Houseplants are good for you – it’s official!
I present a free monthly online gardening club. It’s something I have done since lockdown and the topic each month is relevant to the time of year. We discuss the ins and outs of the chosen subject; those present in the Zoom room then chuck in questions.
Over the months, we’ve covered all sorts of things – Mediterranean plants, what and why, pruning and training roses, and creating free plants from cuttings, to name but three. The last gardening club of 2024 focussed on houseplants, and how these green tropical beauties work extremely hard to clean up indoor air and go a long way to improve our mental health. We wanted to find out how houseplants are good for you.
This was the conclusion that students from Putney High School came to in 2019.
It’s been known for years that houseplants benefit humans, but no one really understood why. The students’ project starting point wasn’t merely plucked out of nowhere – it was a NASA Clean Air Study of 1989 which had looked at how much plants contribute to improving air quality. Pupils at Putney High School took up the challenge to find out how much.
There were three identical classrooms – size, shape and colour of walls. The first one was filled with as many indoor plants of different kinds as possible. In the second, no living plants but a huge photographic mural of a woodland scene was fixed to a wall. The third classroom was left unadorned, no plants, no mural just bare white paintwork.
Air sensors revealed that the air quality in Room One was better than in the other two rooms. Students worked out the number of plants of average size needed to improve the air was one plant per six cubic metres.
However, students were unaware of a parallel but secret study running, measuring the effects on the students involved. This result was that 75% of those in Rooms One and Two said they felt calmer and more relaxed.
Unless you live in a cave, there can be no doubt that our air is full of all sorts of elements that we cannot avoid – they bounce out of cleaning products, paints, adhesives, petrol fumes and so on – scary stuff as we cannot see them.
However, the houseplant sitting on your shelf is quietly removing many of these nasties and returning oxygen to air that you breathe. They do deserve a bit of TLC in return – so here are my three top houseplant tips
– Most are best placed out of direct sunlight
– Mist your plants regularly with water rather than drowning them in by overwatering
– Avoid placing them in draughts
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Valerie is a chartered horticulturist. As Auntie Planty she offers gardening problem-solving sessions in your own garden and a free monthly gardening club on Zoom – email valerie@auntieplanty.com for more details