Getting the light right for your plants

When buying a houseplant, the label will often give you the words "bright light plant" or "low light lover", but what do these really mean?

Understanding light in our homes is, what we consider, the most important factor when choosing a plant. That said, it's easy for us to say that a particular plant likes a bright spot or that another will tolerate low light conditions, but if you don't know what that looks like in your home then your plant won't thrive.

There is a lot of advice around measuring the light in your home with a light meter. This is a fantastic idea, but in reality, most of us won't want the hassle, so in this blog, we aim to help you understand the light conditions in your home. Just because a plant lives on the forest floor in nature, doesn't mean that it can live in a dark corner of your house.

It can be confusing because there are so many factors to consider, like the size of your windows, when the windows get sunlight, how far away from a window your plant is going to live etc.

Most plants will be happy to see some sky, so have a spot in mind that you'd like to keep a plant first, before plant shopping. Consider how much sky it will be able to see and then note if it will get any direct sun, at what time of day and how far it will be from a window.

If you have a windowsill where the plant will see the sky all day, but there is no direct sun, this is a North facing window. Generally, this kind of location is described as low-moderate light, depending on the time of year. It may look bright, but the amount of light the plant has access to is low. Any spot in the room more than half a metre from this window is very low light and it may be tricky to find anything that will thrive.

Let's say that you have big double doors at the back of your house, that get direct sun most of the day. This aspect is South facing. A plant placed right in front of these doors will get direct sunlight on its leaves. Direct sunlight in the summer months in the UK can be very harsh, especially through glass, and could scorch the leaves of some plants. We'd call this a bright light spot with direct sun. The sorts of plants that will do well in this location are things like cactus, bird of paradise, yucca and many varieties of ficus and hoya. Placing the plant further away from the window, decreases the strength of the sunlight. A metre back would likely still be considered bright light and any direct sun will be less harsh.

Other windowsills that get some morning sun (East facing) or afternoon sun (West facing) are typically perfect locations for many plants. The sun at this time of day isn't as strong and provides plants with the light they need to photosynthesise.

When things go wrong with your plants, the first thing we recommend is assessing how much light it receives. Most of the time, they need more than we think and moving to a spot where they get more light can help improve the plant's health.

We love to help match-make people with plants, feel free to drop us a message and we can help you find just the right plant for your space.