Collection: Low Light

Low light indoor plants

Indoor plants are a great way to bring the outdoors in and with the outdoor greens disappearing at an alarming rate the need to build an indoor garden is increasing everyday. Indoor plants are not only a way to make your homes more holistic, they also help with improving mental health, reduce stress, improve indoor humidity in dry summer and winter months, reduce noise pollution, but the most important function they have is air purification. Plants not only release oxygen into the air but air purifying plants also remove toxins from indoor air.

One of the major challenges everyone faces with indoor plants is not being able to understand the right kind of light every plant needs.

This is where low light indoor plants become our saviour. Low light indoor plants should not be confused with no light plants. Low light plants still need a basic quantity of light to function and carry out photosynthesis to survive.
Some of the best low light indoor plants are also great air purifying plants and have stunning foliage. Low light plants can be placed in bedrooms, lobbies, kitchens, dark corners or any other corner of your home which does not get a lot of light to spruce it up a little.
While flowering requires more light than regular foliage plants, we have some indoor flowering plants low light. They might not give very frequent flowers but the flowers tend to stay for very long spells of time. There are not many low light flowering plants, but the ones like Anthurium and Hoya are great options for low light indoor plants. Small indoor plants low light such as the Earth star or Fittonia are great fits for shelves or coffee tables.

What happens to plants when the light is not right?

Most of us gardeners miss the signs of low light that our plants give us and start damage control assuming something else is wrong, while all that was needed was just a change in placement of the plant.

Too much light
Too much light has its own issues and the following are some of the symptoms of too much light:

• Light is plant food, so low light means almost a complete stop in plant growth – plant height, smaller leaves, no flowering, and thin stems
• Low light also leads to etiolation – the space between two leaves increases as the stem grows thinner and longer to reach towards the light
• Long spells in low light conditions cause plants to shed leaves and the oldest leaves also turn yellow and die.
• Loss of variegation. If the light is insufficient for your variegated plants, the plant will start producing more chlorophyll to make up for the low light. This is irreversible, although when placed in the correct light the new leaves will have variegations.
• One indirect consequence of low light is overwatering. Low light means lower rate of photosynthesis and less water is lost through leaves and a subsequent reduction in watering frequency Is needed, which we sometimes miss and overwater our plants.

Some of the best low light indoor plants are snake plants, peace lily, calathea, aglaonema and zz.