After reading Shazzie’s Book, ‘Detox your World’ I became very aware at how many toxins we breathe in at home. Here I was thinking that the air inside my house was better than outside and was shocked to think that perhaps I was feeling tired so much because of what I was breathing in.  I am very sensitive to chemicals and try and stay away from them but its hard when you live in a house that has been painted with the usual toxic paint, the carpets were stuck down with toxic glue and the radiators are giving off toxins as well.  In office’s there is a problem known as “Sick Building Syndrome” where the sufferer feels very tired and unwell from the exposure to chemicals that the furniture, walls and carpets give off.

I started looking into plants and how beneficial they are for us inside the home too.  It makes perfect sense that we should have plants in every room of the house, so that they deal with the toxins and that we don’t have to.   One of my friends has a lovely home that is packed full of plants and whenever I go there it always feels so fresh, despite the windows being closed if its too cold to keep open for long.

House of Plants, is a huge company that sells plants for commercial buildings and offices as well as for residential homes.

I found them whilst doing a basic google search and after looking at other sites, I found that they were the best. The website is set out really well, its very easy to look for a certain type of plant that you want and there are large pictures of the sizes they come in, how to care for them and where to put them in the home or the office.

What appealed to me straight away was the Fresh Air Collection  (www.houseofplants.co.uk/Collections_freshair.htm)- 5 plants and palms that are chosen specifically to clean the air around you at work or at home.  This was exactly what I was after!

Fresh Air Collection 5 carefully chosen plants for cleaning the air

We also chose an extra plant which is  specifically suited for the bedroom.  Most plants during the day give off oxygen and reverse the process at night so you have to keep those kind of plants out of the bedroom and instead use one that does the opposite. Mother in Laws Tongue does just this and is very pretty as well with its white flowering leaves.

Mother in Laws Tongue – perfect in the bedroom

In this collection there are one of each:

170cm high Dracaena “Janet Craig”
150cm high Areca Palm
60cm high ZZ plant
60cm high Spathiphyllum (Peace lily)
40cm Boston Fern

We have put three plants in the living room as thats where we spend most of our time.  Its amazing how its changed the atmosphere in here, its lovely to have nature all around you in the house. My husband said wow we live in a forest when he first saw the house.

We kept the Dracena in here, the Areca Palm and the ZZ plant in the living room with the Boston Fern going into the bathroom.  The Peace Lily looks lovely in our kitchen.

This collection is a wonderful way to bring healthy plants into the house but it really depends on size of your rooms, how many you will need.  For our large bedroom we may need 3-4 more plants so check out what you will need for your rooms. We will be getting more to ad to the rest of house so that every room we go into it has a safe environment.

These kind of plants, if looked after well, actually seem to thrive on these chemicals it absorbs.  Its funny how nature really can help us sort things out, if only we appreciate that more and stopped being so wasteful and destructive to the environment.

You can choose to have the plants in basic pots or, you can also buy the self watering pot plants which are available in many different styles.  We chose to have the self watering ones because, I am not really someone with a green thumb, well not yet anyway!

I liked the look of the Cubico pots in the charcoal colour.

When you pay for the plants, they will be delivered in the next few days and the company contacts you for the best date and time. The staff are very friendly and more than happy to help you with advice after sales as well.I wanted to know what plants suited which room and they were very quick to reply to my emails.

I have a list of plants I am going to get over the next few months, ones for our kitchen and other bedroom.

They arrived very well packaged and, as they were sent by courier they were each wrapped up in cardboard and plastic.  There is quite a lot of waste, which is the only down fall but just make sure you put the cardboard out to recycle.  The good these plants do, outweighs the bad here.

I contacted the company and mentioned this to them and they explained that whilst they do realise this, unfortunately, they dont have much choice because plants that aren’t protected properly often fall over in transport, get damaged and not get to the customer in a good condition.

I can’t tell you how lovely the atmosphere is in the house now that the plants have arrived.

Its so important to have fresh air and if you live in a big city like I do, then you know how hard it is to have fresh air unless you go to a forest.! So I say, why dont you create one in your own home?

To listen to this short talk on benefits of plants please click play

Prices for the Fresh Air Collection start at: £142.00 Self watering pots are extra.  You can of course, by smaller plants and single plants but for us, the Fresh Air Collection was the best way to start bringing some nature into our home.
www.houseofplants.co.uk