Getting started with plants can be intimidating if you are a beginner. These are the easiest indoor plants and tips to keep them alive for years while propagating them into new plants!
How to Keep Plants Alive for Beginners
Some plants are more challenging to care for than others, but these plants are the easiest to keep alive.
Follow the below tips to get almost any plant alive even if you have the worst green thumb ever.
Water Less: It depends on the plant, but I’ve noticed all of my plants do better when I only water them twice a month in the colder months.
Water More: Then in the warmer months, I water my plants once per week or when the soil feels very try.
Bright Indirect Sun: You can’t go wrong with bright indirect light for just about any plant, so find the brightest space and make this your plant room.
Avoid Gnats: Don’t overwater your plants or they can become infested with gnats. Be mindful when bringing in brand new plants as well because the soil could continue gnats.
Install Zevo plugins your entryway, basement, and in your kitchen to prevent gnats from turning your plants into their new home.
Prune: If you have an indoor plant that can get a bit leggy looking like a pothos, this type of plant needs to be pruned every so often with sheers.
Pruning cleans up the look of the plant and helps the plant grow in with more of a bushier appearance by encouraging new growth.
Daily Check-Ins: Check in on your plant every few days and see how it’s doing. See if you need to make any modifications to the lighting, watering, pruning, or repotting.
Checking in on your plant is beneficial to your mental health too as it can give you a little boost and ground you.
Repotting: If you plant appears to be running out of room in its current pot, it is time to repot it into a slightly bigger size.
Most plants do best when they only go up slightly in pot size instead of a new giant sized pot. So, look for a pot that is only a couple of inches bigger than your current pot size.
Easy Indoor Plants for Beginners
These are the easiest indoor plants for beginners that forgive you when you don’t do your best with their care.
I started with these plants as a total amatuer and manage to keep them alive for over 5 years.
1. Snake Plants
A snake plant is very easy for beginners to get started with because these plants can handle some neglect or accidental overwatering.
They will forgive you if you didn’t do your best with taken care of them which makes these perfect for a newby.
Snake plants prefer bright indirect light and handle well draining soil with weekly waterings in the warmer months.
In the winter months they do best with watering every other week when they aren’t in their growing season.
Place your snake plant in a corner where it won’t risk getting a few shots from a nerf gun or a pillow thrown at it like this one.
My kids can get a little wild near this plant location, so a few leaves look a little rough.
I’ve since moved it to a corner and the plant is out of the line of fire and is doing much better.
2. Spider Plants
Spider plants can handle lower light, but prefer bright indirect light. Avoid direct sun as this can scorch the plant.
Spider plant loves humidity, so I keep one of them in my master bathroom with bright indirect light.
They can also tolerate low humid levels too, but they might not get as large as this one.
This spider plant is so fertile in this location as it produces baby spiders several times throughout the year.
I now have 5 thriving spider plants that I propagated from the original mother spider plant. This is great for a beginner to propagate and create more plants in their home.
This is one the easier indoor plants to help boost your green thumb and give you confidence to take on more plants.
3. Pothos – Baltic Blue Pothos
Pothos can handle low light, but it won’t grow as large in these conditions. There are a variety of pothos, but they all have a similar appearance and follow the same style of care.
I previously kept this Baltic Blue pothos near my entryway with low lighting. It did fine there, but it didn’t grow very much due to the lack of light.
The plant attracted pests easily being near the front door, especially because my kids would often leave the door wide open.
So, be mindful about placing any plant near an entryway as it could struggle with the temperature change and attract gnats.
I moved my pothos to the other side of my home that has a ton of bright indirect light and the plant is doing much better. The plant started growing new leaves and appears bushier in the new location.
I propagated this pothos and moved the 2nd plant to my humid basement with low indirect lighting.
The plant is doing great down in the basement with the humid and I occasionally move it to the window to give it a boost of sun, but it is still doing good in lower lighting.
4. Fiddle Leaf Fig
This one is easy, but a little fickle sometimes if you move it around or overwater it. Don’t worry if the leaves curl and the plant appears dead, it will most likely come back.
So, don’t totally give up if the plant plays dead, just give it time and adjust your plant care.
I find my fiddle leaf figs do best in very bright lighting. They can handle some direct lighting, but also do well in indirect lighting.
I water my fiddle leaf figs once a week in the summer and twice a month in the cooler months. I rotate the plant a 1/2 inch at a time to allow it to grow evenly without leaning.
Do not move the plant from its usual location or it might get angry at you. Once I moved my fiddle to a window to give it more light and it freaked out. The leaves when limp and curled in as if it was dying.
It came back after a week or so, but the plant let me know not to do that again.
5. Succulents
Succulents are great if you often forget that you even have plants because they prefer very little watering. I used to kill succulents all the time because I would overwater them.
The leaves of succulents actually store water which makes them great in drought conditions. They do not prefer humid conditions, so do not store these in a humid basement or bathroom.
Instead make sure to neglect these plants and only water them about once per month or sometimes less in the cooler months.
They prefer indirect lighting, avoiding direct sun as this can scorch succulent leaves.
You know your plant is happy when it starts to grow new pups or arms at the base. This means the plant is healthy and can even be propagate into more plants.
Conclusion
Taking care of plants can be very rewarding and a fun slow living hobby for your mental health. These plants are a fun way for a plant beginner to bring life into your home, with a mix of textures and colors.