The Best Air-Purifying Plant for a Healthier Home
Original photography posted at Unsplash by Annie Spratt.
Original article posted at Elle Decor by Monique Valeris and Danielle Fox.
It's always a good idea to bring the outdoors in, especially when doing so can help to improve your health. If you're searching for an easy way to embrace nature and create a healthier home, consider decorating with air-purifying plants—the next best thing to a live-in housekeeper. They add a dose of style and coziness wherever you place them, and they can even help you get a good night's rest.
1- English Ivy
This easy-to-care-for vine, which boasts loads of visual appeal, can help to reduce mold in your home. Reap its benefits by keeping its soil moist and limiting direct sunlight to just four hours per day.
2- Rubber Tree Plant
In addition to being a dramatic accent in a room, rubber plants can remove airborne toxins and fight tropical diseases and parasites. Studies have proven the plant's ability to remove formaldehyde from the air, which is found in cleaning supplies and furniture. VanZile just advises wiping the leaves with a moist paper towel every so often to keep their pores open for optimal air purification.
3- Lemon Butter Fern
Ferns are fantastic for removing common airborne pollutants — including formaldehyde, xylene, and toluene — which have been thought to cause headaches, trouble breathing, and the growth of cancerous cells. The Boston fern, which includes the lemon button variety, also combats winter dryness by raising indoor humidity.
4- Areca Butterfly Palm
A 1989 NASA study declared the Areca Plan to be one of the most powerful air-purifying plants, particularly for its ability to remove formaldehyde from an indoor environment.
5- Peace Lily
Not only is the Peace Lily beautiful, VanZile calls it a "powerhouse for filtering air." NASA studies show that the lily can filter benzene, formaldehyde, tri-chloroethylene (TCE), xylene, toluene, and ammonia from indoor air. These toxins can cause headaches, respiratory problems, and an increased risk of cancer. The Peace Lily can also remove airborne mold that aggravates allergies and asthma symptoms, and VanZile recommends placing a few in your bathroom to reduce mold growth.
6- Snake Plant
Snake Plants have been popular houseplants in the United States for the past century, Van Zile says, and they can remove a wide range of pollutants—including benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene (TCE), xylene, and toluene—from the air. The plants are easy to grow, and you can boil the leaves to make a holistic medicine to treat pain and irritation when applied directly to your skin. Just don't eat it.
7- The Philodendron
Philodendrons are extremely easy to grow, and they clean the air of formaldehyde and xylene, a toxin found in glues and leathers.