The Best Houseplants for Urban Education

[I’m catching up with my blog posts for this semester.  Since I used one long post (instead of many shorter ones) to address where I was with my unit, I thought a good use of this post would be to look into what plants are the best fit for the urban classroom.]

Plants in a classroom can improve attendance and well being while increasing attentiveness and cleaning indoor pollution.  These are benefits to any class, but those of us who have seen what urban classrooms face first hand know how much we need to use any tool we can to raise the level of student health, attendance, attentiveness and well being.  Of course, urban classrooms have needs that aren’t always the same as suburban and rural ones.  There’s a much higher ratio of students who haven’t been to class as regularly as the better funded suburban schools’ students.  These urban students bring great energy and powerful insights, but their relative inexperience with normative classroom behavior means an urban classroom plant may take a fall now and again.  Beside that, I’ve seen desks and tables propped up with books to stop them from wobbling so much—since the school lacked the funds to fix them.  Again, all the more reason to consider plants that can take a spill without getting killed.

So in this post I explore which houseplants are best suited to bring the benefits of classroom plants to students in urban settings. 

The first two we can rule out right away are areca palms and majesty palms.  These plants grow fast and easy in greenhouses and are cynically sold to ignorant buyers.  They’re almost impossible for the laymen to keep alive indoors.  They're sold as disposable plants, which is good for Home Depot’s profits but bad for your wallet and the environment.  Unless you are experienced with houseplants and willing to take on a project, keep away from these plants.

The quick plant for a lot of people who think they have no green thumb is a cactus.  I’m reluctant to have cacti in urban classrooms since I would be so nervous that the kids would touch them and get hurt and since cacti, when damaged, can take decades to regrow.

The things I looked for in the plants I’m recommending are:

1)   How easy is it to take care of?

2)   How fast does it grow back if a piece gets broken off in the controlled chaos of the classroom?

3)   How many common indoor toxins does it remove?

4)   Is it poisonous?

When all things are considered, my list narrows to three.  The plant that reduces the most airborne toxins is the The Peace Lily.  This is great because it’s also super easy to care for.  It doesn’t need a ton of light (don’t stick it right in the window, indirect light is better and won't burn the leaves) and it is very hard to overwater (since it’s a swamp plant).  Here’s the catch: they are poisonous if eaten.  So is my other favorite, devil's ivy.  So if you need a plant that is nontoxic but also cleans the air and is easy to care for, I think the spider plant is your best bet.

Here's Wikipedia's List  of more options if you wanted a good starting point for your own search.