Adding plants to your bedroom isn’t only beautiful but can be helpful too. All kinds of plants release pollutants into the air to increase immunity; others even sooth brains and promote sleep.
Rubber plants are part of Feng Shui. Convenient to grow in low-light settings, these perennials cleanse the air of formaldehyde, trichloroethylene and xylene emissions – as well as other air pollutants such as formaldehyde.
Areca Palm
Areca palms are tropical foliage plants that don’t overpower any space, indoors or out. They are hardy and can take hot weather and high humidity; their leaves will brown under dry air exposure, however.
To avoid this, store your areca palm away from drafts (wet-air humidifiers will also work) and the palms need to be grown in a draining potting mix that’s more sandy than standard houseplant compost. Every two years you need to repot, to renew the potting mix and to wash out fertilizer salts; areca palms are wealth and prosperity in Feng Shui; they self-sanitise, dropping brown fronds on themselves, which spares you the headache of having to clean it yourself! You will have a tropical atmosphere when you add one to your bedroom!
Boston Fern
Boston Ferns are great houseplants that help to bring the humidity in rooms up and make rooms look tropical. Furthermore, they’re perfect air cleaners, because they filter out formaldehyde and other chemicals in the air.
Soil needs to be slightly moist, but not wet, for healthy development and fronds. Do so by adding high organic content such as compost or vermiculite to your potting mix mix – and organic content such as fertiliser as required.
The optimum humidity can be kept by misting leaves and aerial roots daily in dry regions. A little feeding of liquid houseplant fertiliser reduced to half strength in the spring and summer should be enough to prevent browning of the fronds and regularly cutting out damaged or brown spots should also help.
Monstera Deliciosa
Monstera species are known to clean the air (by sequestering formaldehyde and benzene toxins), to increase humidity (by dispersing water vapour through their leaves), and to shade. Monstera needs lots of indirect, indirect sunlight, but not much direct light in the summer and warmth indoors.
: Dry their surroundings with regular potting soil, perlite and orchid bark. Don’t water when the soil is too dry to touch – water too much and you get root rot and wet leaves!
Keep an eye out for insects and disease. A Monstera is a sand-paper shield against the pests: dust it every few days, tilt for symmetrical growth, check below the leaves for mealybugs or thrips. Rewater this houseplant with stem cuttings soaked in water or well-draining potting mix.
Rubber Plant
Rubber plants also work great for bedrooms, reducing the airborne contaminants and sustaining humidity in your home – keeping viruses at bay and bacteria at bay.
Ficus elastica can grow 100 feet tall and the leaves are olive-green to bronzy orange in colour and texture. New leaves open at the crown of this plant, which sprout from pink sheaths and shine in any room where they live.
Keep your rubber plant in a sunny spot, water it frequently and do not get the plant in a draft; the plant might die of lack of leaf growth if you place it where the air flows directly from an AC vent or vent-free unit.
Parlor Palm
Parlor Palm Chamaedorea elegans is a low maintenance houseplant, it gives any room it’s placed greenery, and also cleans air. Popular with new gardeners and those with a little more experience.
The plant does best in indirect light, just as it does in its tropical environment, but can also handle low-light. The humidity should be somewhere between medium and high; spritzing regularly or standing next to a humidifier is a great way to achieve this. Average room temperatures and no airflow are better than abrupt change in temperature or abrupt change in temperature.
Parlor Palms are prone to pests and diseases like all indoor plants. The soil mixes in root-bound mixes should also be replaced at least every spring and summer for best performance. To avoid such ailments, water your potted plant in the spring or summer to replenish its lost moisture.
