Zeverplants are not for everyone. For example, it was always incomprehensible to us how you could waste valuable space in your office, especially that of the bookshelves, on pots and tubs, from which potting soil crumbles and for whose occupants you have to organize the water supply for the occupants during the holiday weeks through colleagues. Quite a lot of effort for a bit of green color, which could also be brought into the living room with suitable wall decorations or a screen background.
After all, it is a well-known myth that potted plants improve the indoor air quality. While living foliage can absorb volatile organic compounds like formaldehyde, like a 2020 im Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology A published overview of twelve relevant experimental studies showed that every square meter of your office or living room would have to be covered with at least ten potted plants in order to achieve a removal rate of the unwanted molecules that is already guaranteed by normal air exchange in typical buildings.
Bild: Illustration Charlotte Wagner
But maybe questions about effort and benefit completely ignore the anthropological phenomenon of houseplants. The thought came to us when we recently had the opportunity to see Luc Besson’s 1994 film “Léon: The Professional”. The title character is a loner hitman in New York who reluctantly takes care of twelve-year-old Mathilda when her family is murdered by corrupt police officers – but takes care of a potted plant. This apparently belongs to the genus Aglaonema from the aroid family. “She’s my best friend,” Léon explains in one scene. “Always cheerful, no questions asked.”
In doing so, Luc Besson introduced the plant as something of a botanical version of a faithful pet, which viewers soon began to worry about as much as they did about Léon and Mathilda. For example, when the two had to change accommodation several times. Because that’s what we’ve learned about indoor plants: many of them don’t always tolerate moving very well. Hadn’t the designers of the film done their research properly here?
At this point they were actually correct. “The Aglaonema is in itself a frugal houseplant,” explains Timo Riering, master gardener in the Tropicarium of the Frankfurt Palmengarten. “It can easily accommodate frequent changes of location if it is protected from the cold during transport.” And if Léon constantly sprays and wipes his plant-based friend, that is definitely the correct care. “The Aglaonema needs increased humidity, which is promoted by spraying,” says Riering. “The wiping removes dust so the plant can photosynthesize better.” And while the Southeast Asian plant likes shade, like Léon in the film, it might be wise to put it in the sun every once in a while. “If you don’t have the plant directly on the window sill but, for example, in the middle of the room, only a fraction of the outside light reaches it. In such a case it can make sense to even put an Aglaonema in the sun.”
But, of all things, the poetic end of the film is a botanical botch. Then Mathilda plants the plant in the garden in front of her school so that it can finally take root. But an Aglaonema does not tolerate any frost, says Timo Riering. “She wants temperatures of 18 degrees Celsius and more all the time. You can’t plant them out in the garden either here or in New York.”