Hi friends, welcome to House Plant Tips and Tricks!
Right off the bat, I need to make it extremely clear that low light does not, in any way, shape, or form, mean no light. All plants require adequate light to grow; there is just no way around it. You can’t live without food or water; plants can’t live without light or water or food. Low light is going to be the areas of your home that light still technically reaches, just not very much of it. Think like 10 to 15 feet away from a decently well-lit window, maybe like 5 to 10 feet away from one that’s not so decently well-lit. And of course, it kind of goes without saying, but all of these house plants would grow better in brighter light conditions.
Chinese Evergreens
The first low-light plant I’m going to spotlight today is one that I’ve kind of been a broken record about lately. I just can’t help it; they’re such wonderful house plants, and that is the Aglaonema, or the Chinese Evergreen. This, in my experience, is the best foliage-forward house plant to put in low-light areas in your home. They come in all sorts of colors, patterns, leaf shapes, sizes, just overall vibes. So if you’re not feeling the one that I have on my table here today, there’s like at least one, if not like five to ten, that you will absolutely fall in love with. There are a lot of brighter color varieties of Chinese Evergreen that sport like pinks and reds and oranges and even yellow colors on the leaves. And those varieties are a little better suited for the medium to brighter light areas of your home. But the green varieties, with a common name like Chinese Evergreen, I think you could imagine that there’s a lot of green varieties. Those are the ones that are going to be best suited for the lower light areas of your home. Though it is worth mentioning that those brighter color varieties can be acclimated to the lower light situations in your home. I would just recommend starting them off in a brighter light situation and slowly acclimating them to darker light, maybe moving them a couple of feet further away from the window like every month or so, once you’re starting to notice that the plant is actively growing in your space and is comfortable with the conditions that you have. The variety I actually have growing deepest in my home is the Aglaonema ‘Spring Snow’, which is a variety that dons all of this white splotching all over the leaves that practically makes it look like a fake house plant. All of that white splotching would lead one to think that it requires much more sunlight for it to properly photosynthesize. But after four or 5 years of owning this house plant, it’s sitting like 25 feet away from the closest window and it still grows perfectly fine for me. I just wouldn’t recommend immediately putting it 20 to 25 feet away from the closest window because then it would probably not do very well.
When you first bring home a Chinese Evergreen from the plant store, it’s not uncommon for that plant to experience a bit of shock right off the bat. And usually, a couple of those lower leaves on the plant will turn yellow, maybe get a kind of wilty looking, and will eventually fall off. This is often just because the conditions that the Chinese Evergreens are growing in the greenhouse are such prime conditions with the perfect lighting and the perfect humidity and just overall growing conditions, that when we move them to our homes which do not have all those prime conditions, they do suffer just ever so slightly. But these plants are truly tough as nails. So once they make it past that initial shock, I will usually find nine times out of ten that the plant just grows completely fine without any problems from that point on. To try to mitigate this, I would recommend placing your Chinese Evergreen in a decently bright-lit spot in your home. You don’t want any direct sunlight as direct sun can really scorch these leaves. These are the green varieties in particular that are true low-light house plants, so I wouldn’t put them in too bright of light. But maybe near a north or east-facing window would be a really good place to start them off. And then after a week or two, once they’ve gotten over the hill of that initial shock, then you can go ahead and move your green Chinese Evergreen to a darker area of your home. Or, as I was mentioning with the colorful varieties, maybe just slowly move them over to a darker area in your home.
When it comes to really popular plants on the market like Philodendrons, for example, a lot of plant enthusiasts love to go digging online to find like weird and out there varieties of Philodendron to try growing in their home. But so often, those lesser-known varieties of Philodendron are just like so difficult to actually maintain in the home, and that’s why they are so lesser-known and difficult to get your hands on. However, if it’s a green Chinese Evergreen you find, some random green variety of Chinese Evergreen you’ve never seen before, you’ve never heard of it before, I would recommend giving it a go. If it’s green, I’m trying to think of a rhyme here, I can’t think of anything good. But if it’s green, it’s good. Alliteration is better than nothing, I guess. So yeah, if you find a fun green Chinese Evergreen, I’ve got a handful around my home that I had never heard of before, saw them online, thought I’d give them a go, and now they’re some of my favorite house plants in my home. So Chinese Evergreens are so amazing. I’m going to stop talking about them now because I could probably talk about them this whole article and who wants that? I mean me, but like, I don’t think you want that.
