We have chosen the best indoor plants that will extend the greenery from your garden into your home whilst bringing all the health and mood boosting benefits of nature into your interior. We have focused on the plants that breathe in the harmful chemicals that are released over time from our flooring, walls and fire-retardant fabrics, ‘clean’ the air by filtering out the toxins and release oxygen back into our living space.
There are many studies that show the wellbeing enhancing ‘powers’ of indoor plants from hospital patients healing faster when the have a view of greenery while they recover, significant increases in happiness levels when people are given a house plant to care for and scientific experimentation by NASA that have tested the best indoor plants for eliminating toxins from an indoor environment.
They also provide a feel-good focal point to a room and are something that are alive in our man-made spaces. Their green colour is known for being restful and relaxing to us psychologically. Indoor plants maximise our plant growing space, especially for those with a small courtyard or balcony.
The Peace Lily or Spathiphyllum
Air purification – filters carbon dioxide, benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, xylene, toluene and ammonia
Care Level – easy
Price – affordable
Pet Safe – no, mildly toxic if eaten.
- Fantastic all-round air purifier removing the widest range of toxins in the air
- Easy to look after
- Happy in low light to bright indirect light
- Likes the humidity of bathrooms and kitchens
- Releases oxygen throughout the night so is good for bedrooms
Easily recognisable for its dark, glossy leaves and contrasting white tear-drop shaped flowers. It removes high quantities of benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, xylene, toluene and ammonia. From your home.
The Peace Lily is the top best indoor plant because it is the easiest house plant to take care of. Unlike other house plants, where you may need to guess when it needs water, the Peace Lily communicates with you by drooping dramatically when it requires water. But don’t worry – it quickly perks back up again when you give it the water that it needs!
Most plants release oxygen during the day; but the Peace Lily continues to release oxygen through the night too – making it great for the bedroom too. However, a Peace Lily is a good all rounder that is happy almost anywhere in the house. It is especially useful to green up corners in rooms that don’t have a huge amount of light, like hallways, bathrooms and those trickier north or east facing rooms.
Parlour Palm or Chamaedorea elegans
Air purification – filters carbon dioxide, benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, xylene, toluene and ammonia
Care Level – easy
Price – small plants are affordable; however the larger the plant, the more expensive it is.
Pet Safe – yes
- Removes a wide range of toxins in the air
- Elegant structural leaf fronds
- Great for adding height to a room or a grouping of plants
- Doesn’t grow particularly quickly
The Parlour Palm gives a touch of the tropical to a room and scores highly on the NASA clean air study for its ability to remove large levels of toxins from the air in your home. It is aesthetically pleasing with its elegant arching leaf stems and will add height to an interior. Several different sized plants grouped together create an impressive indoor garden retreat.
Parlour palms prefer bright indirect light, but if it’s out of the shade, it is an easy to care for plant. The swaying fronds that are attractive to pets, particularly cats are non-toxic.
Parlour palms come from tropical climates, so they prefer warm and humid environments. They like regular misting as well as watering; they like to be out of cold draughts and not too close to radiators where they tend to dry out. Once you find its ‘happy place’ they will grow there for many years. It will grow to 150cm, but it is slow growing and will not outgrow its home quickly. This is why the larger plants can be expensive – they have taken years of care by the grower.
Flamingo Lily or Anthurium
Air purification – filters carbon dioxide, formaldehyde, xylene, toluene and ammonia
Care Level – easy
Price – expensive
Pet Safe – no. The sap is toxic to the skin and harmful if ingested.
- Long lasting flowers
- Architectural shape
- It is fairly expensive to buy, but the spathe flowers last much longer than the cut flower, making it long-term value for money.
Most of the best air purifying plants are all about the foliage – it is the leaves that absorb carbon dioxide and other toxins and then release clean, filtered air back into your room. Generally, the more leaves, the better the purification. The Anthurium is a welcome exception to this rule, offering the best of both worlds, filtering out formaldehyde, xylene, toluene and ammonia whilst displaying beautiful, long lasting blooms in a wide variety of colours. The waxy ‘flowers’ are technically spathes – a brightly coloured leaf designed to attract wild life to pollinate the flower in its natural, tropical habitat.
