The Best Houseplants for Purifying the Indoor Air at Home

We’ve already talked about what you can do to purify your indoor air. One of the tips we mentioned was to grow your own houseplants – a surefire way not only to cleaner, fresher, and safer air in your home, but also to more ideal indoor humidity levels. Houseplants absorb airborne toxins, you see, and can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, like lean green machines.

Have you been wondering which indoor plants you can start with to improve air quality indoors and help clean your home environment? Here are a few suggestions that will be truly worth your while.

Chrysanthemum: These attractive-looking flowering houseplants are very effective at helping remove VOCs (volatile organic compounds), particularly benzene. If there’s a smoker in your household, you might want to grow chrysanthemum – since tobacco products contain typically significant amounts of benzene. Just take extra caution if you have children or pets at home, as chrysanthemum is a poisonous plant.

Areca palm: This houseplant is perfect if you live in a polluted city or urban area. Consistently rated as one of the best houseplants for reducing indoor levels of toxins, the areca palm is also a pretty efficient natural humidifier.

Bamboo palm: This houseplant is known for its ability to remove formaldehyde from the air. As an excellent natural indoor air purifier, bamboo palm grows best in moist environments, with indirect sunlight and lots of room. So if your living room is extra spacious, growing this houseplant is a smart choice.

Chinese evergreen: Not only does this houseplant serve as excellent ornaments for homes and offices; it’s also a low-maintenance indoor purifier that’s one of the easiest to grow. Chinese evergreens can tolerate wide ranges of light as well as neglect, and grow best in shadow-less light.

Heartleaf philodendron: As one of the flowering plants in the Araceae family, the heartleaf philodendron has long stems that can be trained up a support structure or trail from a hanging basket. It’s an easy plant to grow, too, and has abilities to eliminate formaldehyde from the surrounding air.

English ivy: Stagnant air flow? Prone to allergic reactions? Maybe it’s time you start growing English ivy in your home. Used commonly in ornamental horticulture, this attractive houseplant is known for its ability to remove air-based mold – within a short span of time, too (something like sixty percent in six hours). It is also a natural air-purifying solution for many kinds of allergic reactions.

Money plant: You can easily tell how this plant looks like by looking at its leaves: they’re all heart-shaped. Also known as golden pothos, Devil’s Ivy, epipremnum, or Solomon Islands’ Ivy, this leafy houseplant eliminates formaldehyde in the air, as well as toxins – like xylene and benzene – usually associated with cigarette smoke and adhesives from wood furnishings.

Janet Craig: Also known as dracaena deremensis, the Janet Craig plant is particularly effective in rooms where the floor is carpeted, or where there are lots of furniture pieces. While this natural formaldehyde remover rarely grows flowers when indoors, it has an ability to grow in low light.

Lady palm: This adaptable houseplant is one of the most effective air purifiers you can grow in your home. Because of its wide leaves, a lady palm can also accumulate dust in the air, although you’d have to wipe its leaves regularly to remove the specks. This plant can grow in low light and tolerate considerable dryness.

Rubber plant: Native to northeast India and southern Indonesia, the rubber plant – or also ficus elastic, rubber fig, or rubber bush – provides moisture, eliminates bio effluents, and removes VOCs instantly, as soon as it is placed in a room. It also helps suppress air-based microorganisms; with minimum attention (perfect for startup indoor houseplant growers) rubber plants can last a lifetime.

Snake plant: This tall unique-looking houseplant, also known as mother-in-law’s tongue, helps improve the indoor air quality of your home by eliminating majority of toxins. They’re pretty tough to kill, too, a great low-maintenance choice for houseplants, but be careful particularly if you have children or pets: the snake plant is toxic when eaten.

Weeping fig: This houseplant is also known as ficus benjamina, Benjamin’s fig, or simply “ficus”. Native to southeast Asia (Bangkok) and Australia, the weeping fig effectively filters indoor air toxins, and grows best in areas with generally bright, sunny conditions.

Spider plant: One of today’s most popular houseplants, the spider plant is relatively easy to grow and take care of. It can filter indoor air toxins from your home, and works best in winter, when you’re likely to spend more time indoors with the windows shut. This plant was also used in a famous 1985 study wherein the amount of carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide in a room dropped to zero only 24 hours after spider plants were placed inside.

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