ZZ plant
So let’s move on to our next option for low-light house plants, which is going to be… Which one are we going to talk about next? Let’s talk about the ZZ plant, ’cause I think the ZZ plant is the most quintessential low-light house plant. ZZ plants are the only house plant that, back when I worked at the house plant store, if somebody came to me and asked me about a plant to put in their basement that only has little, like, storm windows or like a windowless bathroom that they desperately wanted some greenery in, the ZZ plant was the literal only plant that I would feel comfortable selling them. And I could never guarantee them that it’s going to thrive, but I can guarantee them that in no light conditions, this is the only one that would truly survive. I think that one truly passed the test with flying colors and really just cemented its spot as like the only house plant that can be recommended to people with no light. Would it grow better in brighter light conditions? Hell yeah! But no light, I think, is perfectly fine for the ZZ plant. Just please don’t subject any of these other house plants to no light conditions ’cause they will end up in the trash. Along with tolerating no light conditions or extremely low light conditions, the ZZ plant is extremely tolerant of drought.
Speaking of whenever you do have plants in lower light conditions in your home, you can help prevent them sitting in too much water for too long by amending the soil with either perlite or pumice. Adding perlite or pumice into your soil mixes will increase the drainage of the soil, which not only gives your plant’s roots more room to breathe and grow, but will help the soil not retain moisture for as long, which is a really helpful thing when you’re working with lower light areas in your home. As when your plants are not photosynthesizing as much, they are not going to process the water as fast, and sitting in wet soil for too long can really just be the death sentence for a lot of plants, especially for a plant like the ZZ plant that has very thick succulent stocks as well as a very tuberous root system that can rot very easily if it’s sitting in excess moisture. Repotme.com has both perlite and pumice available for purchase on their website, as well as a bunch of other soil amendments that are perfect for helping your plants thrive. And before we move on to our next low-light plant, I just want to point out that this variety of ZZ plant I have today is actually the Black ZZ variety. ZZ plant typically, you’re going to see the green ZZ variety as the most common option, but this black leaf variety has really taken the market by storm in the last couple of years and gotten a lot of attention, and I think it really deserves that because these black leaves really stand out amongst the rest and really provide some juxtaposition amongst the other plants that we have in our homes.
Dracaenas
Both ZZ plants and Chinese Evergreens are going to be offered as large floor plants at your local house plant store, so these are both great options if you are looking for a larger house plant. But my personal favorite low-light floor plant is going to be the Dracaena. This variety that I have here today is obviously not going to prove that point; it’s just the only one I have in my home that I can fit on my table But there is just so much variety when it comes to Dracaenas, so just like the Chinese Evergreens, there is at least one variety of Dracaena for everybody. My favorite Dracaena is actually one of the plainest looking plants on planet Earth, and that is the Dracaena ‘Janet Craig’. I have no idea who Janet Craig is; I’m assuming from the context clues that she’s a botanist and a wonderful woman if she’s anything like the plant that’s named after her, which sports green leaves and green stems or green stalks, trunks, whatever you want to call it. So it’s just an all-green plant, so it’s never going to like steal the attention that some other floor plants might, like a showy Chinese Evergreen is probably going to catch some attention, but a Janet Craig, no one’s going to notice that plant whatsoever. It’s just going to be a filler plant at its core. But there are so many different varieties of Dracaena to choose from. One of my new favorites is the one that I have sitting on the table here. This is called the Dracaena ‘Goldiana’. This is obviously much smaller in stature than all the other ones I’m talking about today, so it’s going to take a long time for this to be a floor plant specimen, if ever. This plant serves a much different purpose for me; this is a much more ornamental house plant with that lovely pattern on top of the leaves and that fun purple underside that it gets that really makes it stand out, especially as the new leaves are growing in. So it’s going to take a long time, if ever, for this to be a floor plant. That’s not really the goal of this house plant; it’s one that’s just to be showy in a low-light area. I have this one on my desk over where I do my work so that I can really appreciate this lovely house plant and really just get the full experience from it as often as possible. It’s already like doubled in size over the last six months since I’ve had it, and I’m very, very excited to continue to watch this guy grow because it’s really cementing its place as one of my new favorite house plants, and I highly recommend it to anybody watching who wants something a little bit different.
