April 22nd is Earth Day 2015 – and we’d like to encourage all of our customers to introduce air purifying house plants to your home or office. Spring is a great time to add new life to your home or garden – so we’ve come up with a list of 9 air purifying house plants that don’t require the greenest of fingers to thrive in your home or office.
Celebrated every year on April 22, Earth Day is the largest environmental event in the world. More than six million Canadians – including nearly every school-aged child – participate in an Earth Day activity in their communities. Earth Day Canada partners with and support hundreds of organizations across the country, as they engage Canadians in annual celebrations of this special day. [source]
1. Snake Plant/Mother-in-law’s Tongue
Preferring drier soil conditions and very little sunlight – this is a popular plant for offices as they are pretty much impossible to kill. In larger pots the variegated snake-like leaves can grow upto 35” and can provide a beautiful air-purifying feature for your home.
2. Spider Plant
Spider plants are a flowering perennial herb and are extremely popular because they are incredibly easy to grow. Best kept near an indirect light source, when they’re happy and healthy they produce flowers that will eventually grow into baby spider plants providing the perfect opportunity to propogate.
3. Garden Mum
These popular and inexpensive air-purifiers can be planted both indoors or outside. A great gift for Mothers Day (May 10th 2015) – they help remove chemicals ammonia, benzene, xylene and formaldehyde from the air in your home.
4. Dracaena
Like Garden mum’s these air-purifiers remove benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, and xylene from the air. Pet lovers – be careful placing these where the leaves can be nibbled by your cat or dog as they are toxic. There are around 40 different types in Dracaena family, which grow to a variety of shapes and sizes – giving you a wide variety to choose from.
5. Peace Lily
These beautifully dark green leaved flowering plants are popular due to the fact that they’re impossible to kill and have great air cleaning abilities. Happy, healthy Peace Lily’s prefer shady spots, moist soil and indirect sunlight. Under the right conditions they will flower through most of the summer and help remove ammonia, benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene from the air in your home. A word of warning for pet lovers – many species of Lily are extremely toxic to our fury friends, so keep in a spot that’s not accessible by your cat or dog.
6. Boston fern
Commonly seen in swamps from South America to Africa – this household favourite thrives in rich, damp, mulchy soil. Ferns help to remove pollutants like xylene and formaldehyde from indoor air and are not known to be toxic so safe for cats to eat if your kitty is a plant muncher. In the home they prefer cool areas, with high humidity and filtered light making them ideal for bathrooms. Elsewhere around the home they benefit from regular misting.
7. Ficus
Sometimes known as ’Twisted Fig’, in the wild the Ficus genus are extremely important food resources for wildlife. In the home they typically grow to between 2ft and 10ft tall – and again have superb air-cleaning benefits when kept indoors. They don’t like drafts and benefit from spraying with water, but can be moved outside during the Spring/Summer which can benefit their overall health. Interesting fact! The wood of fig trees was used to make mummy caskets in Ancient Egypt and Figs themselves are also of considerable cultural importance throughout the tropics, both as objects of worship and for their many practical uses.[source]
8. Aloe Vera
Widely known for its use (if not perhaps questionable benefits) in medicinal and cosmetic products – which range from nutritional drinks to skin therapies – it’s not surprising the succulent Aloe Vera also helps clean the air in your home and requires very little watering/maintenance.
9. Bamboo Palm
Most Bamboo’s prefer bright filtered light in order to thrive. Mature plants range from 4 to 12 feet tall with a span of 3 to 5 feet, making them an incredible presence indoors or out. They filter formaldehyde, benzene and trichloroethylene from the air inside your home, and are relatively easy to keep as long as they are draining properly and only ever require water ever so often once the soil becomes dry.
Once you’ve picked the right plant for you – come see us for your potting soil and Gardening Accessories. Our seasonal department has a wide range of gardening products available including bagged potting soil, manure, rakes, shovels, trowels and hoes – as well as a wide variety of hose pipes and accessories to make sure the plants around your home and garden thrive.
