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The day time weather in the Var is still quite unseasonably warm, but the evenings are chilly. We’ve spent the Summer outside, enjoying our gardens and terraces but, leading up to Christmas, we shall be spending more time indoors and now’s the time to think about house plants.
It has long been known that indoor, or house plants, can reduce stress in a work environment, but house plants and, specifically, air-cleaning house plants also have a beneficial effect on the biological environment in our living space and therefore on us, too.
In a two-year study, NASA and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA) affirmed that certain indoor plants effectively reduce polution in our homes by absorbing potentially harmful contaminants in the air. These air-cleaning plants not only produce oxygen but also remove formaldehyde, benzene, carbon monoxide and/or trichloroethylene from the air by absorbing it. And some plants are better at doing this than others.
The humble Spider plant turns out to be not only forgiving of neglect and easy to look after, but also one of the best plants to keep around the computers in our offices and homes. Other plants on the NASA-compiled list included the mildly venomous Peace Lily (at a recommended ratio of one plant per 10m˛ of living space) and Sansevieria, with its sharp-edged leaves which has given rise to its common name of “Mother-in-Law’s Tongue”!
NASA says it has conducted this research with a view to finding ways of providing a healthy, sustainable biological environment for astronauts living and working in space stations. For those of us with our feet planted firmly on terra firma, NASA’s advice could be particularly useful if we happen to live next to a busy road or have a smoker in the household.
And, I’d always thought that gardening isn’t rocket science!
To read a summary of the NASA/ALCA report and find out which other plants feature on the list of best air-cleaners see: www.zone10.com/tech/NASA
Article from The Riviera Reporter Var Supplement, issue October/November 2007
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Outdoors and Nature 
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