Welcome House Plants in the Winter

The winter chill is upon us once again. Some days none of us feel like venturing outside except, of course, for necessary reasons like work and errands. Staying inside our snug houses and apartments seems the best plan. And we are not exactly deprived of company, those of us with pets and house plants, which are rather like pets, anyway. In fact, indoor plants come at last into their own at this time of year. This means not just the new poinsettia or Christmas cactus, but the old reliable plants sitting demurely in sunny windows or on coffee tables in multi-windowed rooms.

There are many reasons to welcome house plants into your home. Among the most common ones are decoration, ambiance, and fragrance. Perhaps the best reason of all, however, is the air-filtering potential of most plants available for indoor horticulture. Several NASA studies from a number of years ago documented the anti-air-pollution attributes of various plants, such as philodendron, pothos, arrowhead plant, ivy, dracena, spider plant, and snake plant. Finding space somewhere for one or more of these common house plants is a worthwhile idea, especially for rooms sealed from frigid outside air for the winter months.

Let me tell you about some of the plants I currently care for in my home in Vermont. In the family room I can count 15 plants, including six pots housing Christmas cacti with blooms in various hues, one small jade plant, one tiny palm, one blooming clivia, three dracenas including one nearly 6-feet tall, plus three pots of herbs (chives and parsley) brought in from the summer kitchen garden. This room has windows on three sides and, accordingly, features plenty of light during the daytime. Despite the lack of a south-facing window, all the plants appear to be thriving. Luckily, they have adapted to my somewhat erratic watering habits, and over-watering, the most common cause of house-plant mortality, is unlikely ever to become a problem for them.

In a book-lined alcove near a stairway, there are 11 more plants. The two largest are a hanging spider plant and a striped dracena. Nearby are three mugs holding spider-plant cuttings, one blooming narcissus bulb, two Christmas cacti in clay pots, a dracena, a pothos, and a hand-thrown pot hosting a combination of snake plant, pothos, and burros tail. There are only a couple of windows here, but one is south-facing and light also drifts in from adjacent rooms and down the stairwell. Upstairs is a workroom where my cacti collection basks in the light from large west-facing windows. A couple of geraniums from the summer garden also reside here, awaiting a return to the backyard setting sometime in late May when all fear of frost is gone.

If you are planning to start or to add to a house plant collection, be sure to take care when bringing the new plants home from the gardening center or supermarket. Double-bag everything, including the topmost leaves or blooms, to stave off the chill air encountered when leaving the store and entering the car or when leaving the car for the house. When placing plants near windows, be sure that the leaves do not touch the glass panes. At this time of year, with very cold outdoor temperatures, transmission of the frost is possible through the glass to the tender leaves. Cold air drafts may be a problem, but also be mindful of hot air drafts from heating vents. Caring for house plants takes time and effort but the results, like beauty and filtered air, make the undertaking a valuable one.

Jessica Damiano, "Low-maintenance houseplants can help you breathe easier", North Jersey Media Group

Stephen, Orr, "Houseplants: Exotics From Far Away, Uneasy in Winter", New York Times

B.C. Wolverton, "Foliage Plants for Improving Indoor Air Quality", NASA archive