Ron Hazelton

How to Choose the Right Houseplant for Every Room in Your Home

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HOUSE DOCTOR Transcript

HD027 “HOUSE PLANTS” from episode 618

RON:

Nothing makes your house come more alive than bringing a little nature inside. Before you invest in a house plant, you'll want to learn what an expert has to say. Here's plant authority Matthew Culmore.

MATTHEW:

The most important factor in purchasing house plants is the determination of the light that you have available. While it's very easy to have too little light, it's very, very hard to have too much light. A simple test for determining the light would be what we call the shadow test.

What you're basically doing is utilizing your hand in between the source of light and the location where you actually want to put the plant. If it's a very hazy shadow, then most likely that's very low light. Or if you can get a shadow that would somewhat resemble being able to see whether it's a hand, whether it's all five fingers, then that would be what's considered as a medium light. Whereas if that shadow is very, very crisp, and it's a very defined, well-outlined shadow, then you're really talking about what's considered as a high light area.

The best plants that you can really select for low light areas would be your Chinese evergreens, your spathophyllums, and sansevierias. While the medium light plants, you'd be looking at dracaenas, some of the palm varieties, pleomelies. Some of the better high light plants are your ficuses, your true tree type of plants like scheffleras, and some of the other palms such as rafis and fishtails.

Probably the second most important factor after light to the individual with houseplants is going to fall in the watering area. By far more plants are over-watered than under-watered. The pencil test will quickly tell you whether the plant needs to be watered or not. If upon sticking the pencil tip into the soil, it comes up moist, then you do not need to water. If you find that the pencil comes up dry, then it is time to water.

You need to go to and have personal contact with the plant on about a once a week basis. Feel the soil. That doesn't necessarily mean that you may have to water that day, but definitely check the soil for its moisture. Rotate the plant. Feather dust it or clean the foliage or remove any ratty foliage as it may appear. Aesthetically, a good rule of thumb when trying to select a plant proportionally for a site, you'd want to use the two-thirds rule, which simplified would be a nine-foot ceiling. You would want to use approximately an overall height of an approximately six-foot tall houseplant to keep aesthetic scale.

If it's a dark-colored area, one would probably be better in most cases to use a lighter-colored foliage, say a yellow-greenish foliage or something with variegation or other colors in it, so the plant stands out a little bit more, where in a very light or highly colored area, one would probably prefer a darker, richer green foliage as opposed to using perhaps a lot of color.

When considering also in sites that you're looking at for particular houseplants, is the plant going to be, as we were talking about, freestanding? If it were to be a freestanding plant, you'd obviously want foliage from the ground up, or if it's going to be a plant that's behind a piece of furniture, at that particular point, you could use something more of a tree or a cane type of plant because you don't really need to pay for foliage that you're not going to see down at the bottom that's obscured by either a piece of furniture or some other accessory of some sort.

Buying a houseplant should be just like buying a pet. You have to take into consideration the light, the water, the food, the environment that the plant is going to be in. Taking all of these factors into consideration, the final thing that you should have to think about is what am I going to do with this plant when it outgrows the space that it's in.

From the archives of the House Doctor

Nothing brings a room to life quite like a little greenery. But before you fall for that gorgeous fig at the garden center, there's some homework worth doing first. We sat down with plant authority Matthew Culmore to get his professional take on how to choose a houseplant that will actually thrive in your home.

Here's his complete framework, broken down into four simple steps below.

Quick FAQ

How do I know if my houseplant is getting too much light? It's rare, but watch for bleached, faded, or scorched-looking patches on the leaves facing the light source. If you see that, move the plant back or a bit further from the window.

How often should I water a houseplant? There's no universal schedule — that's exactly why the pencil test works better than a calendar. Check the soil weekly and only water when it comes up dry.

What's the easiest houseplant for a low-light apartment? Snake plants and Chinese evergreens are both forgiving, low-light options that tolerate inconsistent watering better than most.

Can I put a high-light plant in a medium-light room? It will likely survive but grow slowly and stretch toward the light. You're better off matching the plant to the room using the shadow test, or supplementing with a grow light.

Step 1

Do the Shadow Test to Find Your Real Light Level

According to Culmore, light is the single most important factor in choosing a houseplant. Most people assume they can eyeball it, but he recommends something far more reliable: the shadow test.

Hold your hand up between the light source and the spot where you want to place the plant, then look at the shadow it casts.

Hazy, barely-there shadow: low light
You can make out your hand, but the fingers are fuzzy: medium light
Crisp, sharply outlined shadow: high light

It's also worth knowing that too little light is a much more common problem than too much. As Culmore puts it, it's very easy to underestimate a room's light — and very hard to actually give a plant too much of it.

Best Houseplants for Low, Medium, and High Light

Once you know your light level, matching a plant to it is easy:

Light Level	Best Houseplants
Low light	Chinese evergreen (Aglaonema), peace lily (Spathiphyllum), snake plant (Sansevieria)
Medium light	Dracaena, most palm varieties, Pleomele
High light	Ficus, tree-form plants like schefflera, palms such as rhapis and fishtail palm

If your rooms are darker than you'd like, a low-light pick will save you a lot of frustration — and a lot of dead plants. On the flip side, if you're working with a sunroom or a wall of south-facing windows, that's the moment to reach for a ficus or a schefflera. Short on natural light altogether? A garden or greenhouse window is a genuinely effective DIY upgrade that can bump an entire room up a light category.

Step 2

Get the Watering Right

More houseplants are killed by overwatering than underwatering.

Culmore's fix is the pencil test: stick a plain pencil tip into the soil, then pull it out and depending on the dampness you can determine if to water.

Beyond the pencil test, he recommends a simple weekly maintenance of feeling the soil, rotating the pot so that all sides get light, dusting the foliage and trimming and dying leaves.

If you're setting up a dedicated spot for seedlings or light-hungry plants, our guide to building a planting bench with adjustable grow lights is a great weekend project for giving low-light rooms an assist.

Step 3

Match the Plant to the Room — Size, Color, and Placement

Get the scale right. Culmore suggests a two-thirds rule for proportion: in a room with a standard nine-foot ceiling, a houseplant around six feet tall will hit the aesthetic sweet spot. Scale up or down proportionally for taller or shorter ceilings.

Use color to your advantage. In a darker room, choose lighter or variegated foliage — think yellow-green leaves or plants with color patterns — so the plant actually stands out rather than disappearing into the shadows. In a bright, light-filled room, a deep, rich green does more visual work than a busy, colorful leaf would.

Think about how it'll be seen. A freestanding plant, out in the open, needs full foliage from the ground up. But a plant tucked behind a sofa or console table doesn't need to be dressed head-to-toe — a tree-form or cane-type plant works well here, since you're not paying for (or maintaining) leaves nobody will ever see.

Step 4

Plan for Growth Before You Buy

Culmore's last piece of advice is the one people think about least: buying a houseplant should be treated like adopting a pet. You're committing to its light, water, food, and environment — and to a living thing that will keep changing.

Ask yourself “what will I do with this plant once it outgrows the space it's in?” A six-foot ficus today can become a nine-foot ficus in a few years. Knowing your plan for repotting, pruning, moving it to a bigger room, or passing it along, saves you from a much harder decision down the road.