The Best Low-Maintenance Houseplants
My wife and I recently bought a house in the Catskills. We’re hoping to spend weekends and holidays there with the kiddo, and Airbnb it the rest of the time. I’ve been working to furnish it for the past several months and now that I’m about done, it’s time to decorate!
One of the ways I want to make the space brighter and more lively is to add plants, and lots of them. We have a handful of places where they could go—a prominent corner, a table behind one of the couches and end tables. And there are a couple of cabinets just begging for trailing vines.
After spending five hours reviewing more than a dozen lists and verifying different factors on the websites of expert indoor gardeners and sellers, I chose two tabletop plants (ZZ Plant and Snake Plant), three tall floor plants (Monstera, Yucca and Dragon Tree) and two vines (Pothos and Heartleaf Philodendron).
The Best Tabletop Houseplant
Jack’s Rec: ZZ plant
Best for: Those looking to add a bit of tropical flair to an end table, side table or shelf.
Why I love it: The ZZ plant needs to be watered only every week or two, thrives in low indirect sunlight and requires only annual repotting and as-needed pruning.
Not ideal: It can grow to three feet, so it might eventually need to be moved to the floor.
Watering: Every 1-2 weeks
Sunlight: Indirect, low
Pruning: As needed to remove yellow leaves
Repotting: Annually
Size: Up to 3 feet tall
Pet and child safe: Mildly toxic to pets
Next Rec: Snake Plant
Best for: Those looking for a totally forgiving houseplant.
Why I love it: The snake plant only requires monthly waterings, thrives in low light and only needs repotting if the pot breaks.
Not ideal: It grows slowly so you’re not likely to see much change for a while.
Watering: Monthly
Sunlight: Low to bright, some shade
Pruning: As needed to remove yellow leaves
Repotting: Only if the pot breaks
Size: Up to four feet
Pet and child safe: Toxic to pets
The Best Tall Houseplant for the Floor
Jack’s Rec: Monstera
Best for: Those who want a fantastic looking floor plant that’s fairly easy to maintain.
Why I love it: Sure, the “Swiss Cheese Plant” became a favorite of brands and Instagram influencers, but for obvious reasons. It’s big, beautiful and bold, and more so than any plant on this list, really stands out and helps elevate a space.
Not ideal: It requires a lot of space when it really starts to grow, both up and out. Because mature plants can be reasonably-priced, this is a good one to find locally.
Watering: 1-2 weeks
Sunlight: Indirect, bright
Pruning: As needed
Repotting: Every two years
Size: Up to five feet indoors (twice as tall in its native habitat)
Pet and child safe: Toxic to pets
Next Rec: Yucca
Our Yucca livens up a corner of the room and mostly obscures the router.
Best for: Those who want a great looking floor plant for a reasonable price.
Why I love it: It looks fantastic, can grow up to eight feet, only requires watering every other week or so and very little other regular maintenance.
Not ideal: Its spiky leaves can scratch you so be careful when watering.
Watering: 1-2 weeks, allow to drain
Sunlight: Direct, lots of light
Pruning: Every spring
Repotting: Every two years
Size: Up to six feet
Pet and child safe: Mildly toxic to pets
Pricey Rec: Dragon tree
Best for: Those who want an indoor tree with leaves off the ground.
Why I love it: The Madagascar dragon tree can grow up to 6 feet, requires only weekly waterings and doesn’t need a lot of light. According to NASA, it’s one of the best indoor air-filtering plants. It can even recover after months of neglect.
Not ideal: Mature plants cost about $200. A young dragon tree will be only about a foot tall and could take 10 years to reach full height.
Watering: Weekly, after frequent waterings for a few weeks
Sunlight: Indirect, can grow in shady areas
Pruning: Regularly to manage its growth
Repotting: Every two years
Size: Up to six feet
Pet and child safe: Toxic to pets
The Best Vine
Jack’s Rec: Pothos
Of all my plants, I’ve had the most trouble with my Golden Pothos. This is my attempt to rescue it.
Best for: Those who want to take advantage of unused vertical space with a trailing vine from a cabinet, bookcase or hanging pot.