Th plant grows naturally in South America and the Caribbean where it lives in the rain forest on the branches of the trees or on the forest floor where it is warm and has bright dappled light. In your home, it will like to have the good light levels of a sunny window, but sitting away well into the room where the rays do not fall directly on to the leaves. It likes moist, but not waterlogged soil and being misted every now and then. It also likes being grouped with other plants to increase the humidity levels.
Anthuriums have around 6 flowers a year, each flower lasts between two and three months. This makes it far more cost effective and sustainable than buying the short-lived cut flower.
English Ivy or Hedera
Air purification – filters carbon dioxide, benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, xylene and toluene
Care Level – easy
Price – affordable
Pet Safe – no, toxic if eaten.
- Quick growing
- Easy to look after
- Happy in almost any location
We are all familiar with English Ivy as a native outdoor plant. It’s strong climbing and fast-growing habit means that it spreads easily across walls, buildings, fences in gardens and diverse outdoor spaces. It covers unsightly architecture and man-made buildings, however its not welcome when it strangles trees and shrubs.
Its prolific outdoor performance is down to its hardy resilience. These properties can make it your indoor success story too. As a house plant, the English Ivy is happy to adapt to almost any light condition and is happy even when the soil is slightly too dry or soaking. It’s climbing habit makes it one of the best indoor plants for hanging planters, bookshelves and window ledges as it trails beautifully.
Of all the trailing plants, the English Ivy ranked the best in the NASA study for toxin removal as it filters out substantial amounts of most of the toxins found in your home
The English Ivy thrives in any light condition. If it is growing too fast, place it in a shadier spot or trim it to return it to a more manageable size.
Boston Fern Nephrolepis exaltata
Air purification – filters carbon dioxide, formaldehyde, xylene and toluene
Care Level – medium
Price – affordable
Pet Safe – yes
- Needs to be misted regularly and kept away from radiators in winter which dry it out
- Ideal for low light corners and humid bathrooms
- Great for adding lush greenery
- Good for pets as it’s non-toxic
When putting together a wish-list of air purifying plants, it is good to choose ones that thrive under a variety of conditions, as different rooms and different zones within each room can have very different light levels, temperatures, and levels of air moisture, depending on their aspect.
The Boston Fern or Nephrolepis exaltata likes slightly lower light conditions and higher moisture levels, It makes a good alternative for areas with less light, where you still need the ability of the plant to purify carbon dioxide, formaldehyde, xylene and toluene from the air.
Coming from the tropical rain forest floor habitat, these plants like indirect light as they are used to being in the diffused light of the rain forest canopy in humid conditions. However, they don’t like deep shade. So, placing it in a bathroom, as far away from the window as possible, and regularly misting it provides the moisture that they crave. If your bathroom is darker, it may prefer to sit closer to the natural light.
Variegated Snake Plant, Mother-in-law’s tongue, St George’s Sword or Sanseveria Trifaciata
Air purification – filters carbon dioxide, benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, xylene and toluene
Care Level – easy
Price – mid to expensive it is.
Pet Safe – no toxic if ingested and can cause skin irritation.
- Architectural shape
- Often described as indestructible making it good for houseplant beginners
- Releases oxygen overnight, so it’s good for a bedroom
- Sharp pointy leaves that make it not good around children
- Can cause irritation if handles without gloves.
This is a great low maintenance plant, often described as indestructible. But the base of the leaves will rot over time if over watered.
It reduces significant amounts of household toxins, and continues to release oxygen into the air overnight, making it especially good for the bedroom or guest room. It won’t matter if you forget to water it, as it stores water in its leaves.
Low light, infrequent watering and changes in temperature are never a problem for this plant! It’s tough and thrives in the face of neglect.
The architectural structure of this plant and the bold stripes make it a good focal statement, but as it has sharp leaves and its sap can cause skin irritation, it is not the best choice in a household with small children.
The Mother in Law’s Tongue is a succulent. It holds water in its leaves, so doesn’t need watering very often, hates sitting in water and can withstand drying out. A drink every few weeks in the spring and summer and less frequently in the cooler months should be fine.
