Tag Archives: Indoor Plants

The Benefits of Indoor Plants and How to Keep Them Fresh

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Having a natural ambiance around your house and workplace is not only aesthetically pleasing but has also proven to increase productivity and positively impact mood and behavior. No doubt that indoor plants trigger a feeling of happiness from inside. Setting up foliage in your environment reduces anxiety and stress since interaction with nature improves self-being.

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Many studies and researches have proved promising impacts of having greenery in your surroundings. Here are but a few of the benefits of indoor plants:

1. Increased healing period

People are arranging more and more planters in hospitals, workplaces, and homes. Be it outdoor or indoor plants, they all contribute to making the environment a better place to breathe and survive. Furthermore, being surrounded by plants and flowers has proven to be an effective method of lowering blood pressure, reducing stress, improving sleep cycles, boosting immunity, and uplifting mood.

2. Enhanced energy and performance

Happiness leads to success and great performance in overall life. Giving a natural touch to your environment energizes and soothes the soul inside out. Incorporate a wide range of planters indoors and outdoors to naturally stimulate an active and refreshed mood.

3. Plants absorb noise

Did you know that big trees absorb the noise in highly populated and activated areas? Yes, plants, trees, foliage, and vegetation all act in part as sound absorbers. This is why in areas with generally a lot of greenery (such as suburbs) you are likely to hear a lot less noise. The same principle applies to indoor plants. They soak up sound making for a quiet, relaxed, and serene indoor atmosphere.

4. Greenery relaxes you

Connecting with nature is always an effective way to relax and unwind. No matter if it is sitting by the beach watching the waves crashing into the rocks, or feeling the fresh morning air blowing across your hair, being close to nature is just calming. This biophilic interaction relaxes the soul, body, and mind.

5. Improves focus leading to better memory

Isn’t it amazing to know that plants enable enhanced focus, concentration, and memory retention? Studies show that the arrangement of flowers and plants indoors has significantly improved the productivity of tasks at home and workplaces. Having a close connection with nature not only helps concentrate on the task but also improves the quality of the work. It is highly beneficial to include plants in your surroundings for improved cognitive skills and performance.

How to Take Care of Indoor Plants?

Taking care of plants is easier said than done. It is not enough to simply water them and provide them with sunlight. The right combination of the two is essential in order for a plant to grow and too much or too little of either water or sunlight can quickly see a plant wither and die.

Growing plants indoors requires an immense amount of love and sincere hard work. But what if you don’t have the time and energy to take care of indoor plants. Maybe you have a busy schedule or just don’t have much experience with gardening. What do you do then?

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Well, luckily for you, there are many tools available that allow one to grow plants indoors in a manner that is easy, convenient, and effective.

Here a few tips and tricks to make sure your indoor plants flourish and thrive.

  • Pick the right type of plant that best suits the location and environment. Humidity, temperature, and other external factors such as air quality, etc. can all impact the growth of indoor plants.
  • Make sure you water the plants regularly but never too much at once. Excess water is just as harmful as no water as if the soil gets too wet the plant is unable to get the oxygen it needs from the roots in order to grow and will wither and die. To make sure your plants get the right amount of water at the right time use a self-watering planter. See the best self watering planters here and choose one that best fits your indoor or outdoor gardening needs. This tool will help make your gardening tasks a lot easier and a lot less time-consuming.
  • Fertile soil is extremely essential. Add in compost and fertilizers to provide the plant with the nutrient it needs in order to grow.
  • Take care of cleanliness. Prune leaves and branches to give the plant shape.
  • Keep away pesticides and insecticides and allow benefiting insects to make the soil fertile.

Growing Organic Plants Indoors: What To Know

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Indoor plants are a welcome addition to any home. They help spruce up the atmosphere and bring literal life into the room. But sometimes it is difficult to grow these plants due to a variety of reasons, and one of the bigger reasons is the lighting. Throughout the year, the amount of light changes, and it is difficult to find a single spot in the house where a plant will always get sufficient light, due to the movement of the sun.

