When choosing plants to go in their home or office, many people look for safe species for pets that provide more benefits than just a pretty face.
Chlorophytum comosum, aka spider plants, are among the best houseplant species. They offer easy maintenance, low light requirements, and an attractive look for an indoor space.
But more than that, spider plants can improve air quality, produce oxygen, and reduce air contaminants.
What Are the Benefits of Spider Plants in the Home?
Spider plants offer many benefits as house plants, making them one of the best indoor plants to add to your home.
The biggest reasons to use spider plants are that they:
- Remove harmful toxins from the air
- Produce more oxygen
- Non-toxic to pets and children
- Easy to maintain
- Look great
Purifies Air
One of the most significant benefits of the spider plant is that it can purify the air and produce extra chlorophyll. This means you breathe cleaner air.
Spider plants absorb xylene, formaldehyde, toluene, and carbon monoxide from the air. They then convert them to the oxygen we need, allowing your air to be purer and healthier.
A Clean Air Study by NASA proved that spider plants could remove over 95% of toxins from the air, making it one of the experiment’s best-performing houseplants.
Spider plants also remove particulate matter – fine particles that are very harmful to humans. There are many different types of particulate matter that can occur indoors from various sources. PM (particulate matter) is at the top of the most dangerous pollutants for humans.
Easy to Tend
Another crucial benefit of the spider plant is that it’s easy to care for, with low water and light requirements.
The spider plant is a great species to start with if you’re new to gardening or have a reputation for killing plants. But it’s also a favorite for experienced gardeners.
Spider plants only need water once a week. If the soil feels wet, skip watering, as these plants do not like to stay moist.
You can add more water to the soil in the spring and summer seasons to keep it moist but not soggy. But during the cold seasons, reduce the watering amount.
Too much direct sunlight can cause the tender leaves to scorch, so this plant does well in rooms with indirect or bright artificial light. Bright light will encourage new shoot growth and improve leaf color.
Non-Toxic
Many people have concerns about indoor plants because many can be toxic for small children and pets like dogs and cats.
Spider plants are entirely non-toxic. You can leave them on the ground or at a low level within reach of your pets. You won’t have to worry about poison if they decide to chew on a thin leaf.
Pets may experience mild digestive distress, including a stomach ache, nausea or vomiting, or diarrhea. But these symptoms are due to the stomach’s reaction to unfamiliar food.
It could also be a reaction to the plant food, fertilizer, or pesticides used on some indoor house plants.
If the symptoms continue to persist after a few hours, consult a veterinarian. To prevent your pets from getting sick, keep treated or fertilized plants out of reach.
Resilient
Spider plants are great for experienced or inexperienced gardeners. If you’ve managed to kill off every plant you’ve had, or you have an absent-minded tendency to forget they exist, the spider plant might be the greenery you need in your life.
These plants have a strong resiliency that makes them difficult to kill. If you forget to add water or add too much, the spider plant will forgive you and continue growing.
And since it doesn’t need much light, you can have these in any area of your home or office, even if there are no windows.
The temperature does not affect this plant, so you don’t have to keep your room to a certain degree to make these plants happy.
Looks Great
The final reason you should choose a spider plant for your home is that they look great. Hang them in baskets, place them on tables or shelves, or put them in pots at floor level.
These plants have spiderettes, or pups, small shoots that grow off the mother plant. These small growths hang down off the plant.
Some old-timers may call these “Throw the Children Out the Window” because it looks like the mother plant tossed her young over the side. It’s also referred to as the Airplane plant, ribbon plant, or spider ivy.