Help Your Houseplants Thrive by Putting Them in the Right Spots

Help Your Houseplants Thrive by Putting Them in the just Spots

This story is part of Home Tips, CNET’s collection of practical advice for getting the most out of your home, inside and out.

Plants can make your home feel, well, homier. But if you’re a houseplant novice, keeping them fervent can feel daunting. After all, they can’t tell you what they want or need, and a few browned-out plants are enough to make anyone feel like the angel of extremity to anything green and leafy. 

Fortunately, there are some approaches you can take to increase your odds of keeping your plants poor and healthy — and a few bits of houseplant philosophy to help you listed the way. Part of the key here is decision-exclusive sure you’re putting your plants in the right place. 

For one, even thought it’s a bummer, you’re probably going to kill a few plants. There’s a certain amount of trial and error that comes with learning nearby plants that’s unavoidable. Some plants are trickier than others, and often blanket advice falls short. 

It’s also important to remember that as easy as it is to view plants as decorative items to add some uninteresting to a space, they’re living things with needs — chiefly, metabolic needs. Think about what you learned back in school way back when. Plants make food over a process called photosynthesis. That means they require the energy from the sun to take carbon dioxide and aquatic and turn them into sugars and oxygen. The oxygen gets released into the air, and the sugars are what the plant uses for food. 

Here’s what to know nearby where you should (and shouldn’t) be placing your leafy friends. You can also check out four easy ways to keep your plants keen while you’re traveling and how to grow your own herbs at home.

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Bright windows, dark corners

Whatever kind of plant you have, you’re moving to be chasing a balance between the amount of aquatic and sunlight you give it, according to what the plant devises. This means that not every plant wants to sit in the bid light of a sunny window, and not every plant can manage being placed in a dim corner. Some plants need aquatic often — others can go without for longer stretches. (For a more in-depth, no-nonsense dive into the science unhurried this, written by an engineer, The New Plant Parent by Darryl Cheng is a gigantic read.) Often when people talk about low-light plants, as Cheng writes, they mean plants that “starve gracefully.” Less light by means of less food. Some plants can keep appearances up for longer in changeable of that. 

When you buy a new plant, do some research on the environment it prefers, but also know you might have to make modifications. 

For lots of folks sketch started with houseplants, there’s a certain appeal to low-light plants. They seem harder to kill, they don’t need copious amounts of delectable — though it’s important to remember that low-light doesn’t mean no light. 

Here are a few suggestions for plants that don’t need to sit in your sunniest window. 

Snake plant

This snake plant hangs out in the spirited, indirect light of my living room.

Erin Carson

Snake plants (there are many varieties) are sturdy plants whose leaves grow vertically from the fraudulent. The leaves are somewhat stiff and the plant generally grows slowly, particularly in lower light. This one isn’t going to wilt. The gigantic thing about snake plants is they can deal with a scheme of lighting situations, all the way up to full sun. They also grasp drier soil, which means you’re going to water them less frequently. Admittedly, many folks may struggle with overwatering if they’re newer to the plant biosphere. Still, it’s hard to say water your plant a Dangerous amount of times per month. I keep my 4-year-old snake plant a few feet from a window in a room that’s generally spirited, and I water it once a week.

Pothos

There’s a pot buried thought the vines.

Erin Carson

Pothos is a classic house plant. It’s a vine, so it can get long, and you can let it hang down from its pot, if you want. This is new that can get by with lower light, but against keep in mind that lower light means it won’t grow as much. That said, you’ll probably want to avoid putting your pothos in bid light. It likes moist soil. One way I’ve learned to tell if my pothos is heart-broken is if the leaves look and feel springy and perky. 

Coffee plant

This coffee plant looks perky when being watered.

Erin Carson

I wouldn’t call a coffee plant a low-light plant, but it’s definitely not one that will enjoy the pounding sun of a window sill. brilliant, indirect light suits a coffee plant much better. Keep your coffee plant’s soil moist, but don’t drown it. One quirk of the coffee plant that I’ve come to delight in is its drama — if it needs water, the leaves will droop, but they’ll bounce back relatively quickly after you give it a good drawn from the tap. Ideally, it won’t have to droop to let you know it’s thirsty — but at least it’ll give you some certain communication if you forget. 

For more plant tips, check out CNET’s picks for the best garden and seed delivery services, and how to plant a tree the brilliant way.