How much light 100 common houseplants actually need, in lux. Each one shows the light it prefers, the light it will put up with, and the light that kills it.
Most rooms away from a window, and most rooms under lamps.
A few steps from good glass, or a bright room on an overcast day.
Right at unobstructed glass without sun falling on the leaves.
Sun landing on the spot itself.
A candelabra euphorbia, not a cactus: three-sided green columns with paired thorns and small leaves along the ridges. Fast for a succulent, and it will outgrow a windowsill into a branching column.
A compact rosette that flowers almost continuously in bright indirect light. The fuzzy leaves mark permanently where cold water touches them, so it is watered from below.
Arrow-shaped leaves in near-black green with white veins, held on upright stems. It grows from a tuber and will drop everything and go dormant if it is cold, dry or too dark, then return from the tuber.
Starts as a bushy rosette of arrow-shaped leaves and turns into a climber with lobed adult foliage once it finds something to grip. Pinch it back to keep the compact form.
Not a fern but a climbing asparagus relative, its flat sprays of fine needles are modified stems. Wiry and tougher than it looks, with thorns on older growth.
An annual herb that wants more light than any windowsill usually offers and goes to seed the moment it flowers. Pinch the tips constantly and treat it as a crop, not a houseplant.
Big paddle leaves on long stalks, and, with several years and real sun, the orange crane flower it is named for. It needs a lot of light to bloom indoors, and most never do.
Arching fronds of fine leaflets, and the classic hanging fern of a Victorian porch. It is thirsty and hates dry air, the two reasons it sheds all over the floor in a heated room.
Flat pads in pairs like ears, covered in glochids, fine barbed bristles instead of spines. Those detach at a touch and are miserable to remove from skin, so handle it with a folded newspaper.
Trailing stems packed with plump blue-green beads, best in a hanging pot where nothing brushes it. The beads drop at the slightest knock, each one that lands in soil becomes a new plant.
Wide round leaves banded silver and green, among the largest in the group. It reads tap water, dry air and cold as insults and browns at the edges to tell you which.
Named for what it survives: deep shade, draughts, irregular water, a hallway. Upright lance- shaped leaves come straight out of the soil and it grows slowly enough to stay put for a decade.
The best-looking plant that genuinely tolerates a dim room, in silver, cream and green patterns. Slow, tidy, and content with a north window.
Round coin-like leaves on long stalks, held out from a single stem. It was passed hand to hand between growers for decades before nurseries caught up, and it still propagates by giving pups away.
A forest epiphyte, not a desert cactus: flat segmented stems and no spines. It sets buds on shortening days, so autumn darkness and cool nights are what make it flower.
Glossy waved leaves in tiers, and the plant every cup comes from. It will fruit indoors after three or four years in good light, though a windowsill crop is a novelty rather than a harvest.
A thick woody cane topped with arching strap leaves, usually striped yellow or lime. Sold as bare canes that resprout, which is why it looks like furniture and behaves like a shrub.
Leathery leaves splashed red, orange, yellow and green, the colour is the whole point and it needs strong light to hold it. It resents being moved and sheds leaves to say so.
A spiny succulent shrub that flowers nearly year-round in good light, the real flowers tiny between two coloured bracts. The milky sap is an irritant, so prune with gloves.
The same genus as the snake plant, with round spear-like leaves instead of flat ones. Often sold braided; the braid is a florist's trick and the leaves grow on regardless.
Broad cream-marbled leaves on a thickening cane, and one of the few big-leaf tropicals happy in a mid-room spot. The sap burns the mouth, the source of both its names.
A giant herb, not a tree: each 'trunk' is a stack of leaf bases that fruits once and is replaced by a sucker. Enormously thirsty and hungry, and it shreds its own leaves in a draught.
A soft-wooded succulent shrub with small round leaves, browsed by elephants in the wild. It takes hard pruning happily, which makes it a common beginner's bonsai subject.
A self-clinging climber that will trail from a shelf or cover a frame, in dozens of leaf shapes and variegations. Vigorous to the point of weedy, keep it indoors and cut it back hard.
Huge waxy violin-shaped leaves on an upright trunk, and the most photographed and most killed houseplant of the last decade. It wants bright steady light, one spot, and no schedule changes.
