5 green plants to clean the air

I think I worked on this blog post for several months before I finally published it on my old blog over at The Waves We Make. I’ve been thinking that I should rewrite it and translate it like forever now and today I finally sat down to do it. It’s not that it’s a huge blog post that requires days of work, but I’ve been procrastinating for so long anyway.

If you’ve read my about me-page you know that I love green plants. And so does my boyfriend, Kalle (Kalle is a nickname for Karl – or Carl as it’s spelled in English). Since we both love plants we happily encourage each other to buy more, and yeah, you can probably imagine where this is going. Our apartment will soon look more like a jungle than an apartment.

But being crazy about plants has its advantages. First and foremost – plants help cleaning the air. Yep, that’s true. Plants are incredible at cleaning the indoor air from chemicals. Here are my top 5 favorites!

Peace lily (Fredskalla in Swedish)

This is an amazing plant. It can clean the air from formaldehyde, benzene and trichloroethylene. They are also really easy to take care of, just place them in the shade and water them once a week or so. I usually look at the leaves, when they start looking ”sad” it’s time to water your plant. The peace lily is a tough one and it can look completely withered and still recover if you water it.

Aloe vera

Like the peace lily, the aloe vera plant can help cleaning the air from formaldehyde. The aloe vera leaves contain a gel, which can be used on burns and lacerations. It helps healing the skin, isn’t that amazing? In other words, aloe vera is a perfect plant for the kitchen. Our aloe vera plant has gone bananas and it won’t stop growing. They say that talking kindly to your plants make them grow, maybe I’m talking too much to this guy?

Gerbera

Gerbera is a big family of flowers and it’s one of my favorites. It can also help cleaning the air from benzene and trichloroethylene (a chemical often used by dry cleaners). Gerberas need a lot of light so place them somewhere where they get a lot of sunlight.

Snake plant or Mother-in-Law’s Tongue (Svärmorstunga in Swedish)

This is probably my favorite green plant (together with fiddle leaf fig trees and monstrea plant). Even this plant is phenomenal when it comes to cleaning the air from formaldehyde – a compound found in lots of things. Most plants don’t thrive in places with low light and hight humidity, but the snake plant does. So why not put one in your bathroom? Even though the snake plant thrives in spaces like bathrooms, it can also stand being without water for quite some time. Also, during the night, the snake plant absorbes carbon dioxide from the air and breathe out oxygen. So place a couple in your bedroom and get a boost of oxygen while you’re sleeping. Isn’t this the most perfect plant? I want to fill our home with snake plants (and I’m working on it).

Philodendron

We have a huge one in our bedroom. It’s a real air cleaner but it’s not great if you have kids or pets. The sap is toxic and if you eat it, it can cause serious reactions. Besides that it is a kick-ass plant when it comes to cleaning the air from formaldehyde.

Other green favorites of mine – monstrea deliciosa, cacti (oh, I love cacti), fiddle leaf fig trees, yucca palms (we have 2), elephant ear plants, all kinds of succulents and avocado trees.