Houseplants for Low Light

Maybe it’s Murphy’s Law for indoor gardeners—I’m not sure. But for some reason, many indoor gardeners live in homes that require they grow houseplants for dark rooms. Fortunately, many houseplants originate in the fairly dim conditions of the jungle floor, which means there are plenty of houseplants for low light.

 Aluminum Plant

Determining available houseplant light levels

Mostly likely you know if you have dim conditions, because you’ve tried growing light-loving houseplants and watched them eventually lose leaves, fail to flower and wither away. If you’re not sure, though, there are some things to check.

What is the orientation of your home? In the Northern Hemisphere, southern windows are the best for growing houseplants that like bright light. (It’s the opposite for the Southern Hemisphere. In such cases you want a northern window.) Eastern windows in the Northern Hemisphere and Western windows in the Southern Hemisphere are also good locations, as they provide bright light in the morning and medium light throughout the day. Such windows must also be unobstructed—so no trees or other structures shading the windows.

If your house instead has more North-facing windows in the Northern Hemisphere and South-facing windows in the Southern Hemisphere, then you have low light conditions. Of course, if you have few if no windows, you definitely should be growing houseplants for low light.

 Cast-iron Plant

Measuring indoor garden light

The eye works okay to determine light, but an even more accurate way of seeing if you should grow houseplants for dark rooms is to measure the light in your rooms with a light meter. This handy indoor gardening tool will give you an accurate measure of the light in your home. To get the most accurate reading, measure the light intensity close to the leaves and take readings throughout the day.

Light meters usually indicate the amount of light with foot-candles, which refers to the amount of light a candle gives off in every direction at one-foot from its flame. Some meters show the actual foot candle number while others indicate low/medium/high.

Easy-to-grow houseplants for low light

If you have low-light conditions and prefer not to use supplemental artificial lighting, rather than working against nature and watching your houseplants suffer, try growing houseplants for dark rooms.

Houseplants that grow in low light include dracaenas, peace lily, which has lovely white flowers, Chinese evergreen, pothos, radiator plant, cast-iron plant, sansevieria, arrowhead plant and philodendron.

Houseplants that grow in low-medium light include goldfish plant, fiddle-leaf fig, ferns, croton, aluminum plant, African violet, dieffenbachia, schefflera, prayer plant, split-leaf philodendron, spider plant and rubber tree.

If you’ve tried growing high light houseplants in your low-light home without success, these houseplants for low light are sure to brighten up your indoor garden.