Why you shouldn’t worry about keeping plants in your bedroom at night

ONE of my favourite old-school gardening beliefs, which recently resurfaced with the explosion of interest in houseplants, is that it is inadvisable – even dangerous – to have plants in the bedroom.

This centres around the claim that while plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen in the day, at night this is reversed, so they compete with us for the very air we breathe while asleep. The build-up of CO₂ is a genuine problem for indoor air quality, which has been demonstrated to have health impacts, so it is easy to see where the concern stems from. But …