The best office plants  

When you are looking for plants for the office there are a number of considerations. Price, obviously. And of course, they need to look good. But an office is a unique environment. It's usually fairly shady, may have air conditioning, in the winter it will have a dry heat from the heating sytem and the windows aren't opened often, so it doesn't get much fresh air. A plant here needs to be hardy because most office plants end up being looked after by the cleaner. Unless your cleaner is Alan Titchmarsh they probably don't know much about plants or they'd be working at B & Q and not cleaning your office. So, here you'll find another five very nice plants that fit all the requirements for a modern office.

	The lady palm Lady palm is a beautiful, slow growing plant that's easy to maintain and loves half light. The leaves are large and shiny and resistant to most insects. Extracts lots of toxins from the air, I'm led to believe. It makes a wonderful office plant.
	The bamboo palm According to the clever people, the bamboo palm extracts benzene, trichloroethylene and formaldehyde from the air. I don't know how much of these substances you have in your office but if you do have them I suggest you go and and get this plant immediately. Anyway, even your cleaner will struggle to kill this plant. Dead easy to look after, just keep it out of direct sunlight and don't over water. Every two years or so re-pot and give it some plant food every 3 months.
	Dracaena Janet Graig The Janet Craig Dracaena is a beautiful looking plant. Grows slowly but relentlessly in low light. Throws out a lot of moisture which is great for artificially heated and cooled environments - like your office!
	The dwarf date palm If properly looked after, the dwarf date palm will last for decades and probably several office moves. Originally it was a tropical plant, hiding out under the canopies of larger trees. Thus, it grows well in low light - albeit slowly. It's a tall plant that can grow anywhere from 5ft to 7ft, so it looks great against a column with an uplighter on it.
	The ficus alii Slender, dark leaves make the ficus alii a good looking plant. It grows easily, it's resistant to most insects and it gets to a nice,large size. Expect some leaves to drop off after you've moved it to a new location because it's a little sensitive. But once it's settled in you shouldn't have too many problems with it.

Click for the first five of the ten best office plants...

We don't sell office plants at Serviceteam. But we do design roof gardens. This is a terrible link from this article to another area of our site, but I was really struggling....

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