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Top 5 Air purifying house plants

Did you know in 1989, NASA, discovered that houseplants can absorb harmful toxins from the air, especially in enclosed spaces with little air flow. This study has been the basis for newer studies about indoor plants and their air cleaning abilities. While plants have less horse power than air purifiers, they’re more natural, cost effective, and therapeutic.

Plants are also known to:

increase mood and productivity
enhance concentration and memory
reduce stress and fatigue

Household chemicals come from objects and materials like:

carpets
glues
ovens
cleaning solutions
synthetic materials such as plastic, fiber, and rubber

You’ll benefit the most when you include a variety of plants in a room.

Here are my top five indoor plants that can help you breathe better inside.

Pothos or golden Pothos, is an easy houseplant that will fight off common household toxins. It adds instant color to any room with cascading tendrils and grows well in water, pots and hanging baskets. The heart leaf philodendron can remove toxins such as; xylene, benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene.

Spider plants are the perfect choice for newbies and those with a bad track record when it comes to plants. They thrive in indirect sunlight and survive in just about any condition (they’ve been known to survive in temperatures as low as 2 degrees). Spider plants also send out shoots of baby spider plants called spiderettes. This plant removes toxins such as; formaldehyde and xylene.

This easy-to-grow fern is known for its sword-shaped fronds which makes it perfect for a hanging basket or pedestal. The Boston Fern thrives in humid environments and requires consistent moisture. Keep them happy with regular misting, moist soil and position them in indirect sunlight near windows, balconies and patios. In winter cut the fronds back by around 2-inches to help regenerate and grow in the warmer months. This plant removes toxins such as; formaldehyde and xylene.

Snake Plant otherwise known as Mother-in-Law’s Tongue is a succulent plant that can grow up to two meters in height. It is a low maintenance plant that is hardy and thrives on neglect. Place them in somewhere tolerating bright even direct light for a couple of hours a day. Be careful not to over water as they thrive in dry conditions. This plant can remove toxins such as; formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, benzene.

You might recognize English ivy as the climber on many walls and trees outdoors but NASA claims that it is the number one indoor houseplant when it comes to its air purifiers. They grow well in small pots and prefer to be crowded. They look great in hanging baskets and you can even propagate a cutting in water in just a few days. This beautiful plant removes toxin such as; formaldehyde and benzene.

Now that you’ve chosen your plants, it’s time to start looking for fun, decorative pots to sit them in like checking out Printhousedesign.com on Etsy. These cool planters are for smaller plants, but you can always message the shop and request for them to print a larger planter for a small fee.

Bees and Sunflowers

Want to help save the bees? Start planting sunflowers in your yard.

Bees are responsible for pollinating around 30% of the world’s crops and 90% of the world’s wild plants, according to the National Resources Defense Council, and they’re a vital asset to our global food production. So how can we help these flying pollinators out and finally save the bees?

Planting bee-friendly flowers is definitely an easy way to help keep our buzzing friends alive, and the sunflower is the perfect option for a summertime plant. They’re rich in nectar, and are the perfect color to attract bees.

Sunflowers need optimal sunlight—around six to eight hours a day—and thrive when they grow in hot summer climates. According to The Farmer’s Almanc, the bright yellow blooms prefer well-dug, loose, well-draining soil, and they thrive in slightly acidic to somewhat alkaline soil. The plants also need plenty of room—they can grow to be up to 12 feet tall, after all.

The bright, large flower heads of sunflowers (Helianthus annuus and cultivars) present a nectar and pollen mother lode for their pollinators, which are bees of all kinds. … Bees go from flower to flower within the disc, becoming covered with pollen. They then pollinate other sunflowers as they go from plant to plant.

There are many excellent varieties for bees, but if you want the best, go with the Lemon Queen. What makes this sunflower different is its tendency to branch. From one seed, a Lemon Queen can produce as many as twenty flowers!

Printhousedesign.com also carries sunflower seed packets to help you start your sunflower garden for the bees.

Planting a Butterfly Garden

If you’ve been missing monarchs recently, a large part of the problem can be blamed on the crashing butterfly population. A wicked trifecta of herbicides, habitat loss, and extreme weather is making it impossible for the monarchs to catch a break.

