Decorating with Houseplants

Lesson 1: Foliage Friends: better living through houseplants

Houseplants aren't just guests in your home; they return your hospitality with benefits that can improve your life. Most people derive a great deal of pleasure and inner satisfaction from tending their indoor greenery.

Plants can:

• be used architecturally and artistically to improve your home decor;

• cleanse and freshen your indoor air quality, and -

• - using Feng Shui principals thousands of years old - contribute to increased prosperity in your business and personal affairs.

This chapter will introduce ways houseplants can improve the quality of your life, and prepare you for choosing the right plants for YOU.

Plants and Quality of Life

First off, understand that ALL plants will improve your air quality. Plants take in CO2 and release clean, pure oxygen. Some plants even absorb certain air toxins, or absorb potentially harmful radiation.

Houseplants also add welcome humidity to the air we breathe, and filter dust particles.

Halina Heitz, author of Flowering and Foliage Varieties for the Home: Indoor Plants, cites a NASA study that indicates these plants lower formaldehyde concentrations in the air:

• Spider Plants
• Philodendron
• Ivy (German and English)
• Snake Plant

The study also found that many plants also lower levels of airborne benzene and trichlorethylene.

Mary Lambert, author of Clearing the Clutter for Good Feng Shui, suggests these plants are especially good for absorbing electromagnetic emissions from computers and other electronics:

• Peace Lily
• Peperomias
• Cirrus peruvianus (a cactus)
• Dwarf Banana Plants

Plants Do Love You

Caring for plants also improves your inner well-being. Tending plants, like petting a cat or walking a dog, lowers stress and your blood pressure. Many people find having greenery around through the cold grey months is comforting, staving off a bout of the winter blues.

Houseplants bring a living, vital presence to any setting they inhabit. Office spaces need plants to look truly "lived in". Imagine your home or business office without a single plant. A plant decreases the stark feeling of any work environment.

And as added above, houseplants in the office increase your level of work health by absorbing computer emissions.

A sterile hospital room instantly becomes a lot more welcoming once some healthy greenery is added. Think of a space in your home that is a bit barren or unwelcoming. How could a few plants enliven these areas?

Any dark corner, nook, or staircase can be brought to life with the appropriate houseplant, adding beauty and balance in your decor. Hang a huge basket of Boston Ferns under a hallway skylight, as a living chandelier. Twine some Ivy along your staircase. You can even try draping some pothos vines on a long, tall shelf in your laundry room. You spend time in these areas, so why not add a touch of life and grace to make doing the laundry or traveling the hallways and stairs nicer!

A kitchen window also benefits from a display of planted herbs. Imagine a sunny kitchen morning with Rosemary, Thyme and Chives bursting along the windowsill. Even a darker kitchen can support an herb garden - try Basil, Chamomile and Lemon Balm.

All the decorating magazines showcase herbs in their kitchen designs. Take a hint from them! And in this manner, a plant is not just beautiful - it is also food!

What else are plants good for?

Some cool, if slightly random, houseplant articles from Suite 101's editors:

-Rennie, did an article "Snuggling with Houseplants", http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/natu...

-Are Plants Emotional, http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/rela... is a differnt drift

-Aromatherapy for houseplants...another differrnt take, http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/arom...

-Planning for peaceful co-existence between your pets and your house plants http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/nort...

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