Spider Plant or Chlorophytum comosum
Air purification – filters carbon dioxide, formaldehyde, xylene, and toluene
Care Level – easy
Price – affordable
Pet Safe – no, mildly toxic if eaten.
- Easy to look after
- Looks good sitting or hanging
- Leaf tips can go brown and crispy if it gets too dry – mist occasionally
- Likes the humidity of bathrooms
- Releases oxygen throughout the night so is good for bedrooms
- Super easy to propagate.
- Happy in all light conditions
These retro plants are back! They grow fastest in bright indirect sunlight – they dislike the scorching effect of direct sunshine.
Spider plants send off lots of little shoots which grow rapidly. These should be removed and replanted to keep the mother plant in optimum health. The baby plants will grow roots easily in water or soil. This is perfect for filtering more air in the home or gifting to a friend
Dragon Plant or Dracaena Fragrans
Air purification – filters carbon dioxide, benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, xylene and toluene
Care Level – easy
Price – mid range – expensive for larger plants
Pet Safe – no, mildly toxic if eaten.
- Unusual tree – like shape
- Robust and easy to grow
- Doesn’t need much watering
- Very light sensitive
The distinctive Dracaena plant looks a bit like a small palm tree, with a thick husky stem and sword like leaves at its crown. This native African plant sometimes has reddish tinged or edged leaves and it is used to a hot dry climate with little water. This slow growing plant is low maintenance and forgiving of a little neglect, making it an easy to grow plant.
However, it does like dust being removed from it’s leaves. Treat your plant to a little misting to renew the shine on the leaves.
If the leaves turn brown, it could have dried out due to the central heating in your home. Fill a shallow dish with pebbles and top up with water to create a humid environment as the water evaporates.
Weeping Fig or Ficus Benjamina
Air purification – filters carbon dioxide, formaldehyde, xylene and toluene
Care Level – medium to difficult
Price – mid range to expensive depending on size
Pet Safe – no, mildly toxic if eaten.
- Elegant leaves and eye-catching form
- Can shed the leaves during temperature changes or if moved.
- Can grow to an impressive height
- Releases oxygen at night so is good for a bedroom location
- Requires regular watering and misting
The weeping fig has delicately arched branches and lots of shapely glossy leaves making it one of the most elegant of the air purifying plants on our list. However, like all beauties, it requires a little more maintenance than many of our other options.
It is sensitive to changes in light levels and temperature. You will know as it sheds some of its leaves to show that it is not happy!
Once it settles into its new home, it will quickly grow more leaves to replace any that it lost.
It has more leaves than many of the other plants listed here, so it needs more moisture both through regular watering and regular misting to keep the humidity levels up.
It prefers bright, indirect light. The dark green leafed varieties can tolerate more shade than their variegated counterparts.
As an indoor houseplant, a weeping fig will grow to 2 – 2 ½ metres, though this rarely happens. It sized can be managed by pruning it in the winter.
Aloe Vera Barbadensis Miller
Air purification – filters carbon dioxide, benzene, and formaldehyde
Care Level – easy
Price – mid range
Pet Safe – no, toxic if eaten.
- One of the few house plants that likes to sit on a bright windowsill
- Doesn’t like to get cold
- Has fairly prickly leaves
- Gel can be used to soothe minor burns like sun burn
- Releases oxygen throughout the night so is good for bedrooms
This plant has been prized for its medicinal purpose for thousands of years. Now NASA has found that it has air cleansing abilities too. The removal of benzene and formaldehyde from our homes and releasing oxygen in its place it is often recommended for the bedroom. For the ‘natural first aid kit’ healing purpose of minor burns in the gel within the leaves, it is popular in the kitchen too.
The Aloe Vera is one of the few house plants that likes to sit on a bright windowsill making a different addition to the diverse collection above. It comes from the desert and needs 6 to 8 hours of sunlight a day. It holds the water, as gel, in its leaves, so doesn’t need too much water. The leaves are sensitive to the cold, so it needs to be in a warm draft free spot. A window ledge behind heavy curtains creates a cold pocket that they particularly dislike.