18 Plants That Actually Survive a Dark Apartment

If your flat faces north, or your only window looks at a wall four feet away, you have probably killed a few plants that the label promised were easy. That is not your fault. "Low light tolerant" on a nursery tag means the plant will survive in a greenhouse corner that is still brighter than most living rooms.

So here is the honest version. Eighteen plants that genuinely cope, the popular ones that will not, and a quick way to work out how dark your room actually is before you spend any money.

First, how dark is your room really?

People are terrible at judging indoor light, because eyes adjust and a room that feels bright to you can be a tenth of the light a plant needs.

Try the shadow test. On a bright but overcast day, hold your hand about a foot above a sheet of white paper where you want the plant to live, at midday.

• Sharp, dark shadow with clear fingers. Bright light. Most things will grow.
• Soft shadow, edges fuzzy but you can see the shape. Medium. The comfortable middle where most houseplants are happy.
• Faint blur, or you can barely tell where the hand is. Low light. This article.
• No shadow at all. Too dark for any plant to grow. Something might survive here for months, slowly declining, but it will not put out new leaves.

That last category is real and worth accepting. A windowless bathroom or an interior hallway cannot support a plant long term, no matter what the plant is. You can rotate plants through it, giving each one a few weeks in the dark spot and then a few weeks near a window, and that works fine.

The eighteen

Roughly in order of how much neglect and gloom they will take.

1. ZZ plant. Stores water in underground rhizomes. Survives a dim hallway and a month between waterings. The closest thing to indestructible.Zamioculcas zamiifolia
2. Snake plant. Handles low light, dry air and long absences. Only reliably killed by overwatering.Dracaena trifasciata
3. Cast iron plant. Named in the Victorian era for surviving gaslit parlours. Deep shade, draughts, neglect. Very slow.Aspidistra elatior
4. Pothos. Fast, cheap, roots in a glass of water, and droops visibly before it is in trouble, which makes it forgiving of beginners.Epipremnum aureum
5. Heartleaf philodendron. Everything pothos does with softer leaves, and slightly better in gloom.Philodendron hederaceum
6. Chinese evergreen. The dark green varieties take real shade. The pink and heavily variegated ones need more light than they look like they should.Aglaonema
7. Peace lily. Flowers less in low light but the foliage is fine, and it wilts dramatically when thirsty then recovers within hours.Spathiphyllum
8. Parlour palm. One of very few palms that genuinely accepts indoor light. Also safe around pets.Chamaedorea elegans
9. Spider plant. Grows almost anywhere, tells you when it is thirsty, and gives you free plants on runners.Chlorophytum comosum
10. Dracaena (corn plant, janet craig, lisa). Tall, architectural, tolerant. Good for filling a dim corner with height.Dracaena fragrans
11. Philodendron Birkin and Congo. Slower than heartleaf but happy in medium to low light.Philodendron hybrids
12. Bird's nest fern. Wants humidity more than light, so it does well in a dim bathroom with a window.Asplenium nidus
13. Boston fern. Copes with low light if the air is not dry. Struggles in a heated room in winter.Nephrolepis exaltata
14. Prayer plant. Low light is fine, dry air is not. Keep it away from radiators.Maranta leuconeura
15. Calathea. Same deal. Beautiful, low light tolerant, and fussy about water quality and humidity.Goeppertia
16. Pothos 'Cebu Blue' and other plain green cultivars. Anything heavily variegated needs more light, because the white parts do not photosynthesise.Epipremnum pinnatum
17. Lucky bamboo. Not bamboo, and it grows in a vase of water on a desk with almost no sun.Dracaena sanderiana
18. Staghorn fern. Mounted on a wall away from the window, it does surprisingly well in indirect light.Platycerium

The ones that will die in your dark flat

Sold everywhere, recommended constantly, and none of them will work in a genuinely dim room.

Fiddle leaf fig. Needs a lot of bright indirect light, hates being moved, and drops leaves at the slightest change. It is a demanding plant with excellent marketing.

Succulents and cacti. They store water because they come from places with brutal sun. In low light they stretch into pale, floppy versions of themselves, a process called etiolation, and it does not reverse.

Fiddle-leaf's relatives, rubber plant and ficus. They tolerate medium light but sulk in low and drop leaves.

Most flowering plants. Flowers are expensive for a plant to make. In low light you get leaves at best.

Anything heavily variegated. The white and cream parts of a leaf contain no chlorophyll and contribute nothing. A variegated plant needs more light than the plain green version of the same species, not less.

Small things that help more than you would expect

Move it closer to the window. Light falls off fast with distance. A plant a metre from the glass gets a small fraction of what one on the sill gets. Two feet closer is often the entire fix.

Clean the leaves. Dust builds up and blocks light. Wipe big leaves with a damp cloth every month or two. On a dusty plant in a dim room this is not a small effect.

Clean the window. Same logic, and grubby glass in a city cuts a surprising amount.

Paint the wall behind pale. Reflected light counts, and a white wall behind a plant genuinely helps.

Rotate the pot a quarter turn each week. Otherwise the plant grows lopsided toward the window and drops the leaves on the dark side.

Water less than you think. This is the big one. Plants in low light use far less water, because they are photosynthesising less. Watering a low light plant on a bright-room schedule is the most common way these plants actually die, and people blame the darkness.

Consider a grow light. Cheap now, and a single bulb in a normal lamp fitting changes what is possible in a dark room. It does not need to look like a laboratory.

Buy the right one for your actual room

The main reason people fail with low light plants is not the light. It is buying the wrong plant because the label said "easy" and then watering it like a plant in a sunny window.

If you already have plants and are not certain what they are, photograph a leaf with the stem visible and run it through Identium. It names the species and gives you the light and water it actually wants, which is usually the difference between the plant that thrives in your dim flat and the identical looking one next to it that does not.