Pet owners need to be extra cautious about what they place in their house as it can adversely affect the well-being of their canine or feline friend. When it comes to plants, Gharpedia has curated a list of pet-friendly houseplants to ease your labour in this segment.
Just like parents are accountable for the safety and well-being of their children; pet-owners too are responsible for the health and security of their canine and feline friends. This entails ensuring that every item in your house is pet-friendly alongside taking care of their nutrition, vaccines and other needs.Houseplants are assuming enormous significance in modern households owing to their multiple pluses like they –
1. Add an aesthetic and colourful element to your interiors
2. Freshen the air and eliminate harmful toxins by virtue of absorbing carbon dioxide
3. Improve concentration and productivity levels by nearly 15 per cent!
4. Alleviate stress levels and boost your mood
5. Regulate humiditySo which houseplants are ‘safe’ per se when it comes to your dog or cat?
List of Safe Houseplants for Cat and Dog
Here’s sharing a list of ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) – approved safe houseplants for cat and dog along with their key pluses and some basic requirements they need to blossom in your home sweet home:
01. Xerographica Air Plant
This light mossy green coloured houseplant with twisty leaves doesn’t need soil to thrive.
02. Swedish Ivy Or Creeping Charlie
This pet-friendly houseplant-
- Is colourful and non-toxic with a heavenly fragrance owing to its lavender flowers.
- Does not require much maintenance.
03. Staghorn Fern
These old-worldly plants look perfect when placed on a hanging fixture.
04. Spider Plant
- These eight-legged robust plants add a stylish flair to any room
- It is a child’s play to clip and prune the spider plant
- They can be placed in hanging baskets away from direct sunlight and your cat … who may find their long, dangly stems tantalising!
05. Purple Velvet Plant
This houseplant –
- Is one of the most gorgeous houseplants owing to the purple specks over all of the leaves
- Just needs bright light and moist soil
06. Prayer Plant
- Ziggy stripped leaves – in a bright white and cool green combo – make this a conversational piece for all households.
- It needs bright albeit indirect sunlight.
07. Pony Tail Palm
- Greenery and pure air is what these ring in for your home sweet home
- It is an easy houseplant to care for
08. Polka Dot Plant
- This one’s for those with a fetish for pink! They provide the perfect pink look to any room.
- Replace your Poinsettia houseplant which is toxic to cats and dogs with this and hey do remember to scatter some gold dust to pep up their look on festivals.
09. Peperomia Green
- This one’s a popular houseplant owing to the plethora of ranges and colours it’s available in
10. Parlor Palm
- Parlor Palms are renowned for their ability to thrive in most indoor conditions.
11. Orchid
- All plant lovers with pets must be heaving a sigh of relief upon seeing orchids in this pet-friendly list of houseplants!
- The best bet in this segment would be the stunning Pansy Orchids which have practically no known toxic side effects.
- A good thing to remember is that they demand care and thrive in humid, wet and warm environments.
12. Money Tree
- This large houseplant demands bright sunlight and moist soil.
- Superstition claims that having a money plant helps rake in the moolah!
- Excess consumption of their leaves may lead to gastrointestinal issues for your pets.
13. Hawthoria
- This is a pet-safe succulent substitute for the Aloe Vera Plant.
- Quite easy to maintain, they need weekly watering along with just a little bit of bright light.
14. Christmas Cactus
- Swap the toxic Poinsettia with this fabulous Christmas Cactus with brilliant red flowers.
15. Cast Iron Plant
- This medium-sized houseplant sprouts beautiful and wide moss green leaves.
- It can withstand extreme temperature changes, dust, smoke and other conditions and requires very little maintenance.
- It just needs to be kept in indirect light.
16. Cape Marigold
- The following varieties are non-toxic for cats and dogs – Cape Marigolds, Garden Marigolds and Golden Marigolds.
- They add vibrancy to a room with their sun-burnt orange and yellow hue.
17. Calathea Rattlesnake
- Their leaf movements are what make them outstanding. Daily at night, owing to a drop in the water pressure at the base of the plant’s node, the leaves droop … and voila they rise again on the next day!
18. Burro’s Tail or Donkey Tail Succulent
- This is one of the cutest houseplants as its each branch strongly resembles a donkey’s tail!
- Owing to being dangling, it is perfect for a hanging basket.
19. Bromeliad
- Easy to maintain bromeliads add a hue to your house with their pretty pink and mars red leaves.
- Their best feature is that they can also grow in soil-free conditions.
20. Boston Fern
- These old-worldly houseplants look awesome in hanging baskets.
- They demand low maintenance.
- As they thrive in humid and wet environment hence it would be advisable to place them near a humidifier.
21. Blue Echeveria
- Another stunning houseplant that can virtually grow out of cracks in rocks.
22. Bamboo Palm
- Also known as Good Luck Palms, these non-toxic houseplants ring in greenery to your home.
- It can shoot up to 8-feet and needs a shady environment to thrive.
23. Baby Tears
- Even when consumed by your pets, this plant is harmless.
- This fragile, succulent green creeper with small circular leaves creates a visual impact when placed in small pots or hanging baskets.
24. Areca Palm
- These grow up to 6-12 feet tall, and require – moist soil and bright, direct light.
- One of the best indoor air purifiers they are capable of removing pollutants such as acetone, xylene and toluene.
- The following varieties of areca palm are pet safe – Golden Butterfly Palm, Cane Palm, Golden Feather Palm and Yellow Palm.
25. African Violet
- Stunningly beautiful with its purple bloom and attractive yellow centre. This houseplant livens up any indoor living space.
- Besides your loving care; high humidity, warm temperatures and moist soil is what they require.
Conclusion
Hope the above list of pet-friendly houseplants ascertains that pet owners needn’t go without greenery in their house anymore. But a word of caution – it would be advisable to train your cat and dog to keep away from houseplants. In case curbing the curiosity of dogs and cats is not in your control then the best thing to do is to strive to keep away any plant from the reach of your pets. How? Well for starters you could try placing smaller plants in a hanging basket at a height. The reason is quite simple – ingestion of any foreign element may come with its negative downside for your cat or dog … it could perhaps be a mild reaction but yet adverse.
So this weekend check-out online for the best deals on some of these safe houseplants for dog and cat and give your house a fresh and green make-over without putting at risk the health of your canine or feline friend.You may also like to read following articles:
10 Best Air Purifying Plants to Clean the Air in Your Homes!
34 Houseplants that are Toxic to Dogs!
Author Bio
Huta Raval – An English Literature and Journalism Topper, Huta Raval has graduated from the L D Arts College, Ahmedabad. Post serving for 23 years in the NBFC and Public Library Sectors her desire for ‘writing the unwritten’ brought her to the creative field of content writing. Her clientele comprises of NGOs, Blogging Platforms, Newspapers, Academic Institutions, et al.
