference when he wants to “bring me flowers.”
Much Thanks!
March 2nd, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Useful page, thanks!
I wonder how Christmas Cactus produces oxygen at night, without sunlight?
I’d like to know since I’ve always been taught photosynthesis/oxygen production requires sunlight.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
What an excellent article with great pictures!
July 13th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Icy, I love the way Triond comes up with new areas to showcase our work. Here we go again, a truly great article to revisit.
Take care.
July 14th, 2008 at 9:04 am
This is another article I will have to refer back to when I get to the point of having a few more houseplants. I have a geranium and an aloe vera but have had some of the others in the past.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
great article,i have 4 plants on the list,thanks IC
July 15th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
This is a very useful article. We have plants in our sala. This knowledge will encourage us to have more of them even in our rooms. Thanks IcyCucky for the nice read.
July 16th, 2008 at 1:56 am
very interesting and useful article, the plants are really pretty too they would look good indoors, thank you for sharing.
July 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Looks like you have a hit with this one, Icy. Nice job. Too bad I kill most plants I try to take care of, although I did have a poinsettia for a year once.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Great job on your article. The pictures are really nice.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:15 am
thanks for your article on plants that purify especially Christmas cactus and those that help diffuse formaldehyde. I thought I was crazy when I couldn’t find the ‘printed’ article on Christmas cactus producing oxygen at night. Thanks again – Maggie
September 16th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Thanks for putting this up! I really learned from it.
February 5th, 2009 at 8:42 am
I am wondering if anyone can help me figure out why my christmas cactus all of the sudden smells like sour laundry, or chemical. It just started a week or so ago and I didn’t realize that was it until I super cleaned everything in the house and could still smell it – mostly when walking by the christmas cactus – then I stuck my nose in the plant and that is definetly the smell.