To solve this problem, grow lights were created, and have become increasingly more popular for home botanists. People have used different types of lights including fluorescent, incandescent, and LED’s (Light Emitting Diodes).

LED grow lights are quickly becoming the most common choice for growing organic plants indoors.

LED-grow-lights

Why LED’s?

LED lights are the most common choice to go with because they are the most energy-efficient and have a wide variety of colors. The light color that works best for chlorophyll absorption, photosynthesis, and growth is a Violet-blue light in the 400-520 nanometer range. Red light(610-720) promotes flowering and budding.

LED grow lights produce a large spectrum of light, and the ones with the most complete spectrum will be the best ones to grow with. They also put off much less heat than the other options, making it possible for you to put the light closer to the plant in this case.

Types of LED Grow Lights

Standard Purple LED’s are the cheapest option for growing, which is their main selling point. They contain hundreds of small low wattage lights(3-5 watts per LED) composed of red and blue lights to emit a purple light.

COB lights (a.k.a Chip on board) lights have many hundreds of tiny lights to make up the one single small chip on the board. They emit a much stronger and brighter white light, which offers better light penetration than the purple LED’s.

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Spread Style LED’s are another powerful light option, and are more specifically tailored to greenhouses with their “rack” style of lighting, which can cover a large area. They are one of the most efficient LED lights on the market, which also leads to them being a rather expensive option.

Plant position and light placement

The position of the plants and the lights should aim to mimic the natural position of outdoor plants.

  • Give each of the plants an even amount of space(unless it is a plant that may help seed another plant), and space the plants accordingly.
  • Use a level surface, and if possible, keep in a spot that is out of a cat’s reach(easier said than done, I know).
  • Hang the lights straight over top of the plants to mimic the sun, at about roughly 6-12 inches over(this distance can change depending on the plant type) Adjust the lights accordingly as the plants grow.
  • Make sure to test the lights out and confirm that all the plants are getting sufficient light. If you are looking to invest in more lights and more plants, testing out the amount of coverage that the lights have over a certain amount of plants may be the best way to determine how many more lights you should purchase.

How long should you leave the grow light on?

This again depends on the type of plant. Most flowering plants or vegetables grow optimally with a long summer day’s worth of light (12-16 hours), but remember that darkness is an important part of the cycle as well. Plants use the darkness to break down the energy that they produce during the day for growth and flowering, a process known as respiration.

To make sure that you do not exceed the recommended time to keep the lights on, you can set them up with timers. Once you set these timers up to go off at the appropriate time, it’s one less thing that can go wrong.

Conclusion

As stated multiple times, everything tends to be plant-specific, and even if you set something perfectly at first, the constantly changing plants will most likely require readjustment of the lights. Pay attention to the plants especially in the early stages to make sure they do not fall victim to LED burns or other complications from improper placement.

Create a Greener Business with These Changes

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Want to make your business greener? It’s easier than you might think to make eco-friendly changes. While there are some challenges you’ll face, implementing green changes into the company delivers a lot of great benefits.

Below, you’ll discover some of the best ways to create a greener business no matter what your budget.

Install solar panels

If you want to really make a difference, you can install solar panels in your premises. This helps to provide greener energy. Using the sun’s rays to power up the building, these panels can also save you a lot of money over the years.

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The only trouble is, installing solar panels isn’t cheap. So, if you don’t have the funds available you have two options. You can see whether there are any government schemes to help fund green changes in your business. Or, you could seek business funding from a responsible lender. You’ll get the money back that you borrowed over time through the money saved with these panels.

Add plants in and around the business

Another great tip is to add plants and trees in and around the business premises. Using trees and greenery outside the building helps to improve the environment. They are known to clean the air, benefit local wildlife and they make the premises look much nicer.

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Planting more trees and vegetation will go a long way in reducing heat in urban settings.

You can use plants indoors too. Adding plants to the office can not only benefit the environment, but your workers too. Research the best indoor plants to add to your business for the most eco-friendly benefits.

