Bedroom Plants: Easy, Air-Purifying Picks for Softer Light

Bedrooms are usually a tough spot for plants in one of two ways: the light is soft because curtains stay drawn for much of the day, and the room is easy to forget because you mostly use it in the dark. The plants below are the air-purifying species in PlantoScan's catalogue that also tolerate lower light or can go at least a week between waterings — so they keep looking good even when they get less attention than the living-room jungle.

A word on air purification: the famous NASA Clean Air Study measured pollutant removal in small sealed chambers, and later research suggests you would need a very large number of plants to match a room's normal ventilation. Choose these for their resilience and the calm a bit of green adds to a bedroom, not as a replacement for opening a window. Snake plant, spider plant, peace lily, dracaenas, rubber plant and palms appear here. If you share the room with a cat or dog, check each plant's toxicity note — several popular air-purifying species are toxic to pets — or pick from our pet-safe lists instead.