Houseplants: Why You Should Bring the Outdoors In

Have your New Year’s resolutions fallen through? Are you eagerly awaiting the return of spring and summer? The solution: house plants. Well perhaps not the full solution, but they can perk up indoor spaces and, while sitting pretty, help you out in more ways than one.

It seems the reign of houseplants has reached a high – truly inescapable when browsing interiors on Pinterest or even leafing through Vogue. Though it’s not fashions love for florals hitting the headlines, but rather simple green potted plants. So, why not forgo bright vases of flowers and opt for living leaves.

Other than on-trend and something interesting to look at, adding house plants to your indoor space can carry benefits from improving your focus to cleaning the air you breathe. Why buy electrical air purifiers when you can purchase some houseplants to do the job naturally? NASA has lead much of the research and found the best ones for grabbing and filtering polluted indoor air are aloe vera, peace lily and Boston fern. Then what about improving your focus? Studies from Norway and Michigan University (if they can be heard over the joyous cheers of city office workers) have found adding plants to the workplace can greatly improve memory retention and enhance concentration.

Regardless of the claims made by research it seems to just make sense – of course less work will be done in a room devoid of nature, compared to one which contains living plants that can inject life into the atmosphere. Also, if Monday motivation hits rock bottom, just remember that at least you have the vital role of breathing out carbon dioxide for the plants around you!

Many plants also require little time or attention to keep them healthy. That said, I should add I am one of the few people who have managed to kill a cactus by taking the ‘water sparingly’ advice to the extreme. So after that unintentional tragedy my only advice is to remember to water!

The second time round I did succeed and have managed to create a green and harmonious work station. Improving your living or working environment can effortlessly improve your own performance and will hopefully will last longer than typical New Year’s resolutions (or my first cactus).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lizzy Holling lives in Yorkshire, UK and is an A-Level student with a love for writing and exploring. She writes about a variety of topics including lifestyle, book reviews, new discoveries and anything else that sparks her interest. You can find Lizzy’s social media links and view more work on her blog.