I am here to help you get down the basics, so your butterfly garden gets off to a flying start. If I was starting a new monarch butterfly garden, these are the essential tips, tools, and techniques I would implement to start seeing more monarchs this season.

If you have any questions after reading this post, please post them in comments at the bottom of this page.

Before you start creating your monarch butterfly garden, it’s important to research some basic info to help guide your garden decisions.

Where do monarchs live? Monarch butterflies are found across North America wherever suitable feeding, breeding, and overwintering habitat exists. They are broken into two populations separated by the Rocky Mountains, called the eastern and the western populations. https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Invertebrates/Monarch-Butterfly#:~:text=Monarch%20butterflies%20are%20found%20across,eastern%20and%20the%20western%20populations.

Not all plants require the same soil conditions, but many butterfly plants prefer well-drained soil that’s rich in organic matter. Compost is an excellent additive for increasing organic matter in your soil. For plants with uncommon soil requirements you can amend the soil in that area, or consider potting the plant. Research soil requirements for all your plants. This gives you the best chance to grow thriving plants!

Milkweed is the cornerstone of a successful butterfly garden and planting a mix of both native and non-invasive annuals will entice more monarchs to enter your garden gates. These varieties are utilized as both host plant for caterpillars and a nectar source for butterflies.

Tip: all milkweed varieties should be planted in groups of at least six plants. Otherwise, there is a good chance your monarch caterpillars will run out of milkweed!

1. Asclepias incarnata (swamp milkweed) offers pretty pink blooms and a sweet vanilla scent. It’s native across most of the US and parts of Canada

2. Asclepias speciosa (showy milkweed) has deep pink, fragrant flowers with a star shaped white center. It’s native to the western half of the US and Canada

Top Nectar Plants

Now that you’ve satisfied those hungry caterpillars, here are some nectar plants to give your garden instant butterfly appeal:

Eutrochium (joe pye weed)

This native perennial unleashes pink blooms in mid-late summer that monarchs, other butterflies, and bees go wild over. I’ve heard positive reports on several species including Eutrochium purpureum (sweet joe pye weed) and Eutrochium maculatum’gateway’ (spotted joe pye weed), which we grow in Minnesota.

Buddleja Buzz is compact, non-invasive and it attracts butterflies. It’s also supposed to be colder hardy for the north. It’s the only variety we’ve planted that hasn’t succumbed to Minnesota winter. Colder climates should mulch with leaves in fall, take fall cuttings, or overwinter to insure your crop. Buzz comes in a variety of vibrant colors including purple, sky blue, white, hot raspberry, and more. Grows to 4 feet.

Potted plants save space and allow you to bring the butterflies closer for convenient viewing. We pot mostly tropical plants, so we can easily bring them indoors to overwinter…

This lets you start the season with large tropical plants! Lantana plants grow well in pots if you’re looking for ideas. You can also pot small perennials like May Night Salvia.

Starting a monarch butterfly garden is an exciting journey that yields great rewards if you’re patient and persistent.

House Plant Problems

One of the most frustrating parts of houseplant ownership is when a normally healthy plant starts dropping leaves or turning yellow and you’re not sure why. Don’t fret; many of these problems can be easily resolved with small care changes. Learn how to decode the messages your plant is sending—and how to fix them. You’ll be back to thriving, happy plants in no time!

Underwatering:

Signs: Soft, wilted, or curled leaves, drooping stems or whole plant slumped over; soil visibly dry, hard, and shrinking away from your container.

Treatment:

A severly underwatered plant will need to be bottom watered, usually for several hours, until the soil feels damp and supple again. Humidity-loving plants will perk back up faster if they are also kept in a high humidity area while soil is rehydrating. It make take a few hours or few days for a plant to look back to normal after underwatering incident.

Prevention:

Utilize a consistent watering routine, checking on your plant a regular intervals to ensure your are watering as soon as they need it. Also when purchasing your plant make sure you follow the plant care tips that come along with the plant, & if you don’t see the plant care tips, you can also google the plant a read a short care tip to follow.