Encourage employees to go green

As a business owner, there’s only so much you can do to make the company greener. You’ll also want to enlist the help of your employees to make greener changes. For example, you could encourage them to cycle to work, rather than driving. Or, you could implement a car sharing scheme to cut down on emissions.

greener-business

Switch to renewable energy

Finally, another way to create a greener business is to switch to renewable energy. Did you know some companies focus on providing 100% renewable energy? Switching to these suppliers won’t just help you protect the environment; it will also save you a lot of money potentially too.

It’s worth researching your options to see which supplier best fits your needs. Switching suppliers is a fairly straightforward process these days so you should find it an easy task.

These are some of the main ways to make greener changes in your business. By implementing greener policies, you’ll be able to really cut down your company’s carbon footprint. With global warming remaining a very serious threat, anything you can do to reduce your impact on the environment is going to be worthwhile.

Tips To Improve Indoor Air Quality Without Sacrificing Energy Efficiency

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Every year, illnesses caused by household air pollution from incomplete combustion of fuels used for cooking, like kerosene and biomass, claim the lives of 3.2 million people, according to The World Health Organization. Many people believe that indoor air quality in homes is cleaner than outdoor air, and preventing outside air from seeping into living spaces can help reduce pollution. Unfortunately, these assumptions aren’t true because indoor air is highly polluted and poor ventilation increases pollutants and energy consumption.

how to improve indoor air quality

Typically, moving to a well-designed energy efficient building helps you manage a home’s indoor air quality effortlessly. However, there are several ways to reduce the impact of indoor air pollution even if your home doesn’t feature energy-efficient designs. Below are the best tips to improve indoor air quality without sacrificing energy efficiency.

Use Natural Ventilation Strategies

Natural ventilation strategies rely on wind and buoyancy to enhance air circulation and cool buildings. For example, opening a window at night during summer is an easy way to let fresh air in your home. The cool air then pushes pollutants outside and creates a cooling effect inside the building without artificial cooling equipment.

Other effective natural ventilation strategies include the chimney effect and allowing the cooling sea breeze to ventilate homes through large, operable windows facing the ocean. The chimney effect uses convention, where cool air enters the home in the basement or first floor, absorbs hot air, rises and escapes through upper floor windows.

Add Indoor Plants

Findings from a study on the impact of indoor plants on air quality published in the Air Quality Atmosphere and Health Journal reveal that plants can reduce nitrogen dioxide, a common pollutant, by up to 20%. Since plants absorb pollutants and release oxygen, they are a perfect option for purifying indoor air. Plants also increase humidity and reduce dust levels, thus improving indoor air quality.

Ways to Learn More About Plants

Popular plants that people add to their living spaces, like the pothos plant, peace lily, English ivy, and bamboo palm plants, are effective in improving indoor air quality. However, you can add to your indoor plant collection house plants with fuzzy leaves, such as the green goddess, pussy willow, chenille plant, lamb’s ears, and old man cactus.

The leaves of these indoor plants have tiny hairs on the surface that give them a velvety texture. Besides adding character to your space while improving air quality, these plants are low maintenance. That’s because the tiny hairs also help plants draw moisture from the air, so they can survive on regular spritzes of clean water.

Replace Filters in AC Systems Regularly

Your AC filters play a significant role in trapping pet dander, pollen, dust, and spores to keep indoor air clean. But as dust and other pollutants accumulate on air filters, your AC stops circulating clean air in your home, thus increasing pollution. When air filters are dirty, your AC works harder and consumes a lot of energy. With this in mind, changing your air filters regularly helps enhance air quality and keep your AC system working efficiently.

clogged filter of AC

Contrary to popular belief, indoor air isn’t cleaner or healthier than the air outside. Also, allowing fresh air from outdoors to infiltrate your house doesn’t push energy bills up. With this in mind, using natural ventilation strategies is one of the best ways to improve indoor air quality without sacrificing energy efficiency. Other practices for improving your home’s air quality include adding house plants and changing AC air filters regularly.