Houseplants For Your Health

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House plants have always been a great way to dress up any room in your home. They lift the mood but also have other positive aspects. Researchers find that rooms with plants have less dust, and the plants act as natural filters to catch allergens and other airborne particles. Plants with textured leaves such as the violet and low light ones such as the peace lily or Chinese evergreen may be good but avoid plants with pollen or spores. Plants also take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. Plants like the gerbera daisies continue to give off oxygen even after the sun goes down. Air conditioners and furnaces can take away the humidity indoors. This raises the chance of getting a cold or the flu and can cause skin dryness and itching. Spider plants were found to boost the relative humidity in a bedroom from 20% to 30%. All manner of indoor objects such as carpet, paints, printer toner and ink, and cleaner give off pollutants called volatile organic compounds (or VOCs) and they can build up in the air. This can irritate skin and eyes, even worsen asthma making it harder to breathe. Houseplants can soak up the VOCs. English ivy, dragon tree, and asparagus fern made good air-scrubbers.