#2013alive: alive Staff Talk Houseplants

This week for our 12 Months of Wellness, we’re looking at the benefits of houseplants. Here’s what alive staff had to share about their own experiences with bringing the joys of the great outdoors, indoors.

Caitlin Van Den Brink, Editorial Intern: I’ll admit that, while I love the idea of having houseplants in my home, I haven’t actually owned one in quite some time. This is the result of an experience I had when I was about nine years old, after my parents had somehow acquired a pepper plant to accompany the veritable cactus forest that we had in our dining room. The pepper plant bore several small, bright red peppers, and then promptly died and dried up as we had all forgotten that a plant needs more water than a cactus.

Unfortunately, I liked the sound that the dried up peppers made when I crushed them between my fingers. This lead to a rather painful experience due to a runny nose, pepper powder on my fingers, and a very concerned mother who spent 15 minutes trying to find out why her daughter was crying and exclaiming “my nose hurts! My nose hurts!”

I do, however, keep telling myself that I should get a nice Christmas cactus to put on top of the little bookshelf in my living room, though. Maybe that will even happen this year.

Ellen Niemer, Editor and Creative Services Liason: My desk has become the repository for not only my own plants, but for others’ plants as well. I can’t have houseplants at home because my cat, Batman, eats them, so work is the one place where I can grow plants and enjoy their greenery. They’re calming, and I feel a special satisfaction when they grow and thrive.

I was given a myrtle tree on the first day I started work at alive over five years ago. When I went on vacation one year, my editorial coworkers “plantnapped” Myrtle. I had to follow a trail of clues in a ransom note to find her. So you see, even if you don’t have a green thumb, plants can be fun!

Leah Karpus, Editor: I first heard that houseplants can help remove harmful toxins from the air from one of my coworkers, back when I worked in a health food store several years ago. I’ve had a few indoor plants ever since, and although I can’t test their effectiveness on any potential chemicals in the air, they definitely add greenery and life to the room, which always makes me more cheery!

Grow with us!

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