A succulent kalanchoe grown for dense heads of small flowers over scalloped leaves. Sold in bud year-round; it reblooms only after a spell of long nights, which is why most are treated as temporary.
The red 'flower' is a waxy bract; the real flowers are the spike standing out of it. In good light it produces them almost continuously, each lasting weeks.
A flat rosette of pointed leaves in pearl grey, pinker in strong sun and bluer in shade. Stems lengthen and lean with age, which is normal rather than a fault.
A ribbed globe armoured in golden spines, growing a centimetre or two a year into a barrel. Common in cultivation and nearly gone from its home valleys, which were dammed.
Matte heart-shaped leaves on fast trailing vines, the plant to hand a beginner. It roots from any cutting and forgives a missed week.
A hardy alpine rosette that ringed itself with offsets, the chicks. It is far happier on a cold balcony than in a warm room, and it survives frost that would kill any other succulent here.
A thick-trunked succulent shrub with glossy paddle leaves, edged red in good light. It lives for decades, thickens like a tree, and is the classic windowsill heirloom.
Sedum with fat blue-green fingers tipped red where the sun hits hardest. That red is not stress damage, it is the plant colouring up, and it fades in shade.
The palm Victorian hotels used, and still the best one for a dim corner: dark arching fronds on slim stems, slow and unfussy. Expensive because it is grown from seed and takes years.
A clumping fan palm with split, blunt-tipped leaflets on cane-like stems. The most shade- tolerant palm sold, and it takes dry indoor air better than most.
Two fused leaves flush with the ground, patterned to look like the pebbles around them. It drinks only in its growing season and a single kind watering at the wrong time will split it open.
Not bamboo but a dracaena, sold as trimmed canes that root in plain water. The spirals are trained under directional light over months, not grown that way.
Black wiry stems and fans of thin bright green leaflets, the most beautiful small fern and the least forgiving. One dry afternoon crisps the lot, though cutting it to the base often brings it back.
A runner-spreading perennial that will fill any pot it is given and then some. Cut it hard and often; it is one of the few herbs that genuinely thrives on an indoor sill.
A wetland tree sold with its trunks plaited while young, the braid is done by the grower and cannot be undone. Palmate leaves of five leaflets, and far more tolerant of wet feet than most houseplants.
A rainforest climber whose leaves only split and window once the plant is mature and well lit, small entire leaves mean it is young or too dark. Give it a moss pole and it will climb for years.
An epiphyte with thick roots that grip bark, not soil, the reason it comes in a bark mix. Flowers last for months, and cutting the spent spike above a node often brings a second spray.
A low creeper with white or pink veins netted across dark leaves. It faints dramatically flat when dry and recovers within hours of watering, which is its whole personality.
Related to the calatheas and rather less demanding, with long leaves brushed silver above and wine red beneath. It folds them upward at night.
Not a pine but a relict conifer with symmetrical tiers of soft needles. Bought as a living Christmas tree and usually lost to dry air by spring; it wants cool, bright and humid.
A small understorey palm that genuinely accepts low light, sold several to a pot for fullness. Each stem is a separate plant and grows only from its own tip, so a cut stem does not come back.
Glossy dark leaves and a white bract around a flower spike, blooming even in modest light. It wilts theatrically when thirsty and stands back up within the hour, do not use that as the schedule.
Translucent leaves feathered dark green over pale, with the pattern repeated in purple underneath, the peacock's tail it is named for. As particular about water and humidity as the rest of the family.
A fast columnar cactus that reaches the ceiling and, given real sun, opens big night-scented white flowers followed by edible fruit. Needs a heavy pot long before it needs anything else.
A bromeliad grown for the fruit that sits on top of the plant. The rosette fruits once and then makes pups; the crown off a shop-bought pineapple roots and starts the cycle again.
Angel-wing leaves spotted silver above and deep red beneath, on upright jointed canes. Fast and free-flowering, and it snaps if it is knocked, the broken cane roots in water.
Leaves freckled pink, white or red, brightest in good light and washing out in shade. Short- lived and leggy by nature: pinch the flower spikes off and restart it from cuttings each year.
Neither a palm nor a tree but a swollen-based succulent, storing months of water in that bulb under a spray of thin leaves. The one big plant that prefers being forgotten.
The most forgiving houseplant sold: trailing vines of marbled heart-shaped leaves that grow in almost any light and root from every cutting. Variegation fades in a dim corner.