Why it’s great: Golden pothos has arrow-shaped leaves with streaks of yellow and can go up to a week and a half between waterings.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: To prevent golden pothos from growing wild, regular pruning is required
Watering: Every 7-10 days
Sunlight: Indirect, partial shade
Pruning: As needed
Repotting: As needed
Size: Vines up to six feet indoors, 30 feet outdoors
Pet and child safe: Mildly toxic to pets and humans
Next Rec: Heartleaf Philodendron
I bought my newest plant from the Amazon link below and I’ll be documenting how she grows in the coming months.
Best for: Those who want to decorate vertical space with a leafy vine.
Why I love it: This trailing vine boasts bright green heart-shaped leaves, requires little maintenance and is easy to propagate by cutting a stem below a group of leaves and planting in water for a couple of weeks until they grow roots.
Not ideal: While they can grow to four feet in length, this growth could take years
Watering: Weekly in summer, less often in winter
Sunlight: Indirect, bright light
Pruning: As needed to control growth
Repotting: As needed
Size: Vines up to four feet indoors
Pet and child safe: Toxic to pets and humans
My Research
Me and plants
I exhaustively research everything I buy. I’m obsessed with finding the best deal, but I also want to make sure whatever I’m buying fits my needs. That means I spend a lot of time reading reviews and combing through lists to put together notes and spreadsheets to compare my options. I start with review sites and also read consumer reviews.
I’m no green thumb. I recently killed a Bromeliad that had been hanging on for months so I knew finding the right low-maintenance house plants would require a fair bit of research.
The lists I found on sites like Good Housekeeping, HGTV, DIY Network, the Spruce, Bloomscape and others helped me identify about 15 plants that I could envision in the house. I added them to the spreadsheet with info about how often they need to be watered, what type and how much sunlight they needed, how big they got and how much they cost. I compared prices on Amazon, the Sill and Bloomscape and generally chose the least expensive option.
Price was another important factor. I didn’t have hundreds to spend on mature plants. I’d be buying youngsters that I could hopefully learn how to keep alive for years.
As my research continued, I included more info in the spreadsheet that I thought was important to consider like how they needed to be maintained by regularly pruning or repotting and if they were toxic. We don’t have any pets, but our friends do and we’d hate for anything to happen to them during their visits.
I also included info that I ultimately deleted or hid like ideal temperature, humidity and soil type because those factors were similar for the plants I considered or didn’t seem important in the end.
Because these plants would go a week or two, or more, between our visits to the house, the amount of water the plants required was the most important factor in my research. I searched for “house plants that don’t need much water”, “low maintenance houseplants”, “hard to kill plants”, “easy care plants”, “forgiving plants”, and other variations of those search terms. I created a spreadsheet to take notes that I’d eventually use to decide which plants to buy.
How I identified options
After compiling my list, I consulted expert websites of gardeners and growers to verify some of the information I was considering. I used House Plant Expert, Costa Farms (an Amazon seller that also had a good post about low maintenance house plants), and Bloomscape.
When I was satisfied that I had all of the info I needed to choose which plants to buy, I started comparing what I’d learned. The plants I chose, for the most part, could go at least a week (and more in many cases) between waterings. Sunlight wasn’t as big of a factor because the room that became their home has a lot of windows. Toxicity also didn’t factor as much as I thought because most low-maintenance houseplants are toxic to pets and small children. We’ll keep those off the floor.
I also chose the least expensive options I could find for each plant, which included local grocery stores, local sellers on Craigslist and Etsy and Home Depot, in addition to Amazon.
Many of my recommendations come in grower’s pots (except The Sill, which are shipped in nice ceramic pots so keep that in mind when you’re factoring in cost). You’ll want to eventually move them to clay or ceramic pots. I like basic terra cotta pots, which are the best and cheapest option for plants. Because the clay is porous, water can drain through them to prevent root rot and other issues associated with overwatering. They come in a few styles depending on size and can be easily spruced up with a bit of paint.
Sources
The lists I used were from sources including Good Housekeeping, HGTV, DIY Network, the Spruce and Bloomscape. After compiling my list of plants, I used House Plant Expert, Bloomscape, Costa Farms and the Sill to verify the factors I considered.