The Healing Garden: A Place Of Peace

Gardening For The Soil Gardening For The Soul

Finding Solace In A Changing World

ISBN 0-9733085-0-8

By Gwen Nyhus Stewart

Chapter 9 Creating An Indoor Garden

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In this chapter:

Ø Plants that Eat Toxins

Ø Reasons for Creating an Indoor Garden

Ø Practical Steps to Creating An Indoor Garden

Ø Additional Indoor Plants and Colour Energy

Ø Remember

“You know you are a gardener if you find compost a fascinating subject.” - Unknown

There are many reasons for creating an indoor garden – significant among them is the need to clean the toxins from our homes and offices. How many of us feel healthy spiritually, socially, and physically on a daily basis? We work in structures called ‘sick-buildings’; we go home

to care for families, so tired we are almost unable to function; and we increasingly lose our connection with any sense of our place in the universe.

As a consequence of the energy crisis in the 1970’s, today’s homes and offices are built to conserve energy and the outcome has been a lack of air exchange, with the resulting increase

of indoor air pollution. The WHO has stated, “there’s probably more damage to human health from indoor pollution than from outdoor pollution.” Symptoms associated with ‘sick-building syndrome’ include allergies, asthma, eye, nose, and throat irritations, fatigue, headache, nervous system disorders, respiratory congestion, and sinus congestion. In

today’s society, more and more people exhibit these symptoms as a result of staying indoors

the majority of the time. B. G. Wolverton says, “The lack of foresight by architects,

engineers, and health officials in predicting the consequences of modern building

design for the quality of the air we breathe has brought us to the brink of a modern

day health disaster.”

One of the ways we can change this predicament is to become knowledgeable about and responsive to the environment that we live and breathe in. Foliage plants give us the opportunity to not only provide the calming influences of nature in our homes and workplaces, but also provide us with the oxygen we need to live. In a study conducted by N.A.S.A., researchers found that plants also clean the air inside our homes, buildings, and offices. Horticulturist Ken Beattie suggests, “The next plant you buy may save your life.”

This is the beginning of the ninth chapter of the book The Healing Garden: A Place Of

Peace by Gwen Nyhus Stewart. There's lots more information online, but if you've read this

much, you'll undoubtedly find the book of great value!