Oval leaves painted with herringbone veins that fold together upright at dusk and open flat at dawn, the movement the name refers to. It wants soft water and steady warmth.
Vivid violet leaves and stems that hold their colour only in strong light, in shade it turns green and sprawls. Brittle, fast, and rooted from any broken piece.
Triangular deep-purple leaflets on thin stalks, folding shut at night like butterflies. It grows from small bulbs and goes dormant a couple of times a year, stop watering, wait, and it returns.
Named for the furry creeping rhizomes that crawl over the pot rim and are meant to be above the soil, not buried. Finely divided fronds and tougher than most ferns indoors.
Grown entirely for the leaf: metallic swirls, spirals and near-black patterns, in hundreds of named cultivars. It grows from a rhizome and wants humidity without water ever touching the leaves.
A cycad, not a palm, a lineage older than flowering plants, growing one stiff whorl of fronds a year from a scaly trunk. Every part is seriously poisonous, the seeds most of all.
A glossy green rosette that throws up a long-lasting scarlet bract from its centre. That rosette flowers once, then makes pups and dies back, the pups are the next plant.
Purple-backed leaves spotted silver, growing from small bulbs that sit half out of the soil. A bulb succulent, so it wants a dry rest and shallow planting.
Stiff upright leaves banded and edged in yellow, growing from a rhizome that stores water for weeks. The most neglect-proof plant here, and the one most often killed by kindness.
Arching striped leaves and dangling plantlets on wiry stems, the babies are the propagation. It stores water in thick tubers, which is why it forgives a forgotten fortnight.
A thick woody trunk topped with rosettes of soft-tipped strap leaves, the yucca sold for living rooms, without the dagger points. Slow, dry-loving and very hard to kill in a bright room.
An epiphyte with two kinds of frond: flat shield fronds that clasp the mount and antler fronds that reach out. Grown on a board rather than in a pot, and watered by soaking.
Thread-fine trailing stems strung with marbled heart-shaped leaves, metres long from a small pot. It makes aerial tubers along the strands, and each one roots into a new plant.
Spherical leaves on trailing threads, each pearl with a translucent window stripe that lets light into its interior. Shallow-rooted, easily overwatered, and stunning in a hanging pot.
Leaves striped cream, green and pink over solid magenta undersides, the showiest of the prayer-plant family. It moves its leaves through the day and wants the same soft water and warmth as its cousins.
A smaller, faster relative of the monstera whose leaves are pierced with holes rather than split to the edge. It climbs or trails and roots from any node.
Strap leaves in pink, red and cream on slim canes, a plant of ceremony and boundary marking across Polynesia. The colour needs bright light, and the leaf tips burn on fluoridated water.
Flat rosettes held up on branching bare stems, some cultivars nearly black. It grows in winter and rests in summer, the opposite of most succulents, so a limp summer plant is usually just dormant.
Enormous deeply cut leaves on a thick self-heading trunk that leans and props itself on old leaf scars. It needs floor space more than anything else.
Whorls of glossy leaflets spread like spokes from each stalk, on a shrub that takes hard pruning and comes back bushier. Reliable, quick, and content with a moderately bright room.
A silver-banded rosette holding water in its central cup, topped by a pink bract that lasts for months. Keep the cup filled with soft water and the soil barely moist; the rosette flowers once, then pups.
Round leaves striped silver and green exactly like a watermelon rind, on red stalks. Semi- succulent, so it stores water and resents a soggy pot.
A waxy-leaved climber that rewards patience with clusters of scented porcelain flowers. It blooms from the same short spurs every year, so those are the one thing never to prune off.
A small dark rosette banded with raised white dots, often mistaken for a tiny aloe. It grows in the shade of shrubs in the wild, so it wants bright light rather than scorching sun.
Dark leaves with bold ivory veins, and a tall yellow flower bract that lasts weeks. It drops leaves at the first sign of dry air or a cold draught, which is why it is usually short-lived indoors.
Glossy leaflets on upright stems rising from potato-like rhizomes that store months of water. It will hold its looks through a dim office and a forgotten holiday, and rots if watered on a schedule.
This table tells you what a plant wants. Solspot tells you what a spot in your home gives, in lux, with the honest range attached, then matches the two. Free, offline, no account.
