My Favorite Low-Maintenance Houseplants

As a homebody, I consider myself to be someone who is always wanting to find more and better ways to make our house cozier every day. One of the easiest and most rewarding ways to accomplish this, in my opinion, is to add plants to as many rooms in the house as possible. It allows you to soften a room without straying too much from your color scheme and gives you something to care for and watch grow over time. We’ve done a decent amount of trial and error in our search for the most sustainable houseplants (and by sustainable, I mean sustainable for our lifestyle) and here are some of our favorites that have been a part of our household for the longest!

The Bamboo Palm

This bamboo palm is now a permanent fixture in our house and has by far been the easiest to maintain over the years. We wanted something tall to fill this large empty space in our living room, but also something that didn’t need to be constantly watered or adjusted depending on where the sun was at across the seasons. It offers a nice tropical feel to the room without being overbearing and is always a topic of conversation when we have guests over!

Some important tips for taking care of this plant:

• Make sure this plant has a decent amount of drainage so that when you water it, the soil isn’t soaking wet for days afterwards. We accomplished this by first putting the palm in a recyclable black potter that has drainage holes in the bottom, and then setting that inside this water-tight pot.
• If you have the time and patience to take it outside on a weekly basis to water it, you can water it thoroughly until water starts to come out the bottom of the pot. Otherwise, what we do is just water it with about a pint and a half of water weekly.
• It’s important for this plant to have a decent amount of light for at least a few hours of the day; ours for example is in our living room which gets morning light, and this has proved to be a successful spot for it thus far.
• Bamboo palms are known to be prone to a pest called “spider mites”, which can affect the roots and turn the leaves brown which overtime can weaken the plant. The best way to combat this is to fill a spray bottle with lukewarm water and dish soap and spray down the leaves with the soapy water if you notice any spiderwebs forming or black dots forming on the underside of the leaves.

The Snake Plant

While the bamboo palm is about a 5 on a scale 1-10 of ease-of-maintenance, the snake plant is about a 2. I once heard someone describe a watering schedule for a snake plant by saying, “You can give it sun, or not. You can give it water, or not”, and so far, I’ve had the same experience with it in our house. We’ve had this plant in a few different spots throughout our house, and only had to switch spots because it grew so tall that it wouldn’t fit in its original spot in our office. I water this plant once a month and apply fertilizer once maybe every six months. And that’s pretty much it! Hands down easiest plant to take care of ever.

The Dracaena

This plant is the newest fixture in our house (only about 2 months), but so far has been very easy to take care of and looks beautiful in any room. Similar to the snake plant, it needs only indirect sunlight, so feel free to place this plant anywhere in a room with a window, but not directly in front of it. Since we’ve placed this plant right on our stairwell, I pass by it every morning on my way down to my morning coffee and check the soil to see if it needs to be watered. The rule of thumb that I go by in terms of watering for the Dracaena is that the soil should always be decently moist but not drenched; if you place your finger in the soil and it’s bone-dry, it’s time for a good watering. This usually ends up being roughly once every two weeks or so but use your best judgement depending on the season or level of sunlight it’s received since its last watering.

And that’s my roundup of all the low maintenance houseplants that we have! I love them all, and unfortunately don’t have any fun little names to refer to them by, but I’m always open to suggestions from y’all in the comments section.