Want to improve your bathroom air quality, while also creating a luxury spa-like atmosphere? Here’s an easy solution: add live plants. Believe it or not, the bathroom is a great place for indoor plants to thrive because it’s a warm, humid environment. You just need to be sure that you select the right flowers and greenery for those conditions. Enjoy enhanced aesthetics, cleaner air and more by simply working a live plant or two into your space!
Why Plants Work Well in the Bathroom
First and most obviously, plants are pretty. They boost the aesthetic appeal of your bath and make it feel more luxurious by bringing in the beauty of the natural world. Live houseplants also can improve indoor air quality. They take in carbon dioxide and expel oxygen, making a small bathroom fresher and cleaner without much effort on your part. Other plants, such as aloe vera, offer health benefits. Its leaves contain a gel that can be used to treat burns, cuts and wounds.
Plants to Avoid in a Bathroom
Even though plants offer a lot of benefits in the bathroom, they aren’t all created equal. While some varieties will thrive in the low light and high moisture of this part of the home, others will not. In fact, they’ll wilt or even die. Succulents, for example, need dry air and low moisture, so a bathroom environment could be harmful to them. Evergreens, while resilient enough to survive outdoors in all kinds of weather, can fail to thrive in consistently high humidity. Skip these plants when you’re outfitting your bathroom space.
Plants to Choose for Your Bath
The key to successfully maintaining plants in a bathroom is choosing varieties that do well in high humidity, low light and major temperature swings. Plants that are naturally found in a tropical rainforest setting are ideal. Take bamboo, for example. This tropical plant is found in the warm, humid areas of Asia, Australia, sub-Saharan Africa, North America and South America, so it is essentially made for the toasty, damp environment of the bathroom. Bamboo also absorbs more carbon dioxide than other plants and releases 30% more oxygen into the air.
An orchid is another great option. This bold, beautiful, tropical flower does best in moist, well-draining soil and prefers indirect light, such as the kind found in many bathrooms. Or you might choose a basket of begonias, which are happiest in humidity and bright, indirect light. If you have a large enough bathroom to accommodate a potted peace lily next to the shower, this variety will be happy with sunshine and deep watering, as long as you allow it to dry out between drinks. And, of course, there is the aloe vera plant, which not only offers medicinal benefits, but also does very well in typical bathroom conditions.
To get more inspiration about plants that are suitable to use in your bathroom, take a look at the attached resource. In it, you’ll find 10 plants that are perfect for warm, humid settings. Check it out to get ideas for filling your space with gorgeous greenery.
Graphic created by Modern Bathroom, an online retailer where shoppers can buy bathroom storage.
