UNTIL it's warm enough to make full use of your garden, terrace or balcony, indoor plants are an option for adding greenery to your life and, indeed, introducing flora to your interior world is an oft-made – and...
'Green' heatwave relief: Plants that cool your house down
12/06/2022
SUMMER has come early to Spain this year, and the first heatwave is already frying us – well over a month before it normally would.
The mercury soaring into the mid-30s or even low 40s is something we kind of expect during the period known in Spain as the canícula, based upon the Romans' association between the Dog Star and the hottest month of the year; said to be a time when weather conditions are stable and calm but when the thermometer goes off the scale, heatwaves in the western Mediterranean are most likely to occur between mid-July and mid-August.
But not in late May and early June, for heavens' sakes.
Still, there's a surprisingly 'decorative' way of keeping cool inside your home, at times of the day when you cannot escape by heading to the beach, without having the air-con running full-blast – or sitting inches away from a fan at top speed if you haven't got air-con at all.
Certain species of plant which are popular indoors and, sometimes, outdoors, pump out oxygen and purify the air – and this, it seems, also serves to cool it down.
Luckily, the ones which are the most effective are typically low-maintenance, and do not suffer too much in the hands of incompetent gardeners – so, even if you're the type whose silk flowers wither up and turn to pot pourri practically overnight, and who wouldn't even trust themselves with floral-patterned curtains in case they turned brown and dropped dead petals everywhere, you might still find you can keep these little fellas green and upright.
As always, ensure plants are out of reach of pets, as many are toxic for cats and dogs – and cats have a cute little habit of using pots as litter trays, which won't contribute greatly to your green-fingered ambitions.
Aloe Vera
This grows just as well in a garden – in a bed as well as a pot – as it does on a terrace or indoors, and thrives in bright sunlight, so you can even put it in your window to block out excess rays at those times of day when the raging red star that's melting us all alive at the moment trains its energy on the glass.
In fact, if you keep it in pots on your terrace, you would be well advised to move it under cover during the rainy season – excess water can rot its roots.
To this end, it normally only needs watering about twice a week – less in winter if you keep it outside.
Plant it in a deep, wide pot, to give the roots space to spread out; 'standard' soil sold in plastic sacks in your local Chinese bazaar is perfectly healthy enough for aloe vera, although they flourish better if you use a soil specially designed for cacti.
Generally, they need very little feeding, and as a succulent, they are very hardy, slow-growing and retain their moisture.
Aloe vera is often sold pure, in bottles or jars, or as the main ingredient in potions and lotions, in cosmetic aisles of supermarkets, health shops, or pharmacies, as a healing and skin-softening agent, and you can buy aloe vera-based juices to drink, which are highly refreshing and very fragrant on a hot day.
If you have a plant at home, the juice from the leaves works well for treating burns, stings, itchy or dry skin, and cools sunburn.
Otherwise, keeping a tub of an aloe vera-based gel in your freezer in summer gives you instant relief if you've overdone the UV rays on the beach.
Golden Pothos
Also known as Devil's Ivy and Money Plant – although don't expect notes and coins to start ripening on its branches – the Epipremnum Aureum is very hard-wearing and needs little care.
It's highly decorative, with very 'leafy' leaves, and the type known as 'Neon Pothos' is a bright lime-green in colour (as shown in the first photo, above, by John Lillis on Flickr).
Keeping this vibrant tone is easiest in full-on direct light, so this is another one you can block out the sun with on your window sill – and it thrives in temperatures that cause humans to wilt. This plant is happiest at between 15ºC and 35ºC, meaning even if you have the air-con running, the level of indoor warmth is still going to be suitable, and if you don't have the means of bringing down the temperature artificially, the Golden Pothos will help do so by absorbing humidity – which it loves.
In fact, at colder, drier times of the year, you might even find that blasting it with a humidifier helps encourage it to grow faster, stronger and brighter.
Always make sure the pot you use has holes in the bottom to drain it well, since, like the aloe vera, Golden Pothos roots are inclined to rot if they're left standing in water.
To this end, you should leave the top layer of soil to dry out completely before watering again, but when you do, give it plenty to drink.
