Plants That Can Clean Indoor Air
Are there plants that can clean indoor air? The answer is yes, but for plants to effectively purify the air in your home you will need to keep the following two things in mind.
1. Choose the right plants
Plants are not equal in their ability to naturally purify the air. To clean the air in your home, you need to choose plants that can clean indoor air as backed up by scientific study.
Research has been conducted over the past two decades by The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to determine which plants can remove toxic chemicals from the air for the use in space stations.
These first five plants came top of their list and were particularly effective at clearing the air of formaldehyde, benzene, and trichloroethylene.
- Mass cane (dracaena massangeana)
- Pot mum (Chrysanthemum morifolium)
- Gerbera daisy (Gerbera jamesonii)
- Warnecki (Dracaena deremensis “Warneckei”)
- Ficus (Ficus benjamina)
Other plants that were also effective at air purification are:
- English Ivy (Hedera helix)
- Marginata (Dracaena marginata)
- Mother-in-laws tongue (Sansevieria laurentii)
- Peace lily (Spathiphyllum “Mauna Loa”)
- Chinese evergreen (Algona “silver queen”)
- Banana (Musa oriana)
- Bamboo Palm (Chamaedorea seifrizii)
- Heart Leaf philodendron (Philodendron oxycardium)
- Green Spider Plant (Chlorophytum elatum)
- Janet Craig (Dracaena deremensis “Janet Craig”)
Sansevieria laurentii (common name: mother in law’s tongue, aka snake plant) is a natural air purifier and easy to grow.
2. Go for a jungle effect
In spite of what you may have read on various popular wellness blogs or in magazines, for the above plants to actually work in a therapeutic manner and create measurable results for cleaning the air in your home you will need LOTS of these plants. To quote environmental medicine specialist, Dr. Walter Crinnion, “By getting a variety of such plants and ‘making their home a jungle,’ several families have found that their chronic health problems have dramatically improved.”
You will need to go for a jungle effect and place lots and lots of plants in your home. One way to go about this is to start in your bedroom so that you can at least have the best quality and cleanest air at night while you sleep.
Still, since plants will brighten up your house, if you are using plants as part of decor in your home, you may as well choose from the plants that can clean indoor air.