Excess water

Signs: Yellowing leaves, water pooled at bottom of the container, visibly soggy soil with water squishing out when you press on the soil. Plant leaves falling off or quickly turning brown or black (this will happen to succulents & air plants)

Treatment: Depending on the extent of the damage, sometimes just emptying any excess water from the container and letting the lant dry out completlty before watering it again. If the soil is very waterlogged, it is best to remove the plant completlely and wrap it with a dry towel (the roots) & allowing the root to dry out a couple of days before placing it back into a well dry potting soil mix.

Prevention:

Often this problem is referred to as “overwatering” which can be a misnormer, since it is not just about how oftern or houw much you are watering but rather about the balance of how much water the plant can use compared to how much water is being stored in the soil.

Lack of light

plants leaning towards windows, doors or areas with brighter light. Sometimes this means their leaves will all start to face the light. Other times, the whole plant can start to lean, branches and all! Yellow, pale and very small leaves.

Treatment: Move the plant to brighter light do it graduallyy and rotate the plant towards the indirect or bright light.

Prevention

Keep plants in the apporopriate amount of light for their needs; remember that no plant will truly thrive in very low light or in the dark.

When choosing a houseplant and placing it in your home, remember that it was grown under ideal conditions in a greenhouse. The plant will need time to adjust to the light, humidity, and temperature conditions in your home. Don’t be alarmed if, in the meantime, leaves drop, leaf tips turn brown, or leaf color changes slightly. After the houseplant has been given enough time to become established and its condition does not improve it could be from one of these plant care problems.

Follow our plant/garden tips blog to learn more each week!

Monstera Plant Tips

Monsteras are very recognizable plants with big and beautiful leaves. As they’re tropical plants, they can be tough to take care of if you live in a colder climate, but even then, you can be successful with these plants. With these tips, even beginning plant parents will be able to take care of a Monstera. They’re low-maintenance plants that are great for any beginning plant owner. Monsteras are also very flexible when it comes to light requirements

The Monstera prefers in bright, indirect sunlight. This is a tropical plant and thrives if you can give it the light it gets in its native environment. In nature, it’s on the ground under large trees in very sunny areas, so this plant loves bright, indirect sunlight. Make sure to avoid too much direct sunlight in the summer because this could cause burn marks on those big and beautiful leaves. As the Monstera is near the ground in nature, it can tolerate low light but this will make it grow much slower. The plant needs light to be able to grow. If you keep the Monstera in an area that’s too dark, its leaves will turn yellow. If you see this happen, it’s a sign that you should move the plant to a better-lit environment.

Monsteras are tropical plants, which means they like to sit in moist soil. When it comes to watering, it needs to be watered as soon as the soil at the top of the pot is dry. You can check this by using a moisture meter or your finger. If the top 5 cm (2 inches) is dry, it’s time to water your plant. It’s best to not let the soil dry out too much because its leaves will start to droop. When this happens, you need to water the plant as soon as possible, because your Monstera is at risk of drying out. Another sign that your plant is starting to dry out is when you notice brown and crispy edges on the leaves. If you water the Monstera too much or too often, the plant will also tell you. When you overwater the monster, its leaves will turn yellow.

Monsteras like moist soil, but don’t deal with wet soil very well. To help give the Monstera the right amount of moisture to thrive in, you should use well-draining soil. You can avoid letting water sit at the bottom of the pot by choosing a pot with a draining hole at the bottom. The soil will retain all the water your Monstera needs to thrive, but any excess will be drained out of the bottom.

Monsteras love humidity. They thrive in high humid places because it resembles their native environments. Because of this, it’s a great idea to mist your Monstera every day. If you have a humidifier in your house, this is also a great solution.

Monsteras grow relatively fast. This means that it’s always a good idea to get a pot that’s a little bigger than its roots currently are. This gives the plant plenty of space to grow. If your monstera does well and grows consistently, you have to repot it about every two years. That’s when it starts to outgrow the pot it’s currently in and it’ll need more space. If you think that it has grown enough and you don’t want it to grow any larger, you can also choose to stop repotting it and prune it back to a size that you prefer. This helps to keep the growth in check.

After you’ve finished reading this guide, you’ll have all the information you need to take care of these beautiful tropical plants. If you need more you can leave a question in the comment box below.