By Andrew Williams •
March 26, 2009
Go on, admit it - how many times have you forgotten to water your houseplants? Maybe you’ve even left some of them so long they’ve withered away to nothing. In fact, the chances are that if a plant could talk the thing they’d be most likely to say would be WATER ME!
Well, thanks to a new device, your long-suffering plants will now be able to do just that. What’s that you say - a talking houseplant? Well, not exactly, but thanks to researchers at New York University’s interactive telecommunications program plants will now be able to to tell owners when they need water or if they’ve had too much via the social networking service Twitter.
By Lucille Chi •
April 16, 2008
Placing a phalaenopsis orchid (shown here) removes toxic xylene from the air which comes from the electrical equipment around you including TVs and computer monitors. UK based Style Wll Save Us (SWSU) has a great book review out on this topic called Eco-friendly Houseplants - 50 Indoor Plants That Purify the Air in Houses and Offices.
I discovered the peace lily absorbs alcohol, acetone, trichloroethylene, benzene and formaldehyde. The lilies are also known to help reduce allergies. No wonder I’ve seen them as ‘get well soon’ arrangements in hospital gift shops. Indoor gardening brings oxygen, beauty, and joy and removes toxic icky particles from the air.
So where do these problems in the air start? Well, trichloroethylene is released in printers. Formaldehyde is traced back to gas cookers, upholstery, wood stains, curtains, floor coverings, varnishes and ceiling tiles. Acetone is in many cosmetics. Benzene is common in carpets, paints, varnishes, adhesives and wallcoverings and alcohol is present in perfumes and mouth wash. The houseplants reviewed purify the air better than any expensive air purifier by absorbing the bad air and sending out oxygen to heal and invigorate. I was eager to test this fact so I went out