Dracaenas are pretty drought-tolerant as well, probably not as drought-tolerant as ZZ plants, although almost on par, I would say. My larger varieties of Dracaenas, I’m probably giving them a good drink like every two or three weeks, and if I go too long without watering them or if they experience an extended period of drought, those stems or stocks or trunks, whatever we’re calling them, are going to slightly pucker in, and once I go ahead and water that plant, it’s going to plump back out over the next day or two. If you go way too long without watering them, they might pucker extremely, and they might take a little bit longer to recover, but in my experience, they will recover. It will just take some time. These plants are tough as nails. And I should mention that technically, snake plants belong in the Dracaena genus now, but I’m not talking about snake plants today because snake plants are not low-light house plants. That’s just how they’re marketed as, but they are truly bright-light house plants, at the very least medium-light house plants. So while most low-light articles are going to talk about snake plants, I’m going to debunk that and say that that is not true. So while true leafy Dracaenas are low-light house plants, the succulent Dracaenas or snake plants are not low-light house plants. So I would recommend keeping those in particular closer to a bright window that does receive some good direct sunlight.
Scindapsus
Trailing house plants can really give that home the jungalow vibe, so I had to talk about today, and the one that I wanted to spotlight is the Scindapsus. The most common species of Scindapsus is going to be the Scindapsus pictus. This one right here is a variety of Scindapsus pictus, but there are so many out there, fun varieties of Scindapsus pictus in particular that have been appearing on the market, so you’re going to find a lot more of those in house plant stores today than you would have in the last couple of years, and for much better prices, definitely worth noting. But there are some other species also nudging their way onto the market. I would say the Trebi and the Heter racist are probably the most prevalent in today’s time, although that can probably change in just a month’s notice because the plant market’s always changing in today’s climate. But besides those two, the market is just really flooded with a bunch of different, very similar-looking, and sometimes very different-looking varieties of Scindapsus pictus. In brighter light conditions, Scindapsus can grow up to like a foot a month, if not more than that, particularly the smaller-leaf varieties of Scindapsus. The larger-leaf varieties of Scindapsus pictus and other Scindapsus species like this guy right here, the Scindapsus pictus something, I can’t remember the variety. It’s going to grow much slower than those smaller-leaf varieties. So if you are impatient, I would push you to get the smaller-leaf variety Scindapsus, but the larger-leaf varieties do look, in my opinion, arguably a little bit better. So I completely understand you’re going for the larger-leaf varieties over the smaller-leaf varieties. My favorite thing about Scindapsus is how vocal they are when they need a drink. You will see the leaves visibly curl backward, like the way I’m bending this leaf right here. Once you notice that, it is time to check the soil, and it’s likely time to water. And typically, within a day or two, or maybe even just a couple of hours, depending on how long it’s been since you’ve last watered the plant, the plant will typically look good as new. This leaf curl makes this one of the best options for a plant to put out of reach. If you’re going to hang up a plant or put it on top of a cabinet or on top of a wall or something—I don’t know, we all have different situations in our home—this is such an incredible option because you don’t need to check the soil. I mean, you do need to check the soil, technically, but you’re going to look at the leaves to know when it’s time to water. So you’re not going to have to get up there with the moisture meter and put your finger in the soil just to check every couple of days. No, you can just—it’s like you’re having a conversation with a Scindapsus. That’s what I really love about them. They’re going to tell me when it’s time to water. I don’t need to do anything for it; it’s going to do everything for me. I literally have these all over my home. I don’t even know how many varieties of Scindapsus I have at this point, but every single one is out of reach because it’s literally the only plant that I can trust 100% of the time if it’s out of my reach that I’m going to be able to water it without it going too far beyond the point of no return.
Prayer plants are low-light plants that are notorious for being finicky, and I’m not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you that they’re not. But there are a couple of varieties, a small handful of varieties, that I have found to be much heartier than most of the other ones over the last couple of years, and those three varieties are the Calathea orbifolia, the Calathea musaica, and the Maranta leuconeura ‘Marisii’. These are all arguably less showy than most of the other varieties of prayer plants out there, but at least there is some prayer plant that we can grow in our home without most headaches. Can’t say no headaches, but minimal headaches out of all the genera that belong to the Marantaceae family. The most common that we’re going to be seeing at house plant stores are Calathea, Stromanthe, and Maranta. Stromanthe is hands down the easiest and most maintainable in the home. The Maranta ‘Marisii’ is my personal favorite, and the only one that I actually grow in my home right now. But if you do see a Calathea out there and you really like it, I would say why not give it a go? It’s worth a try. Other Calathea varieties that I didn’t mention and Marantas and Stromanthes, I’d probably just leave them at the plant store; let some other poor soul bring them home and try to figure them out. But those three, Calathea orbifolia, Calathea musaica, and Maranta leuconeura ‘Marisii’, are all plants that I would highly recommend giving a go if you do find them in the house plant store.