A well-draining, acidic soil, infused with plenty of organic matter, is the best type for fast, healthy growth, although for general maintenance, the Golden Pothos copes very well in almost any kind of soil and rarely, if ever, needs plant feed or fertiliser.
Sansevieria Trifasciata (Laurentii)
If you read our January article on low-maintenance indoor plants for Spanish homes, you might remember we talked about the Sansevieria Zeylanica, known in Spain as the Savannah or Lengua de Suegra – the latter of which translates as 'Mother-in-law's Tongue'.
Well, it turns out your mother-in-law is highly versatile – even if her tongue is long and sharp – since she's not only elegant and attractive, but also low-maintenance.
If you have a 'low-maintenance' mother-in-law, you might be surprised to hear that, in addition, she's capable of stripping some of the warmth out of the room when she enters, chilling the atmosphere.
Indeed, the two appear mutually exclusive – but only in humans. Plants can be both, and if you're on good terms with your mother-in-law, she might be flattered and slightly amused by the comparison.
She hardly ever drinks, either. Whether the similarities end there, or not, is a different story.
The Sansevieria Trifasciata is a slightly different species to the Sansevieria Zeylanica, but very similar in appearance and both are known, in English and Spanish, as 'Mother-in-law's Tongue' – although the latter is also, sometimes, referred to as a Snake Plant. Don't mention this to said female relative if she has a phobia of these legless reptiles.
This variation copes well with sunlight, but needs a certain amount of shade, too, so best kept well inside the room rather than at the window.
Its sleek-looking, dark-green, shiny leaves, bordered in yellow, grow upwards and curl slightly, and the Trifasciata variety briefly flowers, sprouting whitish blooms with long, thin petals.
This is another plant that only needs water very occasionally – about once a fortnight – but normally from the opposite end to the other two. Stand it in a tray with shallow water, so this can be absorbed through the roots.
Spider Plant
Their Latin name is Chlorophytum Comosum, it's native to South Africa – which has a similar climate to eastern and southern Spain – and, if you're looking for it at a garden centre in Spain, you'll find it named cinta, malamadre, papito corazón, araña, or lazo de amor.
Fast-growing, these very long, very thin, pale-green-and-white-striped leaves produce sprouts constantly, which can be broken off and replanted, so you actually get several for the price of one and can spread them all over the house.
Another type which pumps out oxygen, the Spider Plant is the champion air-cleaner – and it's no old wives' tale. NASA – yes, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration itself – carried out experiments with house plants and discovered these were the most efficient, guzzling 95% of toxic substances inside a sealed Plexiglas tank in 24 hours.
They eat up carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ethylbenzene and formaldehyde in the air, and churn out oxygen constantly – for this reason, they are sometimes recommended for smokers who habitually light up indoors, and you might find them in planters along pavements in towns with a high volume of traffic.
In practice, to completely clean the air in an average household, you would need a huge amount of Spider Plants; so many that there wouldn't be space for any humans. Between 100 and 1,000 per square metre, according to scientists – and it's hard to imagine you'd even be able to fit the plants themselves into a space this small.
But every little helps, and a few dotted here and there will provide more oxygen, more cooling power, and more de-polluting than if you didn't have any at all.
Summer indoor conditions are ideal, as these plants like warmth and humidity – they grow naturally in sub-tropical climates – but if you keep them on your terrace or in the garden, and you live in a part of Spain that gets the odd frost in winter, you should try to move them indoors or under cover during this period.
Hang them up or, if you place them on a shelf or table, make sure they have plenty of space so as not to crush the leaves.
Some light, but not constant, bright sunlight, helps them to thrive, but they do not grow so well in complete shade, so put them where they get a bit of both.
Loose soil with excellent drainage, pH neutral or acidic, fertilising once a month over summer, and regular watering help.
They typically need more water than the other three listed above – the soil should be kept very slightly damp, but never waterlogged as this can rot the roots and turn the leaf-tips brown.
Also, the Spider Plant is quite sensitive to chemicals often found in tap water, so your best bet is to collect up rainwater during the wetter months and keep it for refreshing the plant between late spring and early autumn.
If the indoor atmosphere becomes very dry, the leaves can start to turn brown and go crispy – keep them away from the air-conditioning unit and from draughts, and if they suffer from too-low humidity, squirt the leaves regularly with a fine mist of water from a spray-bottle.
