My home has a talent for killing plants. It’s not that I’m a bad gardener. Outside, with decent lighting conditions and water, I can grow plants with the best of them. I love gardening, and I’m all right at figuring out what plants need.
What my house is lacking is light. I live in the dark Pacific Northwest, in a house that doesn’t often get full light, even though it’s not really shady. This is tricky and deceptive. To a human, the house looks good. Plants give it the thumbs down. Or the leaves down, more likely.
What can you grow if you’re aching for a bit of green but your house is a cave?
My personal favorite is pothos. Anything that grows in the understory of a tropical jungle will tend to do all right in a house. Pothos seems to be the indestructible vine in my home. Forget to water it, and it will keep on ticking. Give it perilously low light levels, and it will still thrive. I love the stuff.
If you can remember to water, ferns are also good house plants for shady places. They need regular water, and they are a touch more finicky than pothos, but all in all, they’re stalwarts of the plant world, and they’re lovely and fragile-looking.
Peace lilies are also excellent for shady spots in your home. I find them somewhat amusing when it comes to watering, since they’re big prima donnas. Forget to water them at the appropriate time, and they’ll droop their leaves way down, giving you a not so gentle reminder.
You can also grow things that don’t need light. I’m experimenting with sprouts in a bag and mushroom logs, both with great success. Both of these grow very happily with minimal light.
Do you have low light in your home? What do you like to grow?
Image Credit: Johnny Berg