The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

Plants in your home are not only decorative but scientists have found them to be suprisingly useful in absorbing potentially harmful gases and cleaning the air inside modern buildings.

Tightly sealed offices and homes with their beautiful furnishings are proving to be hostile environments. All sorts of dangers lurk inside- formaldehyde and benzene fumes released from building materials, furniture, and carpeting; ozone from machines, fumes from cleaning supplies, radon and second hand smoke.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) research on indoor plants has found living plants are so efficient at absorbing contaminants in the air that some are launched into space as part of the biological support system aboard orbiting space stations.

Researchers believe these findings about indoor plants have some down to earth applications for cleaning dirty indoor air. It is estimated that 15 to 20 Spider Plants and others can clean and refresh the air in the average 1,800 square foot home.

Recent findings reveal that flowering plants such as the Gerbera Daisy and Chrysanthemum are extremely potent in purifying interior air. Other good performers are Dracaena, Spathiphyllum and Golden Pathos.

NASA research has consistently shown that living green and flowering plants can remove several toxic chemicals from the air in building interiors.

You can use plants in your home and office to improve the quality of air to make it a more pleasant place to live and work, where people feel better, life is better. Houseplants make great gift ideas.

Amaryllis is fun and easy to grow. It starts from a bulb and is usually available now in a kit with bulb, soil and pot at many grocery stores or nurseries. If you have your own bulbs resting, now is the time to pot them.

If you have the kit, follow directions. If you have your own, find a very clean pot just an inch or two larger than the bulb, and use a rich potting soil for planting. A good soil mix would be compost, old cow manure and garden loam in equal amounts. For each six-inch pot, add a couple tablespoons each of sand, vermiculite, and bone meal.

Put a piece of shard over the hole in the pot and add soil to about half. Pack lightly and add enough more so the bulb will be only half covered with soil ½ inch from the top of the pot. Pack lightly again and water well. Set on a saucer in a cool place until growth starts. Full light is needed and the pot turned daily when growth starts.

The leaf growth comes from the center of the bulb and the flower bud will come from the side of the bulb. Sometimes the flower bud comes before the leaves and sometimes two flower buds come, one from each side of the bulb.

It takes about 20 days from the time the bud starts until the first flower opens. Flower stalks have from two to five blossoms and are large with reflex petals and curved stamens with their antlers covered with yellow or dark brown pollen. The flowers open one each day or two and will last more than a week if kept cool and out of direct sun. They are some of the most showy winter flowers we have.