Related Topics
SUMMER has come early to Spain this year, and the first heatwave is already frying us – well over a month before it normally would.
The mercury soaring into the mid-30s or even low 40s is something we kind of expect during the period known in Spain as the canícula, based upon the Romans' association between the Dog Star and the hottest month of the year; said to be a time when weather conditions are stable and calm but when the thermometer goes off the scale, heatwaves in the western Mediterranean are most likely to occur between mid-July and mid-August.
But not in late May and early June, for heavens' sakes.
Still, there's a surprisingly 'decorative' way of keeping cool inside your home, at times of the day when you cannot escape by heading to the beach, without having the air-con running full-blast – or sitting inches away from a fan at top speed if you haven't got air-con at all.
Certain species of plant which are popular indoors and, sometimes, outdoors, pump out oxygen and purify the air – and this, it seems, also serves to cool it down.
Luckily, the ones which are the most effective are typically low-maintenance, and do not suffer too much in the hands of incompetent gardeners – so, even if you're the type whose silk flowers wither up and turn to pot pourri practically overnight, and who wouldn't even trust themselves with floral-patterned curtains in case they turned brown and dropped dead petals everywhere, you might still find you can keep these little fellas green and upright.
As always, ensure plants are out of reach of pets, as many are toxic for cats and dogs – and cats have a cute little habit of using pots as litter trays, which won't contribute greatly to your green-fingered ambitions.
Aloe Vera
This grows just as well in a garden – in a bed as well as a pot – as it does on a terrace or indoors, and thrives in bright sunlight, so you can even put it in your window to block out excess rays at those times of day when the raging red star that's melting us all alive at the moment trains its energy on the glass.
In fact, if you keep it in pots on your terrace, you would be well advised to move it under cover during the rainy season – excess water can rot its roots.
To this end, it normally only needs watering about twice a week – less in winter if you keep it outside.
Plant it in a deep, wide pot, to give the roots space to spread out; 'standard' soil sold in plastic sacks in your local Chinese bazaar is perfectly healthy enough for aloe vera, although they flourish better if you use a soil specially designed for cacti.
Generally, they need very little feeding, and as a succulent, they are very hardy, slow-growing and retain their moisture.
Aloe vera is often sold pure, in bottles or jars, or as the main ingredient in potions and lotions, in cosmetic aisles of supermarkets, health shops, or pharmacies, as a healing and skin-softening agent, and you can buy aloe vera-based juices to drink, which are highly refreshing and very fragrant on a hot day.
If you have a plant at home, the juice from the leaves works well for treating burns, stings, itchy or dry skin, and cools sunburn.
Otherwise, keeping a tub of an aloe vera-based gel in your freezer in summer gives you instant relief if you've overdone the UV rays on the beach.
Golden Pothos
Also known as Devil's Ivy and Money Plant – although don't expect notes and coins to start ripening on its branches – the Epipremnum Aureum is very hard-wearing and needs little care.
It's highly decorative, with very 'leafy' leaves, and the type known as 'Neon Pothos' is a bright lime-green in colour (as shown in the first photo, above, by John Lillis on Flickr).
Keeping this vibrant tone is easiest in full-on direct light, so this is another one you can block out the sun with on your window sill – and it thrives in temperatures that cause humans to wilt. This plant is happiest at between 15ºC and 35ºC, meaning even if you have the air-con running, the level of indoor warmth is still going to be suitable, and if you don't have the means of bringing down the temperature artificially, the Golden Pothos will help do so by absorbing humidity – which it loves.
In fact, at colder, drier times of the year, you might even find that blasting it with a humidifier helps encourage it to grow faster, stronger and brighter.
Always make sure the pot you use has holes in the bottom to drain it well, since, like the aloe vera, Golden Pothos roots are inclined to rot if they're left standing in water.
To this end, you should leave the top layer of soil to dry out completely before watering again, but when you do, give it plenty to drink.
A well-draining, acidic soil, infused with plenty of organic matter, is the best type for fast, healthy growth, although for general maintenance, the Golden Pothos copes very well in almost any kind of soil and rarely, if ever, needs plant feed or fertiliser.
