How To Improve The Smell and Quality of The Air In Your Home

 Indoor plants offer more than just visual appeal — they can make your home more fragrant, improve air quality and reduce indoor air pollution.

Plants make your home smell nice

There are a variety of low-maintenance indoor plants that will bring the scents of the fresh outdoors and Mother Nature inside your four walls.

(photo from Studio and Garden)

 Geraniums are a hardy plant with a subtle fragrance, geraniums can tolerate hot and cold temperatures, total dryness and are very resistant to pests. The main requirement for healthy geraniums is sunlight — about 8 hours a day — although many garden experts say that fluorescent light can be used to supplement natural sunlight.

For more information on geraniums, check out these resources:

·       How to Take Care of Geraniums in the House from Garden Guides

·       Outdoor-Indoor Geranium Culture from University of Minnesota Extension

·       Geranium Care for the Consumer (PDF) from Milmont Greenhouses

(photo from Houzz)

 Lavender is another fragrant plant that does well indoors with relatively little maintenance — and a lot of sun.

For more information on lavender, check out these resources:

·       Keep Lavender Indoors from The Herb Gardener

·       How to Care for a Lavender Plant Indoors from Garden Guides

Plants clean the air in your home

Indoor air can be 12 times more polluted than outdoor air — a result of pollutants given off by clothing, paint, furniture, cleaning supplies, adhesives and other common materials. In 1989, NASA conducted a study to research ways to clean the atmosphere in future space stations and discovered a variety of indoor plants that help fight pollution inside. More recently, more research has shown that certain indoor plants can remove VOCs and reduce ozone levels inside your home.

(photo of golden pothos from Just Pretty Deep)

 The snake plant, spider plant and golden pothos were selected for the ozone depletion rate study as they tend to be low-cost, low-maintenance and high-foliage plants — all three were shown to reduce ozone levels, equally effectively.

(photo of Asparagus fern from Better Homes and Gardens)

 In the VOC study, 28 different plants were studied and four proved to have the highest removal rates for VOCs — the purple waffle plant, English ivy, variegated wax plant and the Asparagus fern.

 For more information on plants and indoor quality, check these resources:

·       Breath of Fresh Air on Just Pretty Deep

·       Asparagus fern on Better Homes and Gardens

·       Houseplants Cut Indoor Ozone and Common Plants Can Eliminate Indoor Air Pollutants on Science Daily

·       Houseplants Help Clean Indoor Air on University of Minnesota Extension