Low light houseplants do not require your sympathy. They require the correct room, and after that, very little else. The plants on this list have been growing in low-light conditions — north-facing rooms, interior apartments, offices with one window that faces a wall and may or may not provide light of the kind that plants can use — long enough that they have stopped treating it as an inconvenience.
The plants that survive low light are not trying harder than the others. They simply have different expectations, which is a quality I find increasingly admirable the older I get.
What is a low light houseplant? A low light houseplant is one that thrives in indirect or filtered light — the far end of a room, the wall beside a window rather than in front of it, a corridor with two hours of filtered morning sun. It does not mean no light. It means the plant was designed for what most rooms actually offer.
What low light actually means — and why most people get it wrong
Low light does not mean no light. It means indirect light, or light that travels a long way before it arrives. It means the far end of a room, the wall beside the window rather than in front of it, the corridor that gets two hours of filtered sun in the morning and then nothing. It does not mean a closet. Plants in closets are not a low-light experiment. They are a memorial.
A dark room is not a reason to have no plants. It is a reason to have different plants, which is a distinction I wish someone had explained to me before I killed four consecutive pothos in the same north-facing corner with the energy of someone who believed effort was the variable.
The variable was not effort. The variable was the plant. Four pothos in the same corner is not a learning curve. It is a commitment to the wrong conclusion. The corner did not need more pothos. It needed a ZZ plant, which I eventually placed there and which produced six new stems in the following four months and has since declined to acknowledge any of what came before it.
This guide covers which low light houseplants genuinely thrive — not survive in the way that a person survives something they would rather not discuss — but thrive in the sense that they grow new leaves, produce new stems, and demonstrate no visible interest in dying. It also covers what to put them in, because a plant that tolerates neglect still deserves a pot that does not look like an afterthought.
The best low light houseplants — what actually works
ZZ plant (Zamioculcas zamiifolia)
The ZZ plant is the most honest low light houseplant available. It does not suggest it might do better with more light. It does not produce pale, reaching stems in a silent argument for relocation. It sits in its pot, grows at its own pace, and occasionally produces a new stem when it has decided the time is right. The waxy leaves reflect what little light they receive, which is how the ZZ plant manages to look more cared-for than it has any right to.
Water every two to three weeks. Do not water more because you feel you should. The ZZ plant has rhizomes — swollen underground stems that store water — and overwatering is the only thing it will genuinely object to. It will object quietly, through root rot, and by the time you notice something is wrong it will have been wrong for some time.
Snake plant (Sansevieria / Dracaena trifasciata)
The snake plant has been recommended for low-light rooms for so long that it has become a cliché, which is unfortunate, because it is also correct. Snake plants tolerate low light, irregular watering, dry air, and temperature fluctuation. They have been in offices since offices existed and they will be in offices long after everyone has agreed to stop having them. The ones that look best are in good pots. This is the only variable you control.
Pothos (Epipremnum aureum)
The pothos is the plant most people start with, which is sensible, and it does genuinely tolerate low light. The clarification is that pothos in low light grows more slowly and produces smaller leaves than pothos in bright indirect light. This is not a complaint. It is the terms of the arrangement. A pothos in a dim room is a perfectly reasonable decision. Four pothos in the same north-facing corner, each replaced after the previous one declined, is a different matter.
Peace lily (Spathiphyllum)
The peace lily is the low light plant that also flowers, which makes it unusual and slightly show-offish among its category peers. It requires more water than the ZZ or snake plant — it will droop dramatically when it needs watering, which is either a useful signal or a theatrical performance depending on your disposition — and it prefers humidity if you can provide it. Bathrooms with windows. Kitchens. Any room where something is occasionally boiling.
Cast iron plant (Aspidistra elatior)
The cast iron plant earned its name honestly. It tolerates low light, neglect, dust, irregular watering, and temperature swings with the equanimity of something that has genuinely decided none of this matters. It grows slowly. It does not produce dramatic new stems on a schedule. It simply continues, which is its entire personality and exactly what certain rooms require.
Chinese evergreen (Aglaonema)
Chinese evergreens come in enough varieties — green, variegated, pink, red — that they constitute a category rather than a plant. The lower-light varieties are the ones with more green in the leaf. Pink and red varieties need more light. This is the only rule. Pick the greener ones for the dim corners. They grow steadily, produce new leaves regularly, and do not require anything specific from you except not overwatering, which is the request most houseplants make and the one most people ignore.
What to put them in — and why it matters more than people admit
Low light houseplants spend more time sitting in their pots than plants in high-traffic, high-light positions. In a bright room, the plant draws the eye. In a dim room, the pot draws the eye, because the plant is the less dramatic element of the arrangement. This is not the plant's fault. It is a lighting situation. The correct response is to put low light plants in pots that earn attention on their own terms.
The Virago is the pot we have made since 2003 for exactly this situation. Named for a strong brave woman — which is a description that has aged better than some of our other naming decisions — it has drainage, a clean edge, and enough presence to hold a room in which the plant is not performing. The Minute is the smaller version. It is on more desks and windowsills than anything else we make, partly because of the size and partly because it is the plant pot that does not announce itself when it arrives on a shelf.
All Chive pots have drainage holes
- The Minute — comes with a matching saucer, the pot on more desks and windowsills than anything else we make
- The Virago — drainage hole, ships with a saucer, eleven colours, 250,000 sold
- The Ryan self-watering pot — reservoir base with capillary action, removes the overwatering variable entirely
- Every pot in the plant pots with drainage collection is designed the same way
- A plant pot without drainage is an object that holds soil, and the plant inside it is making the best of a situation that has already been decided against it
In low light, soil dries slowly. A pot without drainage does not give it a chance to dry at all. — Chive Studio
The ceramic flowers that solve the problem entirely
There is one final category of low light solution that does not get enough direct acknowledgment: the ceramic flower, which requires no light at all, produces no drooping, stores no water in its rhizomes, and has never been found pale and reaching for a window it cannot reach.
We have been making ceramic flowers for long enough that they are on the walls of the Denver Botanic Gardens, which is a building full of people who have considered the question of what lives in low light more seriously than most. They are on the walls of the Royal Ontario Museum, which is also in Toronto, a proximity we find mutually convenient. The flowers are not a consolation prize for dim rooms. They are what the dim room has been waiting for, and they have been waiting with the patience of something that already knows how this ends.
No light required, which places them in a category of their own.
Chive Studio has been designing and handmaking ceramic flowers and plant pots since our founding. Our plant pots — including the Virago, Minute, Ryan, and Liberte — are stocked at the Denver Botanic Gardens, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and more than 200 art galleries, museum shops, and botanical institutions across North America and the UK. We have exhibited at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for thirteen consecutive years, receiving the 5-star booth award — the highest rating given. All Chive plant pots have drainage holes and are made to last. Ships to 40+ countries. Always original, often copied.
