10 Best Low Light Indoor Plants for Your Home and Office
Do you love plants but live in an apartment with limited windows?
Do you love plants so much that you want them on your office desk but the closest window is several cubicles away?
Are you looking for the right plant for a dark pocket of your home screaming for green love?
Search no more! I’ve got you covered! These 10 plants are the best low light plants you can find for your home and office.
I’ve compiled this list based on my very own experience, so it’s all tested and true! The beauty of this list is that not only these plants thrive in moderate to low light conditions, they are also beautiful and easy to care for. Each and everyone of them is going to do a fantastic job at beautifying your space, whether it’s your home or desk at the office!
1) ZZ Plant (Zamioculcas Zamiifolia)
This is one of my favourite plants! It looks gorgeous, it’s extremely easy to care for, it tolerates drought, it propagates easily and, to top it all off, it purifies the surrounding air! How perfect is that?
This plant is definitely the best choice for a room, like an office space that has very little natural light, even no windows, as long as fluorescent light is provided.
Water it approximately once every two weeks.
The only major draw back off this plant is that it’s fairly toxic for pets. This plant is not recommended for pets that like to chew plants…(We do have a dog and he is perfectly safe as the plant is sitting high on a stand where he can’t chew either the stems or the leaves).
2) Snake Plant (Sansevieria Trifasciata)
This plant is also an excellent choice for dark spaces. It’s no coincidence that this is one of the most popular plants for malls and offices. They are extremely easy to care for, require very little watering and low light conditions.
Air purification is another advantageous aspect of this plant.
Its modular and tall vertical leaves makes it a perfect space partition and delineation living tool. This plant is often used to separate spaces, like for example, a common work area from a series of individual desks, or to create a visual signage to direct traffic to a specific area, like for example a row of these plants on each side of a main entrance.
Water it approximately once every two weeks.
3. Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum)
Peace Lilies are very common house and office plants as they are easy to care for once you’ve provided them with the right conditions to thrive.
These plants do well in moderate to low light conditions. When they are exposed to more light they produce beautiful and specialized white hooded leaves. In darker areas the plant will continue to produce green leaves.
Peace Lilies are also air purifiers!
This plant should be watered once the leaves start to wilt. Watering on schedule doesn’t always work with this plant, intact, the most common mistake in caring for Peace Lilies is overwatering.
A trick I learnt to avoid browning of the tips is to pour water in a container the night before watering. This will help excessive chlorine in the water to percolate out overnight.
4) Devil's Ivy (Pothos)
Pothos are great plants for plant newbies as they are easy to care for and thrive in a wide range of light and humidity conditions. They can be grown in soil or even in water, which allows for more display options. (I arranged my Pothos in a moss ball called Kokedama and it continues to grow!).
While these plants are adaptable to different light conditions, they seem to do well in low natural light environments, such as offices and bathrooms.
Even though the picture here below shows a variegated Pothos, the most successful types of Pothos for low light environments are the non-variegated types, like a Golden Pothos. A variegated leaf Pothos will still grow in a room with low natural light, but it will loose its variegation.
Pothos are extremely easy to propagate.
Water approximately once every one to two weeks if potted in soil.
5) Spider Plant, (Chlorophytum Comosum)
Spider Plants are extremely adaptable plants; basically impossible to kill and because of this, highly recommended for Black Thumbs!
These plants are ideal hangers for moderate to low light environments, they like to thoroughly dry out between waterings and produce many spiderettes that can be used for propagating the plant.
Spider Plants come in green or variegated varieties as well as curly, like the one shown in the picture here below.
Water approximately once every one or two weeks.
Photo Credit: Succuterra
Hey Plant Loving Woman!
Are you a middle age mom?
Do you constantly feel overwhelmed and anxious?
Do you believe in the healing power of nature?
To reveal your #1 Personal Houseplant that best
helps you reduce your anxiety.
6) Maidenhair Fern, (Adiantum)
Like many other types of Ferns, the Maidenhair Fern is a highly decorative plant that adds charm to every environment is placed in.
While this plant does really well in low natural light conditions, it requires a humid environment to thrive, making it the ideal candidate for bathrooms.
Ferns do not grow well in dry areas, hence, growing this type of plant indoors requires more care and attention than other plants. Ferns enjoy humid and moist soil; they should be misted daily or placed on a water filled pebble tray.
I love ferns, especially the Plumosa or Asparagus Fern, however, I live in a very dry climate with very dry indoors conditions. My trick to grow ferns indoors is to place them in a closed glass terrarium. Not only the composition is a beautiful living decor item for your home, it also provides the humid environment ferns love. Once the sealed terrarium is assembled, the ferns, or any other plant inside, requires minimal watering. Read my article on Closed Terrarium for more details.
Photo Credit: Gardenista
7) Cast Iron Plant, (Aspidistra Elatior)
The Cast Iron Plant is another impossible to kill plant ideal for Black Thumbs.
It is similar to the Peace Lily in appearance but less glamorous and even hardier. It is slow to grow but can withstand neglect like no other plant. It really likes hot and dry conditions and does not well in colder environments.
Even though this plant can endure the most extreme conditions, it still needs to be watered well once every two to three weeks.
This is the go to plant when you’ve killed all your other plants! Next step, plastic plants!
Photo Credit: BuzzFeed
8) Chinese Evergreen, (Aglaonema)
The Chinese Evergreen plant is highly tolerant to poor light conditions, dry environments and drought.
Like the Cast Iron Plant, it does not like cooler temperatures and needs to be away from drafts.
Water this plant approximately once every two weeks and allow to dry through before the next watering.
Photo Credit: Hortology
9) Philodendron
Philodendrons are easy to care for, fast growing plants that can adapt to different light conditions. From indirect sun, to medium light, to low light.
I made my Philodendron Brasil our bathroom plant as it enjoys a humid, low light environment.
Since I placed my Philodendron in a darker corner of our bathroom I noticed the new leaves were growing in a solid bright green colour rather than variegated like the rest of the leaves. I moved it to a brighter spot of the bathrooms and I noticed the newer leaves were growing variegated. This is to prove that, like in the case of Pothos, you can grow these plants in low light conditions but the leaves will loose their variegation. Your most successful Philodendron for darker rooms are the solid green ones.
I water mine approximately once every 10 days.
10) Staghorn Fern, (Platycerium)
I’ve always ben fascinated by Staghorn Ferns. They are unique plants that can be displayed in interesting and different ways.
Like other ferns, Staghorn Ferns tolerate low light conditions. Unlike other ferns, they prefer drier environments.
This plant, much like orchids, is an epiphytes; in nature it grows on trees, not relying on soil for nutrients. In fact, this plant thrives mounted on a wood board with a bit of peat compost, rather than being in a pot of soil, making for a beautiful plants wall decor for your home.
Hey Plant Loving Woman!
Are you a middle age mom?
Do you constantly feel overwhelmed and anxious?
Do you believe in the healing power of nature?
To reveal your #1 Personal Houseplant that best
helps you reduce your anxiety.
I have a low to medium light house, so this is very helpful!!! Thanks.