Strange Machines

Is it possible to upgrade my brown thumb to light brown? My yellow bamboo wilted and one corn plant decided to go yellow but this one bloomed!

I have brown thumbs but these flowers bloomed!

I live by the road. In fact, come to think of it, I’ve always lived by a road with a substantial amount of traffic and with it, a substantial amount of pollution. As a child, I lived by a main road, watching motorcycle riders race through the night and by day, count the number of cars that passed and mentally run myself like a Frogger across the road and back.

Traffic pollution, along with cigarette smoke, contains several hundred volatile organic compounds (VOCs), increasing your risk of various kinds of cancer and numerous health problems. This is a scientific fact.

These days I’m not sure if opening the windows to let in random car exhaust or an unfortunate waft of cigarette smoke is worse or closing all my windows and sitting in the toxic wasteland of modern living with our cheap plywood adhesived furniture and VOCs from our every day things like paper or packaging.

Regardless, there’s no escape. I’ve sought to improve my home’s air quality by introducing plants into the home with the help of NASA scientist Wolverton’s book How to Grow Fresh Air, which helped even this brown thumbed woman here keep some plants alive, namely the Snake Plant, Lady Palm, and Corn Plant. Hardiest plants around.

I really think that companies and communities should take a step further and install a thermal oxidizer equipment in our living spaces. A thermal oxidizer service basically cleans your air. In a closed environment, such as a large office building where the windows are never open (yes, I’ve worked in many of those and seen bugs play musical humans for weeks on end), thermal oxidizer equipment would definitely help.

In truth, it is more likely that factories manufacturing products with toxic chemicals would use them most (and would see a value in installing one). Worker productivity and health matters to their bottom line and an investment in thermal heating services, for instance, would make most sense.

For us civilians living in our shoeboxes, we can only rely on the magical ability of plants to do the same as these equipment. I really do recommend the book and can state for the record that having those small 5 Corn Plants, 2 Snake Plants, 2 Peace Lilies, and 2 Spider Plants in my room has helped my sinuses clear. My Lady Palms do a great job of cleaning the air in the outer rooms and they stay alive too. I have given up on Areca Palms which all die on me. But the tall and graceful Bamboo Palm I just acquired has been thriving, except for a single mealy bug incident that was quickly cleared up with some rubbing alcohol.

The moment I read that plants can remove household chemicals from the air, I went and Googled which ones. Turns out the Areca Palm, Lady Palm, Bamboo Palm, Dracaena (“Janet Craig”), and English Ivy are the top rated house plants among 50 that can purify your air. This comes from a scientific source, Dr B.C. Wolverton who published the must-have book How to Grow Fresh Air.

Now, since we are a multi-cat household, I have to make sure that the plants are safe in case the cats decide to chew on them. I Googled and cross-checked the safe plant list from the plant sciences department at UC Davis and printed that out.

Then I acquired a copy of Wolverton’s book and pored through it. It is worth buying as it tells you how to care for the plants too as well as the crucial which plant removes which chemicals better (aha!). Important for well-intentioned brown-thumbed people like myself who can kill cactuses (my 2 are dead) and have a memory made of cheese. Anyway, I got mine off Amazon but Kinokuniya sells it too (they brought it in too late and I got impatient).

Armed with all the information, I consulted my godmother, who can keep bonsais alive without watering them (evidently she got all the gardening talent in the family) and she told me to buy the plants from the nursery or Ikea. Pouncing on the opportunity to spend nagless hours at the nursery, she volunteered to take us to Far East Flora and in a win-win afternoon, we browsed to our hearts’ content while my godpa wheeled a thrilled Wolf around in the plant carts.

That day I picked an Areca Palm, Boston Fern, Basil and Mint (to ward off the flies who love the kids’ poo pans), and a Janet Craig plus 2 cactuses which are dead now. So are my orchids. Okay, that’s another story.

But anyway, not long after, I went to Ikea and picked up another Janet (the one plant that is flourishing), Areca Palm (which Boy and Buffy love to chew), and another Janet-like plant that I still can’t identify but it was $1.50 and is still alive. I got a mini-Boston Fern or Kimberly Fern (they look alike but the Kimberly drops less) and to date it looks like Batman’s nemesis Two-Face (half dead half alive).

My sister donated a large flourishing Boston Fern and that lucky plant showers with me every few days (it loves to shower) and cleans the air in my room very well. Day time I take all the plants out to sun and in the evening I bring them in to clean the air. Incidentally, the plant which is thriving the best is interestingly, the Janet. Lush leaves are sprouting every day and it is growing taller than a weed.

I’m happy to report all the plants, save for those reported dead already, are still alive and seem quite happy living here, despite the occasional rude chomp from a hungry cat. Perhaps even a brown thumb can turn green with enough information, love and care, and the right amounts of sun and water.

Hmm… maybe tomorrow we’ll go to Ikea with my large Reisenthal bag…

There’s nothing like plants that pretty up the home and lift even the dourest spirits (okay, maybe all but the dourest). Today my godma’s eyes lit up when I mentioned the word “nursery” and off we went with my godpa and Wolf to the nearest nursery to check out some plants.

Since I have cats in the house, I need to ensure:

1. The plants I buy are cat-safe.
2. If they’re not, that they are hung high up securely and do not drop leaves.

After an hour, I took home 2 small cacti, 1 pot of mint (to ward away cockroaches, or so the green guides say), basil, and a lovely African Violet (which as pretty as it is, is cat-safe)!

Wolf was thrilled to be running around among plants and even enjoyed riding on my plant trolley. He did however, join his grand-godpa to check out a “naughty BMW” he called it, which he glimpsed, waited for it for 10 minutes but didn’t return. We spotted it darting off stealthily later on the way out.

Later when we got home, I hung all of them up in the conservatory (yup, the new name for the pond area) and the herbs outside the cat home. Tux and Buffy sniffed them a little but decided the cat food tasted much better.

After an exciting day, Wolf slept in an instant. It was a really fun day for him.