Sansevieria Trifasciata (Laurentii)
If you read our January article on low-maintenance indoor plants for Spanish homes, you might remember we talked about the Sansevieria Zeylanica, known in Spain as the Savannah or Lengua de Suegra – the latter of which translates as 'Mother-in-law's Tongue'.
Well, it turns out your mother-in-law is highly versatile – even if her tongue is long and sharp – since she's not only elegant and attractive, but also low-maintenance.
If you have a 'low-maintenance' mother-in-law, you might be surprised to hear that, in addition, she's capable of stripping some of the warmth out of the room when she enters, chilling the atmosphere.
Indeed, the two appear mutually exclusive – but only in humans. Plants can be both, and if you're on good terms with your mother-in-law, she might be flattered and slightly amused by the comparison.
She hardly ever drinks, either. Whether the similarities end there, or not, is a different story.
The Sansevieria Trifasciata is a slightly different species to the Sansevieria Zeylanica, but very similar in appearance and both are known, in English and Spanish, as 'Mother-in-law's Tongue' – although the latter is also, sometimes, referred to as a Snake Plant. Don't mention this to said female relative if she has a phobia of these legless reptiles.
This variation copes well with sunlight, but needs a certain amount of shade, too, so best kept well inside the room rather than at the window.
Its sleek-looking, dark-green, shiny leaves, bordered in yellow, grow upwards and curl slightly, and the Trifasciata variety briefly flowers, sprouting whitish blooms with long, thin petals.
This is another plant that only needs water very occasionally – about once a fortnight – but normally from the opposite end to the other two. Stand it in a tray with shallow water, so this can be absorbed through the roots.
Spider Plant
Their Latin name is Chlorophytum Comosum, it's native to South Africa – which has a similar climate to eastern and southern Spain – and, if you're looking for it at a garden centre in Spain, you'll find it named cinta, malamadre, papito corazón, araña, or lazo de amor.
Fast-growing, these very long, very thin, pale-green-and-white-striped leaves produce sprouts constantly, which can be broken off and replanted, so you actually get several for the price of one and can spread them all over the house.
Another type which pumps out oxygen, the Spider Plant is the champion air-cleaner – and it's no old wives' tale. NASA – yes, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration itself – carried out experiments with house plants and discovered these were the most efficient, guzzling 95% of toxic substances inside a sealed Plexiglas tank in 24 hours.
They eat up carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ethylbenzene and formaldehyde in the air, and churn out oxygen constantly – for this reason, they are sometimes recommended for smokers who habitually light up indoors, and you might find them in planters along pavements in towns with a high volume of traffic.
In practice, to completely clean the air in an average household, you would need a huge amount of Spider Plants; so many that there wouldn't be space for any humans. Between 100 and 1,000 per square metre, according to scientists – and it's hard to imagine you'd even be able to fit the plants themselves into a space this small.
But every little helps, and a few dotted here and there will provide more oxygen, more cooling power, and more de-polluting than if you didn't have any at all.
Summer indoor conditions are ideal, as these plants like warmth and humidity – they grow naturally in sub-tropical climates – but if you keep them on your terrace or in the garden, and you live in a part of Spain that gets the odd frost in winter, you should try to move them indoors or under cover during this period.
Hang them up or, if you place them on a shelf or table, make sure they have plenty of space so as not to crush the leaves.
Some light, but not constant, bright sunlight, helps them to thrive, but they do not grow so well in complete shade, so put them where they get a bit of both.
Loose soil with excellent drainage, pH neutral or acidic, fertilising once a month over summer, and regular watering help.
They typically need more water than the other three listed above – the soil should be kept very slightly damp, but never waterlogged as this can rot the roots and turn the leaf-tips brown.
Also, the Spider Plant is quite sensitive to chemicals often found in tap water, so your best bet is to collect up rainwater during the wetter months and keep it for refreshing the plant between late spring and early autumn.
If the indoor atmosphere becomes very dry, the leaves can start to turn brown and go crispy – keep them away from the air-conditioning unit and from draughts, and if they suffer from too-low humidity, squirt the leaves regularly with a fine mist of water from a spray-bottle.
Related Topics
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