A shower a day keeps the dust mites away.
Actually, that should really say a shower every week or two keeps the dust mites away, but I liked the sound of that better. I've many varieties of plant life in my bedroom, my house, and they have one thing in common with most everything else in my home.. they gather dust. This is an especially dusty old farm house, and the problem with dust on plants in particular is that little insects known as dust mites will come along eventually if conditions are ideal. There are a couple of ways to deal with this problem:
- Lightly mist houseplants daily with a spritzer bottle or some other contraption that serves the same purpose.
- Take a wet wash cloth and gently wipe down plants with leaves that can handle such.. that is to say, don't try wiping the delicate leaves of a fickle ficus plant with a wash cloth unless you want to severely damage them. The wash cloth method works well for larger plant life, especially of the rubber-tree type genus.
- Give your plant a shower! This is one I find quite quick and easy, and works really well for the larger plants. Of course, you have to watch the water pressure and temperature.. use common sense, and if you don't have any of your own.. borrow some. I guess you could also set plants outside in the rain on a nice warm day..
- There are also sprays you can buy to keep dust mites away. I don't really see the point when you could simply use water.. no chemicals or poison, it just makes more sense.
Don't let the dust build up on your poor little
plant life, especially considering it's infinitely easy to keep it away. Oh, and as for the showering.. you could shower with your plants, but they really don't need a
shampoo. Though, I think you can use
mild soap with water on the leaves to rid them of insects, just keep it out of the soil. Once again, use common sense. Some plants have really delicate leaves and root systems and won't take well to being
